ANY formatting. Live chat with the writer and manager. Order now. Live Chat. Instant response. Thirty-five leading scholars and historians unpack both forgotten trajectories as well as the famous key episodes, and explain how comics transitioned from being marketed as children's entertainment.
Essays address the masters of the form, including Art Spiegelman, Alan Moore, and Marjane Satrapi, and reflect on their publishing history as well as their social and political effects. This ambitious history offers an extensive, detailed and expansive scholarly account of the graphic novel, and will be a key resource for scholars and students.
In these essays, leading media and cultural theorist Scott Bukatman reveals how popular culture tames the threats posed by technology and urban modernity by immersing people in delirious kinetic environments like those traversed by Plastic Man, Superman, and the careening astronauts of A Space Odyssey and The Right Stuff. He argues that as advanced technologies have proliferated, popular culture has turned the attendant fear of instability into the thrill of topsy-turvydom, often by presenting images and experiences of weightless escape from controlled space.
Considering theme parks, cyberspace, cinematic special effects, superhero comics, and musical films, Matters of Gravity highlights phenomena that make technology spectacular, permit unfettered flights of fantasy, and free us momentarily from the weight of gravity and history, of past and present. Bukatman delves into the dynamic ways pop culture imagines that apotheosis of modernity: the urban metropolis.
He points to two genres, musical films and superhero comics, that turn the city into a unique site of transformative power. Leaping in single bounds from lively descriptions to sharp theoretical insights, Matters of Gravity is a deft, exhilarating celebration of the liberatory effects of popular culture. This mystic apocalypse will span the cosmos and wrench Tim into a reality that brings with it all the psychological horrors and blood-red savagery of a universe gone mad!
Preacher, Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon's modern American epic of life, death, God, love and redemption - filled with sex, booze and blood! Loved each and every part of this book. I will definitely recommend this book to sequential art, graphic novels lovers. Great book, Transmetropolitan, Vol. Your Rating:. Your Comment:. Description Reviews 2 Transmetropolitan, Vol.
Already, sci fi is shifting to predicting next year instead of next century. But Transmet looks further than that, because like all great thinkers, Ellis recognizes that to look forward, we must look back. The best ideas are never one idea, and though Spider's politics sometimes grow to dominate the series, Ellis still contrasts them with a multitude of concepts, leaving us with a pleasing depth of insight. I can only hope that more comic authors will realize that sex and violence--even at their most over-the-top--can be vital, complex parts of a story, but only if they have a point.
There is no story element too outrageous for the arsenal of a talented, driven author. As usual, it's a joy to see Ellis' madcap style, as he plugs the dangling cords from the cyberpunk machine into the rusty dystopian engine until the whole thing lights up like a channel cold-fission laser-guided Christmas tree.
You could do worse. My Suggested Readings in Comics View all 11 comments. Hunter S. Armed with a bowel disruptor, righteousness, his wits and a mouth that would ma Hunter S. Armed with a bowel disruptor, righteousness, his wits and a mouth that would make your mama cringe yay!
View all 21 comments. The word 'unique' doesn't even start to describe our title character and the story. From the moment I heard the name of our guy, I was hooked!
Spider Jerusalem, crazy journalist: A man who sees through everyone's bullshit. Spider Jerusalem was one hell of a journalist. But after years of Journalism, the man had enough of the city. He has b The word 'unique' doesn't even start to describe our title character and the story. He has been living on top of a mountain for last five years like a very peaceful monk He is a junkie, paranoid and pretty sure he is crazy too.
He hates everything: His life before, his life now, the mountains he lives in, the people, religion, politics and the bureaucracy.
But he can only function as a writer in his own personal inferno, his hunting ground, his city So Spider goes back into the underbelly of the city he loves to hate. But the city is so not ready for him! The Broken City Transmetropolitan paints a disturbing futuristic city which subtly mimics our own world. A world filled with hate, over-the-top reality shows, bureaucracy, crazy sales executive, hypocrites and religious fanatics.
Just to make things crazier, there are machines on drugs, genetically engineered cats, and flying shoes. The first three chapters introduce our crazy character: His return to the city in all glory and his first live reporting I have never read anything like this.
