Graphic Novel | start narrative here

The cover of the first volume of Simon Oliver and Tony Moore’s graphic novel series The Exterminators compares the publishing imprint Vertigo as the comic book version of television’s HBO. In that case, it’s easy to take this comparison even further and liken The Exterminators to Six Feet Under. Like Six Feet Under, The Exterminators takes an unlikely career path with a strong ick factor and uses it to look at issues of human relationships, conglomerate corporations versus independent business, life and death. However, everyone’s favourite undertaker family never had to battle an army of mutant cockroaches and a reincarnated Egyptian bug worshipper. I’m tempted to take this analogy further, but really there’s nowhere else to go with it. While Six Feet Under had the most perfect ending of any television show ever (in my completely biased and not often humble opinion), The Exterminators starts off strong but lacks momentum to bring it to a fully realized and effective ending.

Volume One: Bug Brothers (Simon Oliver & Tony Moore, 2006) introduces us to Henry James, a convicted criminal who, thanks to his step-father, has taken up the post-jail career of exterminator with Bug-Bee-Gone. Henry is learning the ropes of the vermin killing business with the very possibly deranged AJ. Exterminating is, and take this as a warning readers of a sensitive disposition, gruesomely portrayed. All the vermin are shown as vicious, drooling, diseased and the kill scenes are often full pages that bask in the glory of a successful kill. Only, these vermin aren’t completely innocent. The Bug-Bee-Gone researcher Saloth has discovered a new strain of cockroach that is not only resistant to the best roach poison, but fuelled by the very chemicals intended to kill it, mutated into something stronger and much more sinister than your average roach. The narrative in this first volume is set up so well, with every page come new possibilities and potentially intriguing side stories; such as the mysterious Saloth’s past connection to the Khmer Rouge, or Henry’s prison connection to the Aryan brotherhood, or Henry’s girlfriend Laura’s new job with Ocran – the makers of roach poison that doubles as a narcotic for humans brave enough to indulge Draxx, or the green scarab. All these little hints build anticipation for further volumes. The artwork is strangely beautiful, as though the world is being viewed through sunshine and a haze of pollution, lending it an almost otherworldly, though recognizable, murky hue.

Volume Two: Insurgency (Simon Oliver, Tony Moore, Ande Parks and Chris Samnee, 2007) continues with this narrative set up and builds on our knowledge of the characters. We’re introduced to a new love interest for Henry, Page – a literary hooker that works within the constraints of fulfilling sexual fantasies taken from literary works, proposed as a preferable option compared to the corporate career-minded Laura. An issue featuring complementary storylines that compare and contrast Page and Laura, after Laura and Henry have broken up, allows us to see the differences and similarities between them, but issues raised here are hugely contradicted by later storylines. Meanwhile, at Bug-Bee-Gone, the mutant cockroaches are infiltrating essential infrastructure and it is up to Kevin, Henry and Stretch to do the dirty work involved in clearing them out. The Exterminators really revels in the detritus of both humans and and plays on the base disgust we tend to have for bugs, rodents and vermin.

Volume Three: Lies of Our Fathers (Simon Oliver, Tony Moore, Mike Hawthorne and John Lucas, 2007) finally delves into Saloth’s back story as he fabricates his refugee past for a date. An encounter with a past comrade forces him to confront that past, and vows to never let it jeopardize his life’s work again. One of the most disturbing scenes in the series occurs in this volume, as a young boy who has just had his eyes operated on has consistent itching beneath his bandages. Just don’t expect there to be fully healed wounds and cheer beneath those bandages. Oh, and there’s another fantastically gross scene involving the resuscitation of a pet hamster. Despite some brilliantly disgusting moments, here is where the series really began to fall apart for me, as contradictions arise and problematic turns of events just aren’t as strong as those that preceeded them. Laura is set on a rape revenge path and viciously murders her boss – an image that contradicts completely with that we have of her crying to her mother and worrying about her career. And why is it that rape is used as a dramatic trope so often for female characters in graphic novels? It’s offensively reductive, and cheaply used as a convenient plot point. Though the plot twists are unpredictable and no character safe from death, it doesn’t feel like as cohesive, it seems directionless and as a reader, I lost trust in the storyline.

Volume Four: Crossfire and Collateral (Simon Oliver, Darick Robertson and Ty Templeton, 2008) features a really cool one issue story about Saloth and Stretch (the spiritual zen cowboy type who is also, if you’ll pardon a brief outburst of fangirlishness, really effing hot.) in a desert casino for a pest control convention, where more is revealed about Stretch’s shady past. This issue almost made me regain my faith in the story, but I’m thinking it was the combination of a story completely separate from the main narrative and artwork by Darick Robertson of Transmetropolitan fame that made me enjoy it so much. The rest of this volume focuses on a neighbourhood gang war over Draxx drug dealing, and the introduction of Draxx into black neighbourhoods by the Aryan brotherhood. This reads like an attempt to give The Exterminators more of a social slant, but I’m not entirely convinced. Too much of the dialogue and slang rely on painfully outdated stereotypes.

