So nice they printed it twice: The reprint of Transmetropolitan volume one.

By: Jason Stoneroad

 

Imagine for a moment that you came home early from work, get in the door, drop your stuff, kick off your shoes, undo your tie and take off your work shirt. You hear an undistinguishable act occurring in the bedroom, like paper and an electronic motor whirring. You open the door expecting to see your harlot girlfriend in bed with your collie again, but what do you find? Your comic books, pages spread and binding in the air, with the DVD player mounted behind your copy of “Watchmen”, fucking the shit out of it. Your DVD player is hungry for love, having just sodomized “Watchmen” it turns longingly to your copy of Transmet and you can see, it wants it, badly. What disturbs you further is father DC standing behind, ensuring you, “It’s ok boy, it’s payin’ us good money.”

Transmet as a story isn’t what this is about. Bar-none, hands down, flat out, Transmet is a great story. What’s up for review is the book its self, the first printing was a simple trade paperback collecting the first three issues of the series. This new edition collects the first six issues. The problem lies in that, while doing the reprint and reissuing of the book, DC/Vertigo did not take into account the amount of collected trades still on the market in circulation. This potentially means that you can buy this new reissuing of volume 1, and get the first six issues for 14.95$, then get the second volume from the first collection and get three issues of overlap. Confused yet, I sure am. So now you’ve got first print trade paperback collecting issues 1-3 and first print volume 2 collecting 4-10, or you can get the second printing of volume 1 collecting issues 1-6 and then get the first print of volume 2 collecting issues 4-10 and your books will overlap. In other words if you buy this book and love the series (as I know you will) and then go out to get the next book, you could potentially get overlapping books. Ouch.

So this begs the question, should I buy this book? The hardcore fans already have the whole series, so why buy a reissuing? The answer is that you’re not going to buy it if you already have it. What this reissuing does is pave the way for new fans of the series to come on board. It allows for more people who have suffered the wrath of an ex, to get their prized book back, or make up for a loving pets’ misguided use of your first copy as a chew toy. The hope is that the publisher continues reissuing the books progression along the lines it supposed to. What would have been ideal however, is a full hardcover collection, done up in three mega sized volumes, that would get the fans who already have the full run, frothing at the mouth for something new to buy.