“Torniamo all’antico e sarà un progresso”
Composer Giuseppe Verdi wrote the above line in a letter to a friend 111 years before I was born – essentially, it translates to “let us return to the past; that will be progress.” It is a quote that has stuck with me over the past decade or so of my life; whenever things seem a bit out of control, it can be liberating to simply down-shift into the past and course correct from there. There seems to be a moment in each of our lives that acts as a marker that separates our lives into pieces, or eras, almost like the start of a new level in a video game; even if you die, you can start at level 7 again. At the time those moments may feel inconsequential, or even not register an emotion at all, but looking back they define who we are and what we do.
In “Trillium,” both Nika and William have an experience so powerful, so profound, that even when their lives get so inexplicably rearranged, that moment still defines who they are at an almost elemental level. Their entire lives are shaped by one experience, and every decision they make ultimately is an attempt to re-live that moment, or at least exist in a place where that moment is more than just a foggy recollection.
Jeff Lemire’s miniseries, collected into a trade this week, is a fine example of why the medium of comics is the best. This is a story that could be presented in just about any form and it would be touching, but Lemire uses the comic format in ways that simply couldn’t be properly replicated in any other way. Chapter 5 is the best example of this – the installment tells the story of both main characters having essentially swapped existences, and tells both at the same page at the same time. Lemire pulls this off by having the stories acting as flip books, with Mika’s taking place in the traditional orientation, confined to the upper half of the page, with William’s being the inverse, starting on the final page of Mika’s on the upside down side. The effect, when looking at the page, is a bit disorienting, which works really well in the context of the story. At various points throughout the series, Lemire will again play with the orientation of the page, but the reader at that point is adaptable to the idea of turning the book on its side, and allows more variation in the way the story can be told.
The story is a relatively simple one – Mika is an astronaut of sorts in the year 3797, attempting to harvest a flower called Trillium to stave off the Caul, a living virus threatening to destroy all of humanity; William is an explorer from 1921 in the Amazon jungle who happens across a temple. At the temple, they somehow meet each other, along with blue-skinned natives/aliens and a field of trillium.
Lemire, acting as both writer and artist on the book, imbues each page with the humanity that all of his creator-owned work has had, even though this is his first time taking his work into space. The shift into a hyper-scientific setting for half the story could have been a tricky one, but Lemire handles it easily. He doesn’t fall into the traps that so many writers do when attempting futuristic sci-fi, such as making the techno-babble near impenetrable or pretending that people would speak the exact same way 1500 years from now. He manages to bridge that gap sensibly, and uses universal enough ideas to make everything flow well.
The first half of the series is interesting and fun, but once the aforementioned chapter 5 hits, everything really takes off in unexpected ways. By retelling each origin story through a funhouse mirror, each character becomes far more fleshed out and interesting. Because technology is such a part of the 3797 story, it is nice to see Nika in the 1920s, where you can’t rely on Essie, her AI program in her spacesuit, for exposition and context. Similarly, when William is freed from the bonds of post-traumatic stress disorder that defined his early appearances in the book, you begin to see the person before the shell shock took hold.
Continued belowIn just eight chapters, Lemire manages to construct a full world – twice. This is an incredible achievement that deserves repeating: not only does he create memorable characters and settings, he flips the script and re-writes each world along the way. Because of this, by the time the series wraps up with its beautiful and ambiguous ending, the characters transcend the length of the work and feel like they have survived an epic of Tolkien-length.
I suppose that there are people out there who aren’t fans of Lemire’s visual art, but I don’t count myself among them. While his style is not at all Mignola-esque, I feel that Lemire and Mike Mignola share an economy of line at times throughout the book, although Mignola’s recent work is a much more refined version. Lemire may spend a lot of time detailing fields of trillium, but he never does so to excess. Each page is filled with just enough information and detail to further the story, but never indulges the reader unnecessarily. Colorist Jose Villarrubia does phenomenal work here as well, giving each time period a specific hue that makes it easy to identify perspective at a fast glance. He also uses his coloring to bridge the two stories, such as having William’s shirt suspiciously close in tone to the chamber holding Nika after their encounter. The final member of the team is letterer Carlos Mangual, who creates an entirely new language, Atabithian, and provides a key in the backmatter of the trade to translate their text into English, a touch that was not at all required but greatly appreciated (and which our Drew Bradley decoded last year).
All of those elements reveal a work that feels labored over with love and dedication, but never to the point of being too precious or insular. This is a book you could hand to any comics reader (or a non-comics reader) and everything you need to enjoy it is within the pages. This is a totally self contained work that is both more accessible and deeper than you might think.
Final Verdict: 9.0 – Well worth your money, a place on your shelf, and a few hours to pour over.
