Review: Trillium

A New Hope
Why Trillium? Besides being the official symbol of Ontario (where the series's creator Jeff Lemire lives), a trillium's three-petal flower follows perfect symmetry and primarily grows in the wild which means to see (or to experience) a trillium, one must hunt, explore -- a wild plant found in wild places.

Despite what he may say, a cartoonist and writer as conscientious, passionate and aware as Lemire does not choose a word like 'trillium' as the title for his creator-owned work for kicks or because nothing else was available. Trust me, I grok how a reading of Trillium through the lens of the flower (from which the title takes its name and which figures in the plot) sounds dull, stuffy and superficial; however, so much of Trillium #1 unfolds (twice) as a search for understanding and hinges on moments of discovery and the search for meaning … of any and all kinds.

The two lost souls swimming in Lemire's fishbowl are William Pike and Dr. Nika Temsmith. Pike is in a psychic no-man's land. He suffers from shell shock (PTSD) as a result of his experiences in World War I. Now he's taken on a myopic quest to find ''the fabled Lost Temple of the Incas [which contains] not only wealth and treasure but ultimate dominance over death itself!'' On the flip side, Temsmith is one of ''only four thousand humans left'' in the universe due a sentient virus, The Caul. If she can't convince the natives of the planet Atabithi to allow her access to a species of trillium which ''contains a unique chemical property that The Caul seems unable to breakdown'' than it's 'game over, man' (and woman). A hat tip goes to Lemire for his homage to longtime science-fiction author, editor and fan, Frederick Pohl, who's surname Lemire lends to Nika's superior officer. 

In my review of Collider #1 I wrote: ''editors Sara Miller and Mark Doyle should have pushed the series creators (Oliver and Rodriquez) to defy timeworn narrative conventions.'' Doyle and Miller must have read my review and passed it along to Lemire because Trillium #1 is a palindromic flip-book, touché Vertigo editorial. The layout of each page of William's story mirrors Nika's story. Perhaps there's something in the air in Canada because another son of the 'True North Strong and Free' fellow comic book artist and writer Andy Belanger pulled off a similar trick earlier this year with Kill Shakespeare: The Tide of Blood #2.

The title and credits page which comes four pages into each chapter -- and which unnecessarily repeats over the final panel in each story --  indicates Nika's story takes place in 3797 and represents 'chapter 1' while William's story set in 1921 is 'chapter 1.2.' There is also instruction to: 'Turn book over.' Really. Numbering each chapter neuters (some of) the thrill of the story Lemire tries to tell. Give credit to the creators (Lemire, colorist José Villarrubia and letterer Carlos M. Mangual), but this isn't some faux linear 'choose-your-own-adventure' tale. Reading (and rereading) either story informs and embellishes its mirror (mate?) regardless of which story the reader chooses to read first, or second. If Vertigo wants to 'Defy,' I would suggest they also 'Trust.'

 

Trillium #1's presentation is a clever way to tell this story (or stories), more important, it succeeds. Lemire does not take a 'less is more' approach; instead he shows how working within a prescribed fourteen page narrative structure allows for creativity and experimentation. Page layouts of twelve panel grids and inset panels on double-page spreads are a couple of techniques Lemire employs, but his greatest strength as a creator is his ability to imbue emotion in his characters and set the stakes from the first page. With words and without, Lemire gets the reader to understand (and take on) William and Nika's anxiety, anger and frustration over circumstances neither of them can control and so each must search, must go on because neither will accept the alternative. As William says to his fellow explorers, ''that's why we're bloody here …'' Trillium traffics in hope.

 

Lemire's cartooning and watercolors are his signature -- only Jeff Lemire draws and paints like Jeff Lemire. The emotion he is able to create on William and Nika's faces is intense, weary and serious. The same deep fatigue carries over in their frames as well, rawboned bodies, worn thin, but still alive, survivors with a persistence born (almost) out of spite. Lemire's watercolors give Trillium an ethereal aspect especially in the scenes set on the alien Atabithi, but also on the battlefields of WW I. For all the harshness of these environments, Lemire makes them look like worlds worth living for, worlds worth the trouble to try and understand.

