Archive for June, 2007

BookExpo America — or as we insiders like to shorten it, BEA — is like “The Convention” episode of The Office. Just like Michael Scott, publishers go to BEA to schmooze with industry bigwigs to get the cheapest paper stock and discover The Next Big Thing — please something other than The Secret — but really it’s all about the SWAG.

For the definition of SWAG, go here. It basically refers to the free promotion junk publishers give away in order to entice potential retailers to their booths. Hundreds of booths are set up in Jacob Javits Convention Center, and attendees run around like mice in a maze looking for the proverbial cheese.

Almost all publishers offered catalogues of their products and cheap candy — boring – but many also had full-length books, buttons, and notesbooks. Some publishers got creative, though. Among the highlights:

Apart from the SWAG and catching up with other book nerds, there were some costumed characters cloying for attention but not much else worth mentioning to anyone who wasn’t there with a specific agenda. BEA is a madhouse, and it’s best to have a strong game plan if you want to make any business deals.

As I explained in my first post, I am a Marvel Comics partisan. When it comes to the mainstream of Comics, I am devoted to this very soap-operatic, forever sprawling universe, and the various storylines therein.

However, when it comes to deeper social context, darker and much more adult storylines and some of the most fascinating futurist, semi-religious and metaphysical multiverse, there’s only one place to go, and that’s DC’s adult-oriented offshoot company: Vertigo. This week:

Calling all: JOURNALISTS, ANARCHISTS, FUTURISTS and MEDIA ANALYSTS!!

Transmetropolitan (aka “Transmet” for us converts) is the book for you! The concept of Transmet is basically easy to describe.

It’s the distant-enough future. “The City” (the city’s name or location, we never really learn except that it’s the only city that really seems to matter in the world. Therefore: New York.) is an endless expanse of drugs, sex, religion, information, and absolute excess of stimulation of any and every variety. Our protagonist, massively tattooed chain-smoking psychoticly brilliant journalist named Spider Jersusalem hates it here. Which is also the name of his column: “I hate it here.”

Spider wants to live as a neanderthalic reculse in the mountains

But Spider needs drugs.

Drugs cost money. Lots of money.

There’s one way for Spider to make the money he needs for drugs:

Live in the city that eats away at every last piece of his maelevolent black soul, do lots of drugs and write the most scathing, hateful, truth-filled articles he can about the lies, hypocrisy and absolute idiocy of the goddam city. And lose his temper often enough to brutally maim some idiot who meant no harm, but pissed him off nonetheless.

And who wouldn’t hate living in a cesspool like “The City”. Imagine a multi-thousand square mile Times Square. Except 500 years in the future with endless distractions from any real purpose in life. (ie: drugs, sex, scientology, etc.) Every indication of our current cultural and technological trend says we’re hurtling toward this endlessly pointless existence with no sign of turning back.

(P.S. If you’ve EVER watched a full episode of ANY celebrity-centered “reality” show, you are the reason why this is happening and I fucking loathe you for it.)

What makes Transmetropolitan truly brilliant though, (other than the technicolor explosions of social satire within each panel, drawn with wild humor and utter excess by Darick Robertson) is the layers and layers of commentary about our current trend of media-saturation, easy answers by the thousand and total complicity in the face of endless corruption, yet doing it with a slapstick style humor that makes us guffaw at the sight of Spider’s steel-tipped boot smashing in the face of some evangelical pain-in-the-ass who says the only true path to salvation is to drill the evil thoughts out of your head with an 11 inch railroad spike.

(I’m aware that this is the worst run-on sentence in the history of blogging, but when reviewing Transmet, it comes with the territory.)

The imagination that frighteningly brilliant futurist and sci-fi satirist Warren Ellis applies to the technology of Transmetropolitan is staggering. Any modern apartment has a “maker.” Which is exactly what it sounds like. A box that pulls random molecules out of the air to make WHATEVER you want. Spider starts the storyline by making a full lin of black jackets and pants and begins each morning “making” a different type of coffee (Cuban! 5 sugars!. . . Arabica! No sugars!) Imagine never having to shop for anything. Ever.

Some authors might make this the focus of their story. For Ellis, it’s just a passing convenience for a much more important central plotline: That this character is a superhero; his only powers are his mastery of words, investigative skills, an unabashed need to tell the truth and his ability to spread that truth to everyone who will read it. Which is most everybody, Spider is a maverick celebrity and despises it. Or loves it and is in complete denial of his need to be praised.

The first storyline involves a police-riot brutalizing a ghetto of mutants. Spider observes this from a rooftop (like superheroes are known to do) but instead of jumping down and beating everyone up like Batman would do, he cracks open a laptop and starts writing. He stops a police riot by transmitting an article about it all over the city in real time. When word gets back to the police that the whole city knows whats going on, they put down their billy-clubs and walk away.

Spider gets his cumuppence of course, beaten to a pulp by the piggies for his interference, but he knew he had it coming and ends up sneering and practically asking for more.

Because like all junkies, Spider is addicted to his drugs of choice. And I don’t mean his “Queen of Ant extract (upper)” or his endless collection of little red, blue, black, white, green and multi-color pills that he downs by the bottle, I mean the only thing that gives him the rage he needs to fuel his writing:

The City.

I’m sure some of us can relate.

Pick up the first book: Back on the Street to see the world that Spider is part of or the second book: Lust for Life which is a more varied collection of stories with some real gems.