The final installment of the series, Volume Five: Bug Brothers Forever (Simon Oliver, Tony Moore, John Lucas and Ty Templeton, 2008), sees the epic showdown between bug and man that the series has been leading up to and … it’s disappointing. Again, some single story issues are entertainingly horrific, but the main narrative loses momentum as it draws to a close. The main issue is that the delineation between good and evil in The Exterminators is too convenient. The good guys – the Bug-Bee-Gones and associates – have their morally murky pasts and stories, but the bad guys are purely one dimensional. How can you create sympathy for a cockroach? It lacks the moral weight to make it truly engaging, and there never seems to be any doubt that the good guys are going to come out on top, albeit with significant losses. The final pages emphasize that this is just one battle won in a larger war of man against nature. More insight and exploration of the fascinating characters and less on the bug versus man battles would have made The Exterminators a triumph. As it is though, it’s a moderately entertaining graphic novel series that has hints of unfulfilled greatness.

Life Sucks by Jessica Abel, Gabe Soria and Warren Pleece (2008)

October 20, 2010 Book Reviews

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If I were prone to making statements like “Life Sucks is like [cultural product x] meets [cultural product y]“, I suppose I’d sum up Jessica Abel, Gabe Soria and Warren Pleece’s Life Sucks as Reality Bites with vampires. It’s an easy comparison to make – the mid-twenties malaise, the directionless jobs, the strongly felt and fought over romantic tryst are similar to those in the film – just with added bloodsuckers. While the love triangle and battle for the love of a mortal woman storyline feels tired already, it’s the twist on traditional and contemporary vampire mythology that makes Life Sucks appealing.

Dave is a socially awkward and very reluctant vampire, sired by a Romanian immigrant for the sole purpose of having cheap and easily controlled labour for his convenience store. Dave’s experiences in the store are mundane, repetitive, and largely unexceptional. Except when the local juice bar closes and the vampire posers and goths, including Rosa, descend on the Last Stop for their late night supplies. Dave is drawn into competition for Rosa’s affections with the surfer dude vampire Wes, an alpha male figure who is at peace with his laid back masculinity and his vampire instincts.

Dave, my friend, there’s no way I could make you feel worse than you do yourself.

As always, it’s the subtle commentary on meaningless, repetitive service jobs and the bonds with friends that appealed to me more than the romance side of the story. There are some brilliant scenes of Dave being bombarded by requests from customers, some normal, some completely outrageous, and his bored facial expression never changes. The idea of vampires as wage slaves is unique, yet apt – who didn’t feel manipulated by a boss that could convince you to come to work even on your one day off? That Dave’s boss, Lord Radu Arisztidescu, reminded me of a boss I had in my late teens made this concept feel all the more familiar.

Dave is reluctant to follow his vampire instincts, unlike his friend Jerome. Instead, he drinks blood from a can (and doesn’t want to know where it comes from) or gets it from the blood bank – anything to avoid having to kill. Tales of Jerome’s bloody conquests make him feel ill. The friendship between Dave and Jerome is portrayed warmly, with small moments of cameraderie celebrated by a fist bump, and a wry routine clearly well established between the two. Some of the facial expressions alone in these sequences made me laugh out loud. Forget the romance, I wanted more of Dave and Jerome.

But, this is contemporary vampires so we can’t leave out that all important romance element. Rosa is not the most enduring character – rather more of a blank slate for the vamps to project their desires on – and both Dave and Wes’ attraction to her doesn’t seem to be any deeper than physical. The competitive nature of their duel is off putting, and difficult to engage with. There is a nice contrast between what Rosa imagines vampires are like to what we know is decidedly unromantic for Dave and Jerome. Of course, Rosa remains ignorant of Wes and Dave’s vampire status and just as things seem to be running smoothly for our hero, out comes the big secret. The dénoument to Dave’s growing predicaments seems a little too convenient.

Look at me! I work like a slave for my master! I’m broke! I can’t even go out in the sun! Is that romantic? Does it sound fun? I’m supposed to be out killing people!

While not entirely convinced or interested by the romance plot, I did enjoy the playful approach to vampire mythology. It’s a unique enough idea to maintain interest, but the story lapses into an all too familiar romantic triangle with a predictable outcome. The highlights of Life Sucks are the accurate portrayal of the banality of contemporary service jobs and comfortable friendships and while these concepts are not original in fiction, mixing them with the vampire myth adds a new perspective.