It is a dark, gritty, vile, and an unforgiving story with a peculiar shade of ironic sense of humor. The rest of the three chapters are more episodic in nature. In those chapters, Spider and his new assistant, Channon, tackle a new aspect of society. These three chapters are basically rants of a junkie with a brutal sense of honesty, albeit a bit over the top at certain places. Overall, this is a great beginning to an unforgettable world and a title character! View all 15 comments.
Mar 01, Melki rated it it was amazing Shelves: graphic-novel. Thompson Spider Jerusalem reluctantly returns from his self-imposed exile to emerge anew as the premier gonzo journalist. Anyway, you don't learn journalism in a school. You teach yourself to wire up your own brain and gut and reproductive organs into one frightening machine that you aim at the planet like a meat gun - - In addition to his mighty pen, his only other weapon is the truth, and something called a bowel disrupter set to prolapse.
You're miserable, edgy and tired. You're in the perfect mood for journalism. A kick-ass comic about writing? Mind blowing. View all 9 comments. Dec 26, Patrick rated it it was amazing. Written by one of my favorite comic writers, Warren Ellis. This series is in the running for my top five favorite comics of all time.
That might seem like faint praise until you consider the fact that it's competing with comics like Sandman, Bone, Hellboy, Lucifer, and Girl Genius. View all 3 comments. Sep 02, Jan Philipzig rated it really liked it Shelves: addiction-obsession , sci-fi , work , mental-disorder , activism , comedy , pop-culture , crime , dc , mass-media.
When these comics originally came out in the late 's, the comic-book industry lay in ashes. The speculation bubble had just burst, hundreds of retail stores were going out of business, many publishers were downsizing or declaring bankruptcy. It was a time when comic books had to reinvent themselves or fade into obscurity - a time when something as unconventional and confrontational as Transmetropolitan felt like it might actually have a chance, when somebody as cocky and subversive and spect When these comics originally came out in the late 's, the comic-book industry lay in ashes.
It was a time when comic books had to reinvent themselves or fade into obscurity - a time when something as unconventional and confrontational as Transmetropolitan felt like it might actually have a chance, when somebody as cocky and subversive and spectacular and capable as renegade gonzo journalist Spider Jerusalem seemed like the man for the job.
Rereading the series now, I see little more than a cartoon version of the Hunter S. Thompson persona - competently done and entertaining enough, yes, but not exactly groundbreaking. Still, I've always felt that pop culture belongs to the young, so I am not going to sneer at mini-me: five stars from my younger and better looking self, three from the current one who is in the process of packing up - four sounds like a fair compromise.
View all 8 comments. Mar 29, Lyn rated it really liked it. First published in , this only demonstrates the great vision Ellis had then, he was a canary in the coal mines as much of what he wrote 20 years ago could have been created today.
Spider Jerusalem. As great a character name as Velveeta Jones or Hiro Protagonist. Drawn down from his mountain lair five years after leaving the city, he returns to see racism, sexism, corruption, drug addiction and crass commercialism — all the elements of civilization that drove him away before and that pulls him back in again.
This has become something of a cult classic in the graphic novel universe and for good reason as it provides a tableau for much of what is best accomplished in this medium. Apr 01, Jamie rated it really liked it. The stories in each of the six issues vary from full on batshit crazy cool to only mildly amusing I think my favorite is the one where "outlaw journalist" Spider Jerusalem watches TV the whole time and gets "ad bombed" by subliminal advertisements that give him nightmares.
The artwork is to die for Dec 11, Ivan rated it it was amazing Shelves: sci-fi , graphic-novels , dystopia-and-postapocalyptic , satire-and-humor. I don't usually reread but I was in a mood for some dark humor and missed the insane bastard. I think this is second series I started first was Sandman since I rediscovered comicbooks and graphic novels.
Since the nearly 2 years has passed and dozen of series and over volumes but this is just as good and crazy as first time I read it.
View 2 comments. Dec 06, Andrew rated it liked it Recommends it for: the smugly superior. Shelves: genre , scientific , visual.
