contagious media

[spatch]

When Warren Ellis' excellent Transmetropolitan was still running, I remember going out to Million Year Picnic to pick up the latest issue, reading it almost immediately in Harvard Square, and then riding home basking in the newly-gained contempt and loathing I had for Everything And Every One Around Me. Such was the misanthropic power of Spider Jerusalem and the future dystopia which he inhabited and despised.

(That was ten years ago. Today, all that's needed to generate the same level of contempt is a simple ride on the Red Line during rush hour. hoorj)

I have a similar reaction after watching a new episode of MAD MEN, though the attitude is different. After an episode now, it becomes very clear to me that Everybody Has An Ulterior Motive and everything that's said is a cipher. There's obviously subtext hiding in even the most innocuous statement such as "It's 5:15." CLEARLY!!

Fortunately, much like the reaction to Transmet, that feeling only lasts for a few hours (longer if there's a T ride involved) and we regain that sense of silly almost-optimism and get on with our lives. It's rare that a television show can throw me into this mindset for as long as it does (even rarer for a comic book to do, so more power to Transmet) and even if the results aren't pretty, I have to admire the talent it takes to make those attitudes so oddly contagious.

Comments

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

I know I'm supposed to get crankier with age, but I find that as I get older this Hunter Thompsonesque pose of spiraling run-on misanthropy gets more and more unattractive to me. Thompson himself gets a pass because he was just the one guy and he was fearless and occasionally insightful. Besides he's dead anyway.

But I think it only occurred to me just now, reading your comment, that most of the people you see spouting imitation Hunter Thompson rants on the web are really Spider Jerusalem fans.

[fancycwabs.livejournal.com]

I had the misfortune of running into Warren Ellis devotees before reading any actual Warren Ellis, and while their misogyny-disguised-as-feminism and obsession with violent body discharges seemed really strange originally, now they just seem kinda pathetic, like pretending to be a movie character after seeing a REALLY COOL movie--cute when you're ten, not so much when you're thirty. It's the hipster equivalent of quoting Monty Python.