Transmetropolitan: Volume Six, Gouge Away by Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson (2002)

October 13, 2010 Book Reviews

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After having a controversial column censored by the newly elected government in Volume Five, Lonely City, Spider Jerusalem, our understandably disgruntled journalist of the future, is pondering his next step in his mission to confront and bring down the corrupt Callahan government. Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson’s Transmetropolitan: Volume Six, Gouge Away is probably my favourite Transmet volume since Year of the Bastard. (Yes, I know I said I was going to take a break from this series, but seriously, you try staying away from Spider Jerusalem once you’re trapped in his web.) Here Spider is torn from a future of being a safe, barely tolerated public figure and forced to return to his rebellious outlaw roots.

Gouge Away opens with Spider trapped in his overly protected and controlled apartment watching different media perceptions and portrayals of his public persona – from the kawaii cartoon “Magical Truthsaying Bastard Spider!” who delivers moral guidance in the form of truth bombs, to an alpha-male action hero Spider and, probably the clearest sign of making it in the sex obsessed, sexual deviancy tolerating City, a pornographic film of his life. This issue reminded me a lot of the Spider watching television in Volume One, only this time it’s not to show us how outrageous screen based entertainment is in this imagined version of the future, but how these different media portrayals of Spider could destroy his ability to engage in hardcore muckraking journalism.

It’s not only on a multitude of screens that Spider views himself through, but also in a drug induced revenge fantasy and a paranoid dream about his audience. Each of these scenarios are illustrated by different artists, lending a unique visual slant on characters we already know. These single issue storylines are part of what I love so much about Transmetropolitan, how they stand as stories in their own right and reflect on the larger storyline, as well as introducing us to many of the not so alien concepts that abound in the City.

We’re the people you’ve been talking to all along. We’re the people you shriek at every week in your column– but we don’t read fucking newspapers. God no. We’re the ones who only see you on TV, or catch the diluted version quoted on feedsites. We’ve never listened to a word you’ve said.
We’re your audience.

Spider walks around the City, his favourite way of reconnecting with the weirdness and the corruption he, and his ambivalent audience, live with. During his wandering, he begins to realize the potential of other less monitored ways of publishing his work. It manages to be exciting, it makes Spider feel dangerous again. A brief interlude allows us to spend time with Spider’s assistants, Channon and Yelena, in which we get to see them bond, as well as realizing the great danger their lives are in solely because they work for Spider.

Working alone, Spider takes the opportunity to dig deeper into his theories about the Callahan administration’s part in the assassination of Vita Severn. He persuades his Word editor Royce to publish his latest column, beating deadlines that would allow for more government intrusion. As a result, a government advisor outed as a pedophile commits suicide, and we realize that Spider’s vengeance for the death of Vita, once his sole figure of hope within the ravaged system, is going to be bloody. Some of the artwork here is shocking, street carnage of one of Spider’s informers is swift, unexpected and completely brutal. More so because we don’t know, though we can guess, who is behind this violent retribution.

They assume, like most people, that fear will do the trick. Fear will keep everyone in place. Fear will keep everyone distracted from what’s really going on.
Let him know we can beat him up, let him know we could have killed him, let him know we can destroy him, let the fear shrivel him up. Fuck that. I’m not afraid of them. They’re afraid of me.
They’re afraid of the truth.

Transmetropolitan: Volume Six, Gouge Away ends with Spider and his assistants on the run, fired from the Word and booted out of his luxury apartment. Spider is back on the streets, given the free reign to verbally assault the Callahan administration without fear of censorship. One gets the distinct feeling that the new outlets of distribution, the ferociousness of his attitude and the extreme methods of the Callahan government means that censorship is the least of Spider’s worries. However, Spider as we know and love him is likely to continue fighting his good fight no matter the risks.

Previous Transmetropolitan reviews:

The Alcoholic by Jonathan Ames and Dean Haspiel (2008)

October 4, 2010 Book Reviews

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Graphic novel The Alcoholic by Jonathan Ames and Dean Haspiel follows Jonathan A, an alcoholic writer coming to terms with his addiction and how it effects his relationships, his behaviour and his overall attitude. While Jonathan A bears more than a passing resemblance to the scribe, I’m not interested here in the blurred line between fiction and non-fiction in The Alcoholic. The story is too compelling, the compassion too strongly felt, and Jonathan A’s failure too obvious. Hiding from police in the sand beneath a boardwalk after being caught in the back seat of a car with a cat-loving midget, Jonathan A looks back over his life – a close friendship in high school with Sal, how he started drinking, a failed romantic relationship with a woman he names after whichever city she happens to be living in and a tender relationship with his great aunt Sadie.

