What do you think?
Rate this book
Shot in the Face: A Savage Journey to the Heart of Transmetropolitan
Published in 1997-2002, Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson’s TRANSMETROPOLITAN became famous for its foul-mouthed protagonist, Spider Jerusalem, and his “filthy assistants.” But it’s also a long-form comics masterpiece, a sci-fi comic that succeeded despite the odds, and an examination of journalism and politics -- and how they intersect, or fail to do so. This book explores all these topics and more, from multiple points of view. It also includes interviews with both Ellis and Robertson.
From Sequart Organization. More info at http://sequart.org
From Sequart Organization. More info at http://sequart.org
164 pages, Paperback
First published August 11, 2013
18 people are currently reading
360 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
November 12, 2018
A series of essays with sometimes interesting insights into one of my favourite reads.
Suffers from repetition, with multiple writers brushing up against the same topics. Certain quotes and ideas turn up in every chapter, especially if you want to hear how "Fear and Loathing on the campaign Trail'72" influences the writing and The Smiler is actually Tony Blair.
Regardless of this minor annoyance, a few essays tickled my fancy enough:
Chris Murphy - Think for Yourself and Question Authority
Greg Burgas - Supporting Players: Women in Transmet
Sara K Ellis - Manifest Trashscape
Nothing is too complex. As long as you've read Transmet and like a good "hot take" now and again you'll find this an interesting, short, read.
Suffers from repetition, with multiple writers brushing up against the same topics. Certain quotes and ideas turn up in every chapter, especially if you want to hear how "Fear and Loathing on the campaign Trail'72" influences the writing and The Smiler is actually Tony Blair.
Regardless of this minor annoyance, a few essays tickled my fancy enough:
Chris Murphy - Think for Yourself and Question Authority
Greg Burgas - Supporting Players: Women in Transmet
Sara K Ellis - Manifest Trashscape
Nothing is too complex. As long as you've read Transmet and like a good "hot take" now and again you'll find this an interesting, short, read.
April 21, 2020
Warning: this is not a single book but a collection of interviews and articles from different authors on Transmet.
Therefore throughout the book some concepts will be repeated ad nauseam and you might feel discouraged to keep on reading. You better to go through the index and just start with what's relevant to you, leaving the rest for later (or don't read them at all; some are not significant contributions if you already read the comic).
I mostly enjoyed it because I love Transmet and I'm in for any opportunity of discussing it. But besides a couple of good pieces (my total favorite was one by Patrick Meaney) I found most of the writings and author's approaches not very compelling.
Therefore throughout the book some concepts will be repeated ad nauseam and you might feel discouraged to keep on reading. You better to go through the index and just start with what's relevant to you, leaving the rest for later (or don't read them at all; some are not significant contributions if you already read the comic).
I mostly enjoyed it because I love Transmet and I'm in for any opportunity of discussing it. But besides a couple of good pieces (my total favorite was one by Patrick Meaney) I found most of the writings and author's approaches not very compelling.
May 8, 2016
Disclaimer: I received this book through a Goodreads giveaway for the purpose of writing this review.
Transmetropolitan was a science fiction comic book series co-created by writer Warren Ellis and artist Darick Robertson that ran under the Helix and Vertigo imprints for sixty issues from 1997-2002. It details the journey of “gonzo journalist” Spider Jerusalem as he is forced to return to the sprawling City and becomes involved in presidential politics. The foul-mouthed and personally noxious Jerusalem has one redeeming quality, an absolute dedication to tell the truth as he sees it, and in the bizarre world of the future, that quality is vital.
This book is a collection of essays on various aspects of Transmetropolitan, from its publishing history to how it compares to other works by Mr. Ellis. It’s been in my To Be Read pile for a long time, since its publication in 2013, as I had meant to actually read Transmetropolitan first. But the volumes I needed were checked out at the library, and weeks went by and then I lost track of this book. Having it surface again, I decided to read it without finishing the original series.
The essays, for the most part, seem pretty solid. There’s one that compares and contrasts Spider Jerusalem with Hunter S. Thompson, who was a major inspiration for the character, and another on whether Jerusalem counts as a “super-hero” as well as detailed looks at the plot structure and interviews with the creators. Some of the essays could have used another proofreader pass, as I spotted spellchecker typos and sentence fragments.
The essay “Supporting Players: Women in Transmetropolitan” by Greg Burgas seemed a little off as he does not even mention two minor characters who show Spider Jerusalem’s less stellar qualities, mentioned in a couple of the other essays, and seemingly this essay would have been the place to go into depth about them.
Several pages from the comics are reproduced in black and white to illustrate points, and there are a few stills from a documentary about Ellis.
As one might expect, there’s a lot of rough language in here, mostly in quotes from the series, and discussions of edgy topics–consider this to have the same “mature readers” designation as the comics.
Primarily recommended to fans of Transmetropolitan or of Warren Ellis in general. If you haven’t read the series yet, you will be better served by doing that first.
Transmetropolitan was a science fiction comic book series co-created by writer Warren Ellis and artist Darick Robertson that ran under the Helix and Vertigo imprints for sixty issues from 1997-2002. It details the journey of “gonzo journalist” Spider Jerusalem as he is forced to return to the sprawling City and becomes involved in presidential politics. The foul-mouthed and personally noxious Jerusalem has one redeeming quality, an absolute dedication to tell the truth as he sees it, and in the bizarre world of the future, that quality is vital.
This book is a collection of essays on various aspects of Transmetropolitan, from its publishing history to how it compares to other works by Mr. Ellis. It’s been in my To Be Read pile for a long time, since its publication in 2013, as I had meant to actually read Transmetropolitan first. But the volumes I needed were checked out at the library, and weeks went by and then I lost track of this book. Having it surface again, I decided to read it without finishing the original series.
The essays, for the most part, seem pretty solid. There’s one that compares and contrasts Spider Jerusalem with Hunter S. Thompson, who was a major inspiration for the character, and another on whether Jerusalem counts as a “super-hero” as well as detailed looks at the plot structure and interviews with the creators. Some of the essays could have used another proofreader pass, as I spotted spellchecker typos and sentence fragments.
The essay “Supporting Players: Women in Transmetropolitan” by Greg Burgas seemed a little off as he does not even mention two minor characters who show Spider Jerusalem’s less stellar qualities, mentioned in a couple of the other essays, and seemingly this essay would have been the place to go into depth about them.
Several pages from the comics are reproduced in black and white to illustrate points, and there are a few stills from a documentary about Ellis.
As one might expect, there’s a lot of rough language in here, mostly in quotes from the series, and discussions of edgy topics–consider this to have the same “mature readers” designation as the comics.
Primarily recommended to fans of Transmetropolitan or of Warren Ellis in general. If you haven’t read the series yet, you will be better served by doing that first.
February 5, 2015
There were a couple of good essays in this collection and the interviews were entertaining but overall I have to say I didn't enjoy it all that much. I realise that this was an academic analysis of the work but it would have benefitted from adopting some of the dynamism of its subject matter. Also, it seemed like there was a lot of repetition from essay to essay as they all made their respective arguments. It almost felt as if they all drew their primary source material from the one Warren Ellis interview collected in this volume. I also want to say that most of the essays were really dry and, while I realise that is often what academic articles read like, they could have used some massaging to feel more like essays for a book audience and not like somebody's term papers.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews