One of the most iconic figures of all of comic book-dom is based on one of the best, most interesting journalists every to shoot for the Truth. I speak, of course, on Spider Django Heraclitus Jerusalem being based on Hunter Stockton Thompson. Thompson was a wonderful man and journalist in his own rights and his passing is a great loss to the world, but he's not the base or subject of this particular excerpt. Spider Jerusalem, the mere name conjures images of a man gone mad with reality overflows and too much truth, but the character is so much more. Mad with his righteous fury, unstoppable in his search for The Truth, human only rarely, and the best journalist ever, Spider Jerusalem believes in nothing but pure truth and telling everyone to fuck off. His Gonzo style and sordid background make him perfect for “monstering” political figures like his one-time nemesis, The Beast, or his begrudging-candidate turned evil dictator, The Smiler. Quoted as saying “Every law that curbs my basic human freedom; every lie about the things I care for; every crime committed against me by their politics; that what's makes me get up and hound these fuckers, and I'll do that until the day I die... or until my brain dries up or something.” Spider is a fierce believer that anyone with power is evil and anyone that put them there is an idiot. Spider has taken down political figures like a sniper takes down slow soldiers, in one case he caused six of them to commit suicide over the phone in one day, this event came to be known as the Prague Telephone Incident. Growing upon the docks with drunken crazed parents Spider has a hazy-at-best past, even citing to have been a stripper at 8 and a prostitute at some unknown point, as well as stating his that as a child “I wanted to be a sniper when I grew up. Didn’t everyone?” His father was a bus driver, his mother a “house” wife that cooked lizards for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Spider, at one point, returns to the now-empty and burnt docks, vowing to never forget his life there. Spider’s life is mostly unknown, but its guaranteed to be riveted with crazed people and interesting times, as is alluded to in the quote “There was a time when I liked a good riot. Put on some heavy old street clothes that could stand a bit of sidewalk-scraping, infect myself with something good and contagious, than go out and stamp on some cops. It was great, being nine years old.” Who wouldn’t want THAT upbringing?
Spider’s instant success as a journalist and writer didn’t inflate his ego nearly as much as his wallet, but it did make him furious. Spider hated that the very people he was insulting in his works were eating it up like so many sautéed lizards. He eventually gave up on hating them and left for a mountain retreat, much in the image of Hunter S. Thompson, except that on Spider’s return, forced by his book editor whom he still owed two installations, he lost most of his hair to
a malfunctioning cleaning unit. Spider is self-righteous and wants everyone to know it; he flaunts his success, coupled with his attitude, by saying things like “Hi. I’m Spider Jerusalem. I smoke. I take drugs. I drink. I wash every six weeks. I masturbate constantly and fling my steaming poison semen down from my window into your hair and food. I’m a rich and respected columnist for a major metropolitan newspaper. I live with two beautiful women in The City’s most expensive and select community. Being a bastard works.”
Spider doesn’t function normally, by any standards; he writes on riots from strip club roofs, he antagonizes everyone he comes into contact with, his only pet is a two-face, three-eyed, two-mouthed mutant cat that smokes more than he does, and he strictly orders his assistants to taking up smoking and cancel out the effects by taking anti-cancer drugs. Spider’s newspaper editor, Mitchel Royce, is of the constant opinion that spider “needs to be hated in order to function.” And so far he appears to be right.
Everything from his hatred of humanity, to his insane childhood, to his beautiful and deadly assistants, to his sociopathic ranting and borderline-schizophrenic public actions make Spider Django Heraclitus Jerusalem a wonderful journalist and embraceable character. Yes, I know Transmetropolitan is no longer in print, but that doesn’t mean I’ve got to give up on that most wonderful of pseudo-human characters, nor does it mean I can’t take a page from his book and tell anyone that says the comic doesn’t fully deserve resurrection to fuck off.
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