First look at the GOP's probable 2016 campaign strategy.
I've been gradually picking my way through Warren Ellis's and Darick Robertson's much-ballyhooed Transmetropolitan series as my whims and the vagaries of the inter-library lending network permit; I think I'm a little too old and a little too inoculated by having read a fair bit of Harlan Ellison for this series to really hit me where I live, but it is intermittently amusing and even more occasionally poignant, in spite of itself.
Spider Jerusalem's shtick as a foul-mouthed, substance abusing, sexually perverse "God's lonely man" (to use the phrase of another libertarian whack-job, John Milius, probably most familiar to people as the basis for John Goodman's character, Walter Sobchack, in the cult hit The Big Lebowski) who speaks truth to power even at the detriment to his personal health and safety has worn more than a little thin for me; honestly, I never believed it (due to my age and prior exposure to the writing of Ellison), even in the first arc (with its nod to a notorious phrase coined by Will Self in his novel My Idea of Fun), and Ellis's tendency to have Spider drop his hard-bitten and unhinged mannerisms to reveal his saintly, philanthropic interior is nearly enough to make me gag. (OTOH, if I never have to read another bit about Spider firing, or threatening to fire, his bowel disruptor gun at someone, I will dance a brief jig, preferably to The Pogues. Seriously, what the hell is with Ellis's fondness for scatological humor?? You'd think he was German or something...)
That said, some of the panels collected in Vol. 7, Spider's Thrash (reprinting Transmetropolitans #37-42), have some uncomfortable resonance with today's political climate; enough to make me imagine Ellis flipping through cable news channels / newspapers / magazines / "feed sites" and screaming, Ellison-like, "See? SEE?! I told you so! I FUCKING TOLD YOU SO!!!"
First, from Transmetropolitan #41 (Feb. 2001), pg. 20: pictured is the U.S. President Gary Callahan, nicknamed "The Smiler," and Spider Jerusalem's mortal enemy (pencils by Darick Robertson; inks by Rodney Ramos; colors by Nathan Eyring), announcing a tweak to the federal social safety net sure to be a hit with the Tea Party movement (and 2012's GOP vice presidential candidate, U.S. Representative Paul Ryan, R-WI):
Next, Spider strolls past a bank of TVs showing a commercial? a presidential address? of Callahn, extolling a Tea Party / GOP-friendly version of the U.S., from Transmetropolitan #42 (Mar. 2001), pg 10, panel 1:
Next, a perhaps too honest presidential initiative, from Transmetropolitan #42 (Mar. 2001), pg 2, panel 3 (detail); pencils by Robertson, inks by Ramos, colors by Eyring:
Finally, another presidential initiative sure to warm the cockles of all good far-right, "We don't need facts, we have the truth" Tea Partiers / GOP'ers, from Transmetropolitan #42 (Mar. 2001), pg. 10, panel 2 (detail); note the items that Callahan considers to be "trash":
On the whole, though, Transmetropolitan's political prescience is about as accurate as that of Frank Miller's and Dave Gibbons's Give Me Liberty (so far). Which is a good thing.
Spider Jerusalem's shtick as a foul-mouthed, substance abusing, sexually perverse "God's lonely man" (to use the phrase of another libertarian whack-job, John Milius, probably most familiar to people as the basis for John Goodman's character, Walter Sobchack, in the cult hit The Big Lebowski) who speaks truth to power even at the detriment to his personal health and safety has worn more than a little thin for me; honestly, I never believed it (due to my age and prior exposure to the writing of Ellison), even in the first arc (with its nod to a notorious phrase coined by Will Self in his novel My Idea of Fun), and Ellis's tendency to have Spider drop his hard-bitten and unhinged mannerisms to reveal his saintly, philanthropic interior is nearly enough to make me gag. (OTOH, if I never have to read another bit about Spider firing, or threatening to fire, his bowel disruptor gun at someone, I will dance a brief jig, preferably to The Pogues. Seriously, what the hell is with Ellis's fondness for scatological humor?? You'd think he was German or something...)
That said, some of the panels collected in Vol. 7, Spider's Thrash (reprinting Transmetropolitans #37-42), have some uncomfortable resonance with today's political climate; enough to make me imagine Ellis flipping through cable news channels / newspapers / magazines / "feed sites" and screaming, Ellison-like, "See? SEE?! I told you so! I FUCKING TOLD YOU SO!!!"
First, from Transmetropolitan #41 (Feb. 2001), pg. 20: pictured is the U.S. President Gary Callahan, nicknamed "The Smiler," and Spider Jerusalem's mortal enemy (pencils by Darick Robertson; inks by Rodney Ramos; colors by Nathan Eyring), announcing a tweak to the federal social safety net sure to be a hit with the Tea Party movement (and 2012's GOP vice presidential candidate, U.S. Representative Paul Ryan, R-WI):
Next, Spider strolls past a bank of TVs showing a commercial? a presidential address? of Callahn, extolling a Tea Party / GOP-friendly version of the U.S., from Transmetropolitan #42 (Mar. 2001), pg 10, panel 1:
Next, a perhaps too honest presidential initiative, from Transmetropolitan #42 (Mar. 2001), pg 2, panel 3 (detail); pencils by Robertson, inks by Ramos, colors by Eyring:
Finally, another presidential initiative sure to warm the cockles of all good far-right, "We don't need facts, we have the truth" Tea Partiers / GOP'ers, from Transmetropolitan #42 (Mar. 2001), pg. 10, panel 2 (detail); note the items that Callahan considers to be "trash":
On the whole, though, Transmetropolitan's political prescience is about as accurate as that of Frank Miller's and Dave Gibbons's Give Me Liberty (so far). Which is a good thing.