You want to know about voting. I’m here to tell you about voting. Imagine you’re locked in a huge underground nightclub filled with sinners, whores, freaks and unnameable things that rape pit bulls for fun. And you ain’t allowed out until you all vote on what you’re going to do tonight. You like to put your feet up and watch “Republican Party Reservation”. They like to have sex with normal people using knives, guns and brand-new sexual organs that you did not know existed. So you vote for television, and everyone else, as far as the eye can see, votes to fuck you with switchblades. That’s voting. You’re welcome. -Spider Jerusalem
Before we get started, i’m now favoring the title New Albion Lost. Better? Worse?
Okay, so in the late 90s a comic series came out called Metropolitan, written by Warren Ellis with art by Darick Robertson. It is one of the most awesome series of comics ever made. i read a bunch of it back in the day, really liked it but it came out at a time when i wasn’t reading consistently, just a few issues at a time here and there. I recently revisited it again, rereading it from the beginning to end. A buddy of mine kept bringing it up (and i suddenly realized, it’s because he literally IS the main character. The main character crosse over into our universe and became Miljen Aljinovic) so i thought i’d take it for a respin.
How awesome is it? I’m writing a damn blog post about it, i mean come on.
It takes place in a “City” (i don’t think it’s ever named more than the City) in the 23rd century where all the issues you can think of today have basically taken steroids.
The main character is a Hunter S. Thompson homage called Spider Jerusalem, a snarky, grumpy, balls out, drug poppin’ journalist who uses his column to expose the rat’s ass behind every lousy inch of hypocrisy and corruption the world offers.
The series takes on everything. Religion, politics, nostalgia, various types of technologies from today projected into the future, you name it. The guy has a food processor who spends most of its time creating psychedelic drugs for itself. For protection Spider carries an illegal bowel disrupter, which causes people to immediately shit themselves into a stupor. It’s like what happens if you cross Blade Runner, Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas and a bottle of bourbon. It’s wild, wildly opinionated, utterly subversive, incredibly creative and surprisingly touching.
One of my absolute favorite stories is relatively early on, in which a woman who was cryogenically frozen right around now, is finally brought out into the City. The take on it was not only brilliant but floored me.
It’s a series about raging against the system in a futuristic urban shitstorm. You should absolutely read it. Right now.
It’s not just pure spit in the wind, although it has a certain addictive insanity about it. No, what lands it past awesome into greatness is that the series is funny as hell. that’s really what makes it. Its sense of humor and self awareness elevates it.
The series ran for 5 years in a near perfect run and finished itself with absolute style and timing. No plodding on beyond its glory days, no milking the cash cow… hell, Spider would never stand of that crap.
Available at your local comics shop or of course at Amazon.