The Alcoholic covers the cycles of addiction, from rehab and jeopardizing career and relationships, to relapse. However, it never seems to knowingly address the element of self-destruction; the sadness of this cycle is evident to the reader, and while Jonathan A never romanticizes his addiction, he never fully condemns it either. This is no easy morality tale, it is the story of a man struggling with substance abuse. The human aspect, the frustrated relationships and the constant lies, lends The Alcoholic a truly touching sentiment. His relationship with his elderly aunt Sadie is sweet, the unrequited affections of Sal hurt. The distinction between these characters and Jonathan seems to be that they are willing to put their feelings on the line, to express themselves to him – whereas he is continually in conflict with himself. So many unanswered or unmade phone calls, the best of intentions never followed through.

For years I had thought that my best friend in the world hated me and in turn I hated myself because of this rejection. I had been telling myself a lie for six years, except I hadn’t known it was a lie.

Dealing with his habit and a neighbour who has lost her husband in the wake of September 11 gives The Alcoholic a stronger socio-political context, and thankfully this is never used by A as an excuse for drinking. It merely makes him aware of a larger reality beyond himself and the bottle. The storytelling, and the self-deprecation, make it difficult to not become involved in Jonathan A’s story. There are some cringe-worthy moments of scatalogical humour which brings the focus away from the melancholic navel-gazing, while at the same time representing the complete lack of control over the addict’s body and its urges.

Haspiel’s artwork is greyscale, maintaining stark realism even during the most comic, and the most touching, moments. Through the shifting timeframe, Haspiel’s artwork is clear enough that we can recognize the characters despite alterations in their appearance over time. This prevents the narrative itself from getting too burdened by the non-linear movement of time, Haspiel’s artwork grounds us with the characters – their story, not the passing of time, is what is important. Haspiel is also really amazing at capturing the inherently comic drama of desperately rushing, and sometimes for Jonathan A, failing, to find a toilet.

But here’s how I would summarize my general world-view: resigned, defeated, and heartbroken. My usual stance is: “I’m wrong and you’re wrong.” I don’t think anybody knows what the hell is going on. It’s all too confusing.

The Alcoholic works against perpetuating the myth of the romantic hard-drinking writer hero. It shows us the considerably less romantic aspects of this life: the desperation, the melancholy, the loneliness, the failure to recover. Yet, as stated, this is more than a simple morality tale. There is real humour here. One page you may be laughing at Jonathan A, the next you are deep in despair alongside him. I’m not going to make an trite comments on how this reflects the rollercoaster emotions of alcoholism, because I’m not qualified to make such a comparison, but The Alcoholic makes the cyclic behaviour more understandable beyond the easy path of righteous indignation.

Transmetropolitan: Volume Five, Lonely City by Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson (2001)

September 13, 2010 Book Reviews

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Yes indeed, it is another Transmetropolitan review. It will be the last one for a while, as I had to return the library copies today after renewing them the maximum amount of times. I want to extend the experience of reading this series for as long as possible, I’m all about delayed gratification. Though my compulsion is to speed through the second half of the series, I know that taking my time with Spider and his world will be, ultimately, more rewarding.

Overthinking reading habits aside, Transmetropolitan: Volume Five, Lonely City sees rogue journalist Spider Jerusalem coming to terms with the new political regime in the wake of “The Smiler” Callahan’s landslide victory. The futuristic nightmare of the City seems forever doomed to political corruption, with Jerusalem investigating a pornography scandal involving a city senator. Using his myriad of technological mischief devices and questionable underground contacts, Spider gets to the bottom of the story – but whether he is able to bring justice to those involved is another question.

Hi. I’m Spider Jerusalem. I smoke. I take drugs. I drink. I wash every six weeks. I masturbate constantly and fling my steaming poison semen down from my window into your hair and food. I’m a rich and respected columnist for a major metropolitan newspaper. I live with two beautiful women in the city’s most expensive and select community. Being a bastard works.

The same technological devices that aid Spider in his quest for the truth are also used by gangs in Lonely City to commit heinous crimes. A G-Reader, a device that “reads genomes, hunts down rogue scraps of genetic structure, that sort of thing”, is used on people who have traces of genetic modifications. Spider senses something rotten at the heart of the case, and sets out onto the streets to try and set things straight. Uncovering details of police corruption and their intentional burial of the hate crime, Spider and his assistants are implicated in a police sanctioned riot. In the process of writing his story, the true nature of Callahan’s new regime is revealed. Spider’s column is censored, blacklisted from being published anywhere, by the Callahan administration. It is, as Spider so eloquently puts it, “the start of something fucking disgusting.”

