Today I cried at a comic book. Graphic Novel. Fucking whatever. I had read a little Transmetropolitan years ago when I was much younger and hadn’t experienced so much suffering. So I’ve been re-reading it, like a fucking glutton, book after book. And it breaks my heart. If you’re familiar with the series, I got through to the end of Book 22 and just fell apart.
I was sitting at my desk sobbing. I regret nothing.
Part of it was the beautiful work of this art. The story, the artwork, the real heart and quality that the whole team of people that put this work together managed to pull off. Fuck you, yes that was a run on sentence and I’m sure my copy of Strunk and White is attempting suicide.
The book itself, and the messages within it are worthy of all the praise I could give it. There’s a certain aspect of that message that I’m finding deeply therapeutic right now, as lifesaving as a drug and as objectionable as a dumpster full of flaming sewage. And that is humans.
The message of this work is, ultimately, to frame it in the structure of Heinlein’s “Stranger in a Strange Land”, “Humans are.”
For those of you not up to speed on the reference, Heinlein developed a method of speech/philosophical commentary for a character in that book that had a way of making a simple statement an expository one. A great example of this is “Waiting is.” When you read it in context, it’s interesting to see the kind of statements that are encoded there. That’s where the phrase “grok” came from, that has since been hijacked by so many different subcultures. I never liked it, but I understand why people latched on to it. Verbal shorthand, and a cultural reference all in one. Cute.
So Transmetro: showing us that at every conceivable level, across the full spectrum of poverty and wealth, influence and obscurity, that ultimately the most primitive of instincts are all that is driving us. And we fucking act like it.
Spider is not a hero. He’s not an anti-hero or anything that childish. He’s a bad person in a place filled with bad people. He just happens to be able to express himself. That’s a powerful message. Expression is powerful. We’re all drowning in the same disgusting infected floodwater. With any luck maybe a couple of us can grab a baby and toss it to shore.
Humans are not different from any other animal, in that we have no innate capability for decency. There’s a body of scientific literature on this. Please do yourself a favor, and do not go anywhere near the details of the experimentation by Harlow into primate psychology. It is a horrifying and sadistic effort, and I assert that it brings an unclensable shame to the entire field.
The truth remains that we will stand on the backs of our own children should the water rise too far. And this principle extends beyond individuals into groups and society. Humans are.
And in all of this, there is something precious. A rare pocket of unpolluted breathing space that rises up out of the festering rot. That’s covered in the last few pages of Book 22. We acknowledge that hatred and treachery and spite and bile are the default position, as well as the position we immediately retreat to once our cage floor begins to get too warm to stand on. But there may be an opportunity to defy all of this, to choke all that vomit down and give the most powerful and precious thing we can to another person. A few moments of clean air, a moment of kindness, a decent act. Their teddy bear back. To lift them up for just a moment above the smog layer, respite before they sink back down again.
So fuck. Yeah. I feel terrible. Really terrible. Terrible kind of like you’ve done nothing with your day except lie on the floor and drink your breakfast out of a liquor bottle and binge watch Bojack Horseman. Morning drunk and hollow inside but with the clarity of the realization that you’re identifying with a character because you realize that you are not a good person. And that in all likelihood you never have been.
Internally, I am in utter turmoil. But this morning, while drinking an entire pot of coffee and delaying the inevitable doing of dishes stacked in the sink, I read something that made me weep. I put my head down on my desk, and I sobbed. Because it was that right thing, in that right moment. It hurt really good. Because for a few minutes, reading a fucking comic book lifted me up above the smog for a few minutes. And it felt so good.
If you haven’t read the series, call your local comic book shop and order it in. Go shares with your friends or something. If you’re poor, fucking steal it online or something, hopefully with the understanding that if you do have money some day, that you would buy it. Do the creators that respect.
Humans are. Acknowledging and reflecting on our shitty nature may not solve anything, but there is a clear separation we can draw, and a clear enemy we can identify from all of this internal and external perspective examination bullshit. It’s simple. It’s the fuckers that appeal to that human nature. That grow it. That cultivate it. That ferment that purposely.
One day I’ll get to scream in their faces. Fuck you, I’m a Journalist.