I found this comic pretty irritating. It's the story of gonzo journalist Spider Jerusalem, who's pulled out of sylvan retirement when his publisher demands he deliver on his contractual obligations. Impoverished and drug-addled, Jerusalem has no choice but to comply; he gets a job writing a column called I Hate It Here, a chronicle of his experiences in the scifi megalopolis known as The City.
Throughout the comic, Jerusalem is portrayed as an underdog, fighting for the rights of the common man. He takes on religion! He takes on TWO presidents! He even wrestles with a cult leader! The problem is that Jerusalem is not, in fact, the underdog; he achieves all of his goals through bullying and brute force, and he's never in any danger.
He even recovers from the neurological illness that almost humanizes him in the latter half of the series! Basically, he's a jerk. But he's a jerk the author clearly wants you to empathize with. I'm not saying Spider's antics aren't endearing; I like it as much as the next guy when crazy religious leaders are threatened with violence. But I find it a little disturbing that he is portrayed so sympathetically, and I think my chief problem with the series is that the audience is supposed to see him as a largely moral, ethical character.
He's an easy character to get behind, because of his aura of rebellion, but he isn't actually rebelling, and that's the problem. Spider Jerusalem gets everything he wants. He is the authority. The comic also fails to deliver on its science-fictional premise. Practically all of the futuristic elements are introduced in the first two volumes, despite the immensity of The City and the world, and some events seem a little too grounded in contemporary life. People care that the President has sex with a prostitute?
In a world where you can download computer viruses into your brain for pleasure? In a world where people change species when they feel like it? I don't buy it. Anyway, most people seem to like this comic, so odds are you will, too. It's pretty funny, sometimes, and the art is generally good.
But don't come running to me when Spider Jerusalem beats the hell out of a pathetic half-alien with a busted chair leg, all the time yelling about truth and being an outlaw. View all 4 comments. Mar 04, Purple rated it it was ok Shelves: science-fiction , graphic-novels , 2-star. Everyone seems to love this! Whether they are reviewing the series or just this first volume is sometimes unclear, but with this first installation I was mostly disappointed.
It's one of those comics series that you hear about here and there, so I decided to give it a go. And to me it mainly seemed crude just for the hell of it, and with characters that you're not supposed to care about or relate with.
Spider is supposedly meant to be a moral character, and yet when the story starts it is made a Everyone seems to love this! Spider is supposedly meant to be a moral character, and yet when the story starts it is made abundantly clear that he isn't - he'd signed a contract, taken the money and ran. He blows up a bar, for no discernible reason. He then leaves his car in the middle of a traffic jam and wanders over everyone elses.
It also appears later on that he still has his car. It just seems to me that this could have all been thought out a bit better. The writing seemed to be rushed, and, while the artwork is good, it rarely stays constant. I shall try the second book in case there's something I'm clearly missing, but as a start to a series 'Back on the Street' leaves something to be desired View all 12 comments. Oct 16, Sam Quixote rated it it was amazing. I read the Transmetropolitan series a few years ago but loved it so much I decided to go back and give them a re-read and see if they hold up the second time around.
And if this first volume is any indication, they most certainly do! Living in isolation atop a mountain idyll, renegade journalist and bestselling author Spider Jerusalem is living the life he's always wanted - shooting rats in a hovel far from the bustling metropolis of the future.
If only he'd unplugged the phone His publisher c I read the Transmetropolitan series a few years ago but loved it so much I decided to go back and give them a re-read and see if they hold up the second time around. His publisher calls to remind him that he needs to deliver two books or they'll come looking for his advance, and if he's spent it, then they'll do terrible things to him.
Knowing that he can't write without being in the city, Spider makes the shaky and hesitant journey from solitary confinement to people saturation, losing the Alan Moore look he's been cultivating for the Hunter S Thompson image that we all know and love.
The best thing about this series, or one of them anyway, is the way everything is skewed and different from our world but seems familiar in small ways. Like Monkey Burger or Ebola Cola, to the kind of narcissistic twerps who endlessly blog and tweet and flood the net with their boring lives, there's plenty here that's similar to our world.
More best things about this series: Warren Ellis' writing. It's never been better than in Transmet and it is scathing, righteous, furious, white hot genius morphed into words from the page and searing itself onto your brain.
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