DC’s Vertigo imprint has always provided something different and interesting in comics. Lately, books like American Vampire, The Unwritten, and The Wake have been some of the best coming out from any publisher, large or small, so it’s always worth it to give a new Vertigo book a chance. They’ve given us things like Sandman and Fables, and now they’ve given us Jeff Lemire’s Trillium.
After one issue, it’s hard to categorize Trillium. Is it a time travel piece? A post-apocalyptic pandemic story? A 1920s archeological adventure? I’m not quite sure. It has pieces of all of these elements, but it hasn’t committed to one yet. There are two major story dilemmas and since the book is split the way it is, I’m not sure which direction it’s going to head. And because of how brilliantly unorthodox the structure is, it could continue on in both directions, running parallel the entire time.
The only thing I can be sure of at this point is that Trillium is great science fiction in comic book form. It’s unique in its storytelling, dense and well-rendered. Lemire uses the physical space of a comic-book in a way that reminds of Alan Moore’s mastery of the craft during his days of Swamp Thing, literally turning you upside down through your window into this fascinating world. Kudos to Lemire for actually taking the time to design the experience of the book, not just drawing and writing. This is a work of artistic craftsmanship that you just don’t see in comics anymore.
The colors are subdued, almost reminiscent of Lynn Varley’s best work in Ronin, but warmer. The story leaves me asking all of the best questions from classic, but new, science fiction moral dilemmas.
The two point of view characters are at once interesting even though we know barely anything about them whatsoever. But there are so many asked but unanswered questions, I am dying to get my hands on the second issue already. My advice is to race out and pick up issue #1 immediately and have this title added to your pull list immediately.
Jeff Lemire and team should be very proud of this book and I can’t wait to see where it takes me next.
And that’s the best thing you can ask of a Vertigo book.