Tag Team Review No. 9: Ted McKeever's Transit

Tatjana Saccio and Dennis Seese -- Library Journal, 12/17/2008 11:46:00 AM

Graphic novels have become another accoutrement of "nerd chic" absorbed by mainstream culture. Blame Comic-Con regular Kevin Smith or consider that we live in an intensely visual society, and it just makes sense. As much as I like graphic novels—I grew up reading Astérix and Obélix comics—their hipness begs to be challenged. In the wake of last month’s self-help massacre, I give you two reference librarians versus Ted McKeever’s collected Transit comics (Image Comics).—Heather McCormack

Contender No. 1: Tatjana Saccio, a reference librarian at the Nevins Memorial P.L., deserves special kudos for jumping blind into our little book ring. Without knowing me or having ever previously reviewed for LJ, she accepted and exceeded my orders to "put the smack down on a graphic novel," a format very dear to her heart.

When Heather, the editor of this column, called upon me to write a review of a graphic novel for BookSmack!, I was ecstatic. Recently, I established a seed collection of adult graphic novels for my library and started reading them. Ever since, my colleagues have had to sit through my spontaneous outpourings on the merits of graphic novels.

Then Heather sent me Ted McKeever’s Transit—and I thought, "What did I get myself into?" Transit features Spud, a subway-dwelling graffiti artist who inadvertently becomes embroiled in a sleazy political campaign involving a corrupt evangelical politician and a demonic despot pulling all the strings. McKeever’s dramatic black-and-white, highly stylized drawings paint a dark, gritty picture of urban life. Because of his heavy use of shadow and extreme close-ups, along with his fondness for the grotesque, I sometimes had trouble figuring out what I was looking at and had to flip back and forth until the oblique frames came into focus. Spud’s image also undergoes a metamorphosis, from a blocky cartoon character into a more angular, leaner, meaner version of himself as the story progresses.

Transit, McKeever’s first published work, was written primarily in the 1980s and seems to have been influenced by the underground comic movement of the time and the televangelists who dominated the airwaves then. In the afterword, McKeever vividly describes the snowballing effect of the story becoming "deeper" and "denser" for him: "Like a hose hitting the street of what was once the (vilest) location on this planet, 42nd Street, NYC. The filth and debris washing down the gutter to a surface grate, and accumulating. The urban stew that was becoming Transit."

A-ha! Now I am beginning to see why I had a problem with this graphic novel. Filth, grotesque imagery, and urban misfits living in the underground subway system are not the hallmarks of any of the graphic novels I have been reading recently. Not one heroin-chic person in John Porcellino’s Thoreau at Walden. Nil gangstas in the PLAIN Janes by Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg. Nada extreme close-ups of skeletal-looking teeth and demonic pinheads in Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home.

Okay, so maybe I am not the target audience for this particular work. Transit would, however, find appreciative readers in mature teenage boys (mature owing to the language, nudity, and violence) and visually oriented male adults who like their graphic novels dark and cynical. The subterranean culture that supports Spud and the other misfits who live in the subway is intriguing, and the theme of a lone dude against the powerful and corrupt has traditionally appealed to twenty- and thirty-something male graphic novel readers.

Contender No. 2: Perhaps you recognize reference librarian Dennis Seese’s Mexican wrestling mask from his earlier match versus Campaigning for President. As in that challenge, Dennis exhibits here his considerable powers of critical evaluation. His fairness in the face of an unfamiliar format (because that’s what graphic novels are, people, not a genre) is beyond admirable and perfectly lethal.

As David Wright said during his session on "Cult Fiction," at the 2007 ALA conference in Washington, DC, "If you are one of those librarians who are on the fence about graphic novels...you need to get off…because they aren’t going anywhere." While, as a librarian, I agree wholeheartedly with his statement, as a reader, I find myself in a strange, fairly indifferent limbo regarding the art form.

I know many patrons read graphic novels regularly, and I believe without question that public libraries should include them in their collections. Also, I respect the artistic talent and devotion required to create graphic novels. But I usually end up gazing at drawings and flipping aimlessly through pages until my attention wanders, which could easily be a commentary on me as much as the medium.

With that confession in mind, I’m here to give Ted McKeever’s Transit a chance to help me change my ways.

McKeever went on to create influential comics like Eddy Current and Metropol, but first he began drawing Transit in the late 1980s, which becomes apparent in the first chapter when we meet Spud, decked out in roller skates, a cassette Walkman, and all. Spud is a graffiti artist who spends his time spray-painting subway cars until one night he gets mixed up in a messy, murderous political drama.

This work can serve as an excellent introduction to "underground" (i.e., more personal) comics for readers not interested in manga or superheroes. Transit is rendered in a starkly sinister yet expressively blurry black and white. The story employs familiar hard-boiled comic tropes: shadowy, omniscient criminal overlords and vaguely corrupt TV preachers (again very 1980s), in addition to unique characters like washed-up pro wrestlers and blind accordion players. The story is decent, but the artwork, thanks to McKeever’s distinctive sense of composition, is what keeps you reading and makes this title a worthwhile addition to your collections. It’s best for mature readers because of the strong language and violent images.