TRANSMETROPOLITAN: Back on the Street

by Warren & Darick Robertson Ellis ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 1998

Ellis's dystopic narrative, with its full-color tale of a gonzo journalist, shares with mainstream superhero comics a macho ethos that undermines the otherwise cool Watchmen-like script. Spider Jerusalem, a hip reporter of the Hunter Thompson mode, breaks a five-year drug binge on a mountaintop to replenish his resources. The city he returns to resembles the post-apocalyptic Blade Runner and all its funky visual progeny, and Jerusalem soon uncovers a government plot involving a staged rebellion by half-aliens. Two pages at the end (done by a different artist?) suggest how much better this would have looked in a style like Moebius, instead of the conventional DC-house graphics. Still, lots of background gags and some sharp cross-cutting panels make for a compelling read.

Pub Date: May 1, 1998

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: 72

Publisher: "Helix/DC Comics (1700 Broadway, New York, NY 10019)"

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1998

Categories: FICTION