Trillium posits great purpose. As William and Nika navigate across time and space and as the influence of the alien Atabithians and the Incan Temple expands, the search for meaning (for resolution) is sure to take on a greater gravity. Pike's party may have become pin cushions, black holes may be visible from the surface of Atabithi and humanity may have one foot in the grave, but not today, not yet and that makes all the difference.

Review: Collider #1

Gravity Falls

A hot-to-motivate-Tom-Landry-autographed-hat-wearing Homer Simpson once said: ''the Lord gave us the atoms, and it's up to us to make 'em dance.'' Like the untapped energy at the atomic level, Collider holds vast promise, but for its debut it treads lightly, a sort of safety dance. The stock structure of the narrative moves like two timid teenagers who feel they need to 'leave room for the Holy Spirit' as they slow dance at a Catholic high-school semi-formal. Collider needs to twerk, you know, like Ginger Rogers, backwards and in heels.

The world of Collider has a crack scenario: the building blocks of the universe are breaking, gravity is wonky and quantum tornados have become a thing -- possible impossibilities. It's an imaginative riff on apocalyptic-fiction, not an end of the world or post-something or other, instead call it a matter (sorry) of inconvenience and yet another way to fuck up your commute.   

A gift like the line ''… and the nature of your emergency … fire, ambulance, police … or physics'' winks at Simon Oliver's feistiness, talent and intelligence. Those lines are delivered in two panels by a blond receptionist wearing a shade of lipstick that dials in somewhere on the color wheel around electric magenta. Oliver brings the brains, but it's the brawn of colorist Rico Renzi and artist Robbi Rodriguez who own Collider.

It's got to be a kick to imagine the gullet of a rapidly collapsing

gravity field and a whole other kind of stone groove to make it live. Rodriguez's pencils have a shade of fellow Vertigo-ian Sean Murphy as well as the slinky elastic-fantastic-ness of Filipe Andrade. When singular pencils and inks meet the unstoppable force of color it tracks with sea salt crystals on caramel truffles. Renzi uses swirls of color as thematic elements throughout to play with the narrative's ideas about the physical manifestations of vortexes, spirals and gyres. Automobile headlights, the dust kicked up from squealing tires and the tally light on a video camera all spin with innate energy.

Renzi reckons the fabric of space-time in a panoply of Barbie pinks and purples and when that stuff starts to tear and up is down and down is up Renzi slashes at Rodriquez's fine lines with wide brushstrokes of color to intensify the action and give it dimension. Like Dave Stewart and Jordie Bellaire, Renzi is the kind of colorist who makes the world of a comic book a real living thing.

 

Each creative works in concert on Collider to craft the perfect Barth-ian fusion of text and image; however, like the world they concoct something is off. As one of the first (original) offerings in the post-Berger Vertigo era, Collider carries a lot of anticipation (for good or for ill) about what's next for this well-loved and well-regarded line of boutique comics. The gravity of creator-owned work continues to intensify in the marketplace, which leaves publishers like Vertigo, where exactly? Oliver writes in his obligatory closing comments: ''So this is Collider, a book we could only do at Vertigo …'' Really? Is The Massive a book that could only exist at Dark Horse? How about Storm Dogs or Prophet are they solely the purview of Image?

Vertigo's new one-word marketing campaign/strategy is 'Defy.' Great, I'm in (especially at $2.99). So why is such a smart idea like Collider told in the rote manner of a mediocre sci-fi TV serial? With such a screwy set of ideas, editors Sara Miller and Mark Doyle should have pushed the series creators (Oliver and Rodriquez) to defy timeworn narrative conventions like the last minute reveal of the scheming mustachioed white guy, the compromised team member and the prologue with the dedicated scientist and well-meaning but (apparently absentee) dad of the main character. Defy. Defy. Defy.