Though Callahan himself is largely absent from this volume, his all too powerful presence is felt in this act of blatant censorship. The fear it inspired in Spider Jerusalem cements the horror of the Callahan administration. It is the beginning of something truly atrocious, and the set up and censorship of our journalistic antiheroes is only the proverbial tip of the iceberg. In an imagined future where anything and everything is permissible, surely censorship of the written word is the ultimate revenge on the trouble-making Spider Jerusalem. In its treatment of corruption and censorship, Transmetropolitan continues to prove eerily prescient, and this volume is perhaps necessarily less hopeful and bleaker in outlook.

Previous Transmetropolitan reviews:

Transmetropolitan: Volume Four, The New Scum by Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson (2000)

September 10, 2010 Book Reviews

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This review contains major spoilers for Transmetropolitan as a series, so if you are in anyway inclinced to read about Spider Jerusalem’s misdeeds in The City you have been duly warned.

Feeling hung over and ill at ease on a Sunday afternoon made for the perfect setting for returning to the world of Transmetropolitan and conflicted antihero journalist Spider Jerusalem in Volume Four, The New Scum. After the revelations of the third volume of the series, which I raved about here, it would be difficult for anything to reach the emotional heights of the political corruption and unexpected assassinations of Year of the Bastard. While the New Scum doesn’t have the same impact as the previous volume, it is nonetheless a carefully crafted caustic take on political campaigning and journalism and even the less successful moments of Transmetropolitan are miles above the strongest of many other forms of fiction.

After the shocking televised execution of Vita Severn, “The Smiler” Callahan’s political director, we are introduced to the populace of the City becoming ever more desperate. Their only form of salvation comes in the truth-seeking, ball-breaking, foul-mouthed conundrum of a journalist, Spider Jerusalem. Through gifts and people speaking on the streets of the City, we can see how appreciative they are that he exists for them, that he is speaking for them, giving the helplessly voiceless a vehement and reactive voice. However, Spider himself has been moved to an even more protected apartment complete with germ filter, climate control and constant surveillance, in a way removing him physically from the people he is speaking on behalf of. The street is where he can meet, confront and learn from the people. All over the City, shrines to Vita Severn have appeared, lending her a certain martyrdom that is uneasily felt, and due to her death, The Smiler’s popularity is off the scale.

Just drifting through the City, wandering through its veins and arteries like an infection looking for a dodgy appendix to latch onto.

Spider isn’t all about greeting the people though, and he is given to acidic outbursts of rage at a seemingly willfully ignorant society. For all the gratitude he receives, he is still aware that their attention is directed toward other, less important, pursuits. Distraction as a means of control, of ignoring what is really happening. He is given a rare opportunity for a one on one interview with the reigning President, lovingly nicknamed “The Beast”, an interview in which the two of them thrash out their many political, cultural, idealistic differences. In the name of equal press, Senator Callahan also offers Spider an interview where his abhorrent motivations are revealed, the extent of his lunacy unveiled to a nullified Spider.

Some of the images in The New Scum are truly striking. A page view of the City’s riot police at their shift changeover, washing their riot gear of blood is shockingly visceral. The images aren’t all horrifying, a one issue storyline covers Spider’s compassion, hidden beneath a jaded journalistic façade though it may be, his actions speak a thousand times louder than his vitriolic columns. It is an unusually heartwarming event in what can be an exhaustingly depressing series, and is best left to be discovered by the unaware reader. The details in the artwork are, as always, rewarding and subtly revealing.

These are the new street sof this city, where the new scum try to live. You and me. And here in these streets are the things that we want: sex and birth, votes and traits. Money and guilt, television and teddy bears.

But all we’ve really got is each other.

You decide what that means.

The election – though neither result would have been ideal, knowing the candidates as we do – goes Callahan’s way, and Spider expresses his anger outwardly at the “scum”, but this time knowing that his lovely assistants Yelena and Channon are faithfully beside him no matter what happens next. And what follows is sure to be an explosive showdown between Callahan and Spider, as Spider works toward affirming his suspicions of Callahan’s involvement in Vita’s assassination. For all the political scandal, Transmetropolitan is also blackly funny and hugely enjoyable, which is too easily overlooked with the strong storylines and characters. This series is turning out to be one of my favourite accidental discoveries.

Previous Transmetropolitan reviews:

The Vinyl Underground: Volume One, Watching the Detectives by Si Spencer, Simon Gane and Cameron Stewart (2008)

July 21, 2010 Book Reviews

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Picking up graphic novels blindly, or relying on familiarity with author and illustrator names, publisher imprint and recognized titles has served me well so far. That is, until I decided to pick up and take home Si Spencer, Simon Gane and Cameron Stewart’s The Vinyl Underground: Volume One Watching the Detectives. It looked like a pop culturally aware, mod styled graphic novel but too much effort has gone into creating elaborate back stories for annoyingly quirky characters and not enough into creating engaging plot lines.

