Q

censormagazine asked:

Would you say there's a point in Transmetropolitan where Spider Jerusalem stops being Hunter S. Thompson and starts to resemble you? Or was Spider Jerusalem always a mix?

A

Oh, he was always a mix of people.  He writes more like Tom Wolfe or Chris Roberts in a lot of places, and he can be as inhuman as Mencken.  There’s a lot of people in him — and a lot less of me than people think.  He would often say things I didn’t agree with.  I used to say that if he were real, I wouldn’t give the bastard house room.  I also used to say that if there was any of me in him, then it was me when I first get up in the morning — that’s when my temper is at its worst, closest to the surface, most easily triggered and most impervious to logic or simple human empathy.  Also, when I am at my most crap.  I once almost killed myself trying to kick a cat after being woken by said beast after three hours’ sleep.  I missed the cat completely and very nearly got flung down the stairs by my own momentum.  (And I would have deserved it, too.) That’s Spider, really.