With the marketing clout of papa-DC behind them, Vertigo has the juice to storm (take back?) the creator-owned castle. Instead of advice from everyman Homer Simpson, perhaps the kingmakers and idea-hounds in service to Vertigo should pull a prankster pose and head in a Kesey-ist direction, further. Now who's playing it safe with dated bromides?   

Collider shows killer potential, which for a comic about physics makes sense, but the taut bowstring is not the bullseye. Oliver and Rodriguez have a quantum 'tiger by the tail' and the talent to let this top spin and spin and spin. Fingers crossed Collider speeds past the theoretical and becomes physical, a true original it has the ability to be in every (un)conceivable way.

Series Review (so far): Spaceman #1 - #5

This week marks the beginning of the Major League Baseball season. Which along with starting a rumor about the coming of summer here in the Northeast, reminds me of a great apocryphal story (great word that, apocryphal) about that handmaiden of sports, statistics. Story goes like this: during the off-season successful slugger goes to see management about a new contract. Said slugger says he batted .315 this past season (roughly three hits for every ten at bats, well above the league average). The general manager smiles and says, ‘yeah, slugger, but you only got a hit three times out of ten. What about the other seven times you went to the plate?' Baseball, of course, is the only profession you can fail at seven out of ten times and still be considered for the 'Hall of Fame.' Statistics can be counted on, but the devil is always in the details, the context. Blogger's stat tracker tells me that the post for my review of Spaceman #4 has been viewed one-hundred-and-seventy-six times since I posted it on March 3^rd. I would tag that a moderate success and yes (you glass-house-living-throwers-of-rocks) I have set Blogger so that it does not track my own page views.

  My writing about Spaceman #4 is what got me the gig at Comics Bulletin, so, at least, somebody liked it, right? I guess all that matters is that I think I have something to contribute to the critical conversation about Spaceman. I'll admit that I can understand how this is a tricky series to navigate either because of its pidgin futurespeak, or its monkey-man-meets-noir-dystopia-sci-fi, or, even, the audience's own 'anxiety of influence' because this is Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso's follow-up series to 100 Bullets. As I often ask: So what?
  After I wrote my series review of The Strange Talent of Luther Strode, I emailed it to a few bloggers I’ve gotten to know (I believe) fairly well.  Their feedback was very helpful. The one theme that emerged from their feedback was, 'I'm not reading this series, so, why should I care about it?'  A 'so what?' in so many words. As much as I love Azzarello's gloss on language and celebrity culture, it's all academic wankery if the characters are underdeveloped and the plot is hackneyed and overcooked. Writing is a solitary pursuit, but editing and proofreading often turns into a team sport. To Martin, Owen, Justin and Seth here is (I hope) proof that I listened.  Thanks to Jason and Danny at Comics Bulletin for making this process easy and worthwhile. Instead of braining you, constant reader, with the beginning of the piece let me hit you upside with the end:

  ''Azzarello makes it easy to get stuck in Spaceman's semantic stew of words and the meaninglessness of meaning. Geeking out on words only gets one so far -- and if one wants more, they have schools for that sort of thing. What makes this story work is spaceman, is Orson. There is a ''knight-in-shining-armor'' quality to Orson that should not be given short shrift. The reader roots for Orson and wants to see him bring Tara home safe, but it's a question of can he rather than will he. A man of some means, a certain survivor, Orson is also out of place, out of his world and out of his depth. When Orson first brings Tara to his place, he says, ''I promd to keep you safe … but … we don know what that means jus now. Home might not be safe.'' Like many a traveler, many a spaceman, Orson wants to go home, but what is home to a space man? Spaceman has flown half of its arc, all that remains is a return. Azzarello and Risso will determine how safe of a journey it will be and if their spaceman can ever find his way home.''  

The rest, or as Robert Shaw says, '… for the head, the tail the whole damn thing,' go here: http://www.comicsbulletin.com/main/reviews/story-arc-review-spaceman-5-9