The Vinyl Underground is a team of misfits who work together to solve occult killings in London. Led by Morrison (Moz) Shepherd, the D-list celebrity son of an English football player and pornstar turned soap actress, a tabloid regular, drug addict and ex-con. See what I mean by elaborate backstory? Very little of this has anything to do with the plot of Watching the Detectives, the character histories are already set up and little is done with the story to develop them any further. Joining Moz in his hip converted underground station apartment is Perv – another ex-con whose seizures offer him psychic clues to the crimes they are tracing – and Leah, a forensic science graduate working in a mortuary and virgin online porn star. The keen-eyed among you will recognize that the two female characters mentioned in this overview are both porn actresses. More on that later. When a young African boy’s head is found washed up on the riverside, Moz and his team set out to find the occult connection and solve the murder. Enter Abi, African princess and Moz’s ex-fiancée, whose father has been wrongly accused and incarcerated for the crime.

Don’t give me that crap. You’re all in this Scooby Doo bullshit vigilante thing together.

The story, despite the promising premise, is murky and unengaging. A subplot about Moz’s missing mother and his father’s involvement with London gangsters is so intent on remaining mysterious that the direction is unclear. Rather than letting the story develop the characters (my sister has a great t-shirt that reads “Plot – it builds character.”) the writer has dumped a load of affectations and quirks upon them and the story drags under this weight. What insight is given to the characters’ past, Moz in particular, does nothing to connect me with them emotionally. I just didn’t care, about the story, the characters or the artwork.

I also take major issue that the main female characters are either princesses or pornstars. I know graphic novels aren’t particularly renowned for their anatomical realism but the women here are presented in such a cartoonish manner, looking most of the time like grown-up Bratz dolls. And don’t think for a moment that having a virgin pornstar is a comment on the bipolar view of female sexuality – again, the contradiction is supposed to be seen as a wacky impossibility. As for Leah, it is as though the writers thought that being restricted from showing her in explicitly sexual imagery (although there is plenty of this) they’d substitute that for her executing extreme violence wherever possible. In The Vinyl Underground Leah’s violence is unmotivated and largely pointless. When Moz is unable to get through to crooked criminals or protect himself, in jumps Leah to brandish her girl-styled violence – there is way too much use of a stilletto as weapon that is probably intended to be an empowering image.

The female relationships are fraught with jealousy and petty bitchiness, again, seemingly unmotivated. Leah’s not interested in Moz, yet takes every opportunity to belittle Abi’s contribution to the group. Abi is defined solely by her relationship with males: looking to help her wrongly jailed father she turns to ex-fiancé Moz. Sure, there are hints that she’s highly educated in the psychogeography of London, but does that come into play in the narrative? Of course not, and why should it when she has the handsomely troubled Moz to come to her aid?

The Vinyl Underground features flat characters and a dismal storyline that doesn’t resolve itself clearly. I’m going to go and read another volume of Transmetropolitan to cleanse my palate.

Transmetropolitan: Volume Three, Year of the Bastard by Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson (1999)

July 19, 2010 Book Reviews

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This review is going to be a difficult one to write. Every time I open Transmetropolitan: Volume Three Year of the Bastard I end up reading the damn thing all the way through again. I’m up to about four times now. Probably five by the time I manage to knock out this review. I take back everything I said previously about loving Transmetropolitan. That was just a schoolgirl crush, puppy love if you will. Year of the Bastard marks the true beginning of a full blown, intense, shout it from the rooftops love.

Volume Three, Year of the Bastard is the beginning of a major story arc in Transmetropolitan. Spider Jerusalem, professional muckraking journalist of the future, hits the campaign trail of the upcoming presidential election, doing all that he can to uncover the political corruption and deceit on all sides. The Beast, Spider’s political enemy, a larger than life all-American leader, is being taken on by hopeful upcomer Gary Callahan – nicknamed The Smiler for his constant and unfailing grin. Spider’s unbiased political position – he wants the best for the people, but doesn’t think that politicians will be able to offer real help – means he is free to report on the best and the worst of both sides. His ruthless honesty, his refusal to be bought, is admirable despite the toll it takes on his health and sanity.

I write a column for The Word newspaper called “I Hate It Here.” The joy of being in this City has worn off. I sense, vaguely, that I’m finally as beaten as everybody else. I sense everything vaguely, these days.

I’m not going to reveal too much of the narrative because the major pivotal point, a politically motivated assassination, has such a strong impact. It proves all of Spider’s cynical assumptions correct and betrays what little hope and faith he had in the campaign. A single page of the look of utter shock on Spider’s face, the background for once in the series just white space – none of the City’s technology or advertising crammed into the space – is just horrifying in it’s ability to convey so much emotion. This is something that I really like about Robertson’s art, the facial expressions are phenomenal. Much of the drama comes from human interaction and reaction, and the artwork is such an integral factor of the series’ appeal.

