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Week Eleven: Contemporary Comics

This week for comics as contemporary literature I read Transmetropolitain by Warren Ellis and The Bus by Paul Kirchner. I think it’s really refreshing to see contemporary comics grow up a little with their audiences and tackle more literary topics. I love the simple yet somewhat profound themes handled in The Bus, and really enjoy stories in general that create a space to break the rules, leaving one magic stationary place that you can count on, piloting through the madness with the regularity and drollness of a bus stop.


I also thoroughly appreciated the subtle nods towards Hunter S Thompson in Transmetropolitain – although I hardly think the good doctor himself would have approved. In one of his documentaries, Thompson goes into a bloody rant in the middle of his kitchen when the first directors set to direct Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas try and turn his famous San Francisco “Wave” speech into a cartoon. Thompson hated being characterized, especially as a cartoon. When asked about his reaction to the Doosnbury character “Uncle Duke” at a Colorado lecture, Thompson expressed both anger and irritation stating, “Some people grow up and want to be firemen, and some want to be president; nobody wants to grow up and be a cartoon character.” According to his first wife Sandra, Thompson often struggled with separating himself with the image he created of Raoul Duke. This duplicitous situation often created an uncomfortable set of expectations by his admirers, which he wasn’t always comfortable with.

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