Book Review: Shot in the Face: A Savage Journey to the Heart of Transmetropolitan edited by Chad Nevett
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.