Royce: “One day a little over six years ago I went to Spider Jerusalem’s house, Yelena. We were missing a column, and I’d had enough. I had a gun. I was going to walk away with either a column or his heart. I found him in his house’s bath, his body covered in regenerative tape set to reinflate and re-wall his veins, shooting heroin into the skin between his toes. He was bleeding from the eyes because he’d rubbed cocaine into his tearducts thinking it’d keep him awake. Banging H into his feet because all his other veins had collapsed. His last book was being released, he was writing hugely popular columns. He was beloved for torturing the president in print weekly, he was all over TV and the feeds and whispered adoringly over at dinner parties. And then it all stopped. He was loved and rich, and suddenly he couldn’t write anymore. Not like he was, anyway. Spider Jerusalem needs to be in the City to write, Yelena. But he also needs to be hated.”

In amongst all the political scandal, Spider gets a new assistant, Yelena Rossini, and his previous assistant Channon returns as his bodyguard after a brief stint as a Bride of Christ in Fred Christ’s church. Spider has to deal with his public persona being sold as a commodity and the responsibility of being seen as the voice of the people, and does so by ingesting ridiculous amounts of legal and illegal drugs. A single story issue finishes off this volume, while still bitter and misanthropic, adds a little trademark black humour to what is otherwise an emotionally draining collection. Spider, alone in the City at Christmas time, expresses his hatred for the holiday season as well as revealing several distasteful new rituals that have taken hold.

Transmetropolitan just keeps getting better, even when I already thought it was amazing, sucking me into its horrid vision of our future and the search for Truth within it. Now to read Year of the Bastard a fifth time.

Previous Transmetropolitan Reviews
Transmetropolitan: Volume One, Back on the Street
Transmetropolitan: Volume Two, Lust for Life

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Volume Two by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill (2003)

July 16, 2010 Book Reviews

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I know. Another graphic novel. Every time I even think about looking at a novel my brain vehemently protests. I know it’s only temporary and I’ll be back to prose fiction soon, so to any readers who are not interested in graphic novels (and if so, why not?!) I apologize for the lack of variety lately.

Even though The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Volume One didn’t quite live up to my high expectations, I still sought out Volume Two of the series and I am really glad that I did. Volume One lacked significant emotional impact and the iconic characters felt underdeveloped despite an impressive storyline. Volume Two corrects these missteps and the characters evolve in such a beautifully nuanced – if at times graphically violent – way. The War of the Worlds styled invasion seems mere background to the complexities of the relationships between the League members.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen itself is made up of figures from Victorian literature – Mina Murray, Allan Quatermain, Captain Nemo, Henry Jekyll (and Edward Hyde) and Hawley Griffin (the Invisible Man) – a crime-fighting supergroup in an alternate version of Victorian London. Volume Two sees their London invaded by aliens from Mars – which sounds ridiculous I know, I even rolled my eyes in the opening few pages – but as I mentioned, this is mere backdrop as the relationships within the League to work themselves out. Nemo and Hyde are sent to the forefront of the alien versus human battle, while Mina and Allan are sent to find a Dr. Moreau to bring back humanity’s secret weapon and Hawley Griffin defects to the aliens side.

Mina: Yes. I was just looking at the sky. It just struck me that … well, that it won’t ever be the same, after this. It can’t be. I always thought of it as something that sheltered humanity, but now it frightens me, Mr. Quatermain. It frightens me.

Hyde’s increasing fondness toward Mina because she, having dealt with a much nastier beast, refuses to fear or hate him is touching in a Beauty and the Beast kind of way. The way he expresses and acts on this affinity to her becomes frightening as he seeks retaliation against the treacherous Griffin. Her beating at the invisible hands of Griffin is difficult to read, given her history in the series as such a powerful and tough leader. The confrontation between Griffin and Hyde is violent and shocking, yet fits with Hyde’s primal instincts.

Allan Quatermain’s affections for Mina are also further revealed in this volume. Under cover as a married couple as they seek Dr. Moreau, Mina invites him into her bed. I’m not sure that I enjoyed six pages of sex scenes – there is little tantalizing about Quatermain’s bare wrinkled buttocks dominating a panel – but it seems necessary to the story. Frightened by the impending alien takeover, Mina again has her vulnerabilities explored through sex, yet without the violent implications of Volume One. When Quatermain retreats at the sight of her scarred neck, it says so much about how and what we reveal to those we love, our fear of their reactions.

Yes, there is an alien invasion, weird hybrid creatures, biological warfare and countless references to Victorian literature but the real strength of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Volume Two lies with its treatment of iconic characters. The final dissolution of the group is frankly devastating and the final scene between two major characters is marked by a gentle melancholy. Privileging the human aspects over the adventure narrative makes the second volume of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen much more substantial and affecting than the first.

Previous League of Extraordinary Gentlemen review: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Volume One

Transmetropolitan: Volume Two, Lust for Life by Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson (1999)

July 14, 2010 Book Reviews

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Every review of Transmetropolitan on Start Narrative Here is going to be a 700 word love letter to the series and antihero Spider Jerusalem. Well, would you continue reading 11 volumes of a series you felt only mildly about? It’s quite bewildering to think that I’ve only just finished Transmetropolitan: Volume Two Lust for Life and already the characters, the world and the issues portrayed seem so vivid and that I’ve formed such a deep attachment to Spider Jerusalem, despite all his faults. Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson’s vision of the future is one that is quite easy to get lost in. If I were so inclined, I think this would be the type of series I’d write fan-fiction about.

Even within the introductory pages, with an example of Spider’s column “I Hate it Here” in place of the usual introductory essay, Ellis manages to show Spider’s complicated relationship with his reading public. He fights for truth, against the sickness and hate that drove him away from the City in the first place, and yet seems almost powerless to stop it. And he fights for the people that read his column, at the same time despising them for believing and perpetuating the lies and not taking action: “If you loved me, you’d all kill yourselves today.”

Volume Two: Lust for Life opens with another three short stand alone issues that elaborate on the technological advancements of the future society of the City, and the problems these cause for humanity. In “Boyfriend is a Virus” Channon, Spider’s assistant, has been dumped by her boyfriend Ziang who plans to “download” himself. Urging her to use journalism to work through her grief, Spider takes her through the downloading process – a concept that explores a post-biological body and pushing the limits of the idea of what is human. Ultimately though, even in a different bodily form, betrayal is still betrayal. For all the technological advancements and new possibilities, the same base emotions and instincts still dominate.

The other two stand alone issues “Another Cold Morning” and “Wild in the Country” show how the City has willfully neglected the past. People from the twentieth century who chose to be cryogenically frozen and re-birthed into a new century are shunned by contemporary society: they are the shell shocked veterans of a time that is ignored by the present. Spider takes the time to visit the Reservations, closed off communities that were built to preserve the cultures of the past. Their purpose is to preserve and educate, but how effective are they when people are too busy to visit them? All these detailed short stories work together to create the larger vision of the City, and adds to our understanding of the psyche of the people.

Spider: You want to go out to dinner sometime?
Hannah: Sorry, no. I’m married, not hungry, infected with seven unknown diseases, gay, pregnant with lizards and clinically dead.

Yet, after those three short issues I was a bit concerned that the development of Spider’s character was going to be overshadowed by these short and sharp pieces of world-building storytelling. Then the second half of Transmetropolitan: Volume Two is a story arc – “Freeze Me With Your Kiss” – that gives us insight into Spider’s previous persona and professional life as he battles against a beyond the grave threat from his vicious ex-wife. Spider has accumulated a glut of enemies – those who he knows are after him, like the suited up vigilantes who storm his apartment intending to kill him or the headless assassination agent, and those he is blissfully unaware of, like a one-eyed police dog intent on retribution for an unwanted neutering. Sometimes the structure in these issues felt a bit stilted, told in shifting perspective mini-strips but nonetheless the storyline is involving. Spider not only comes off as the badass, threat evading journalist that he is but we slowly become more aware of his vulnerabilities.

This story arc also builds his relationship with other characters, as Royce, Spider’s editor, become more wary of Spider’s journalistic approach. It seems that Spider’s scruples and dedication to the Truth may fall by the wayside in his ruthless pursuit of the story. But, we’ve known from the start that Spider is a less than perfect individual, and I think that’s half of his appeal. And with another nine (!) volumes to make it through, I’m really looking forward to seeing where Warren Ellis takes the series and the characters.

Previous Transmetropolitan review: Transmetropolitan: Volume One, Back on the Street.

The Exterminators by Simon Oliver and Tony Moore (2006-2008)

Life Sucks by Jessica Abel, Gabe Soria and Warren Pleece (2008)

Transmetropolitan: Volume Six, Gouge Away by Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson (2002)

The Alcoholic by Jonathan Ames and Dean Haspiel (2008)

Transmetropolitan: Volume Five, Lonely City by Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson (2001)

Transmetropolitan: Volume Four, The New Scum by Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson (2000)

The Vinyl Underground: Volume One, Watching the Detectives by Si Spencer, Simon Gane and Cameron Stewart (2008)

Transmetropolitan: Volume Three, Year of the Bastard by Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson (1999)

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Volume Two by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill (2003)

Transmetropolitan: Volume Two, Lust for Life by Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson (1999)

Start Narrative Here

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