Jeff Lemire’s time-bending, genre-shifting, medium-expanding love story of two people born thousands of years apart are brought together by a rip in time comes to a close. This hauntingly beautiful story is at it’s end and it’s time to say goodbye.
Written & Illustrated by Jeff Lemire
What is Nika’s ultimate destiny? And what role will William play in the survival of humankind? Can they finally be reunited before the universe unravels all around them? Vertigo’s sci-fi epic reaches its mind bending conclusion.
I loved the first issue of “Trillium”. It was truly a comic experience that pushed the boundaries of the medium and used the flipbook format (two stories printed upside down from one another that start at each cover and meet in the middle) to great, story-focused effect. Every issue since has been building and building the romantic story of William and Nika as well as allowing Lemire to truly experiment with the medium of comic books.
This issue of “Trillium” concludes said story of William and Nika to great effect. Lemire’s artwork has been praised for it’s unique, water colour style and impressive storytelling qualities, but his writing is just as amazing. He infuses his writing with rather amazing character writing that makes the reader truly care about the events of the story which was absolutely crucial for making “Trillium” work. Without that level of character writing making not only Nika and William interesting lead characters, but fleshing out the supporting cast with characters like Clayton and Pohl to play off of Nika and William then the series simply would not have worked. Thankfully, that didn’t happen and not only did Lemire craft a wonderful and beautiful love story, but he wrote one of the best comics of that last couple years.
“Trillium” is the kind of story that is written to the strengths of Lemire’s artwork, but also allows Lemire’s artwork to bring out the best of his writing. It all works in tandem to create a truly beautiful work of art. The colour work of the book that showcases Lemire’s talent with watercolour not only creates a beautiful tranquillity to the alien landscape of Atabithia, but gives the pages a genuine texture that’s hard to replicate. It gives the page a truly hand-crafted feel to it that makes the experience of reading “Trillium” truly stand out against all other comics.
It’s not just that “Trillium” looks pretty, either, as each issue has been a showcase for how Lemire can experiment with page layouts. While it’s not employed in this issue as much as previous issues until the end (the best use is still probably the horizontally printed page of #7), it gives the book a feeling of breaking the boundaries of the medium. Not only that, but it allows Lemire to convey part of the story like a jump in time in a way that feels genuinely unique for a comic. Gone are the days of simply telling the reader “Hey, this page takes place in this time” in a caption and in are the days of simply saying screw the rules and creating a book that conveys time in a way no other comic has since “We3”.
Yet for all the fancy, medium-bending tricks that Lemire employs, it’s still the ever-building romance between Nika and William that is the true core of the book. While I won’t (and also can’t) spoil the ending, it is clearly the most powerful part of the book largely because it allows for story closure on their relationship that has been building for the past seven issues. It actually makes it hard to really discuss this issue in full as so much of this issue is built around getting to that ending that talking about the build up without mentioning the conclusion is like cutting out the last ten pages of the book and then reviewing. Suffice it to say that the ending of “Trillium” #8 is one of the most truly beautiful endings to a comic book I’ve ever encountered and it should genuinely satisfy anyone who has been following the series.
So, in the end, it turns out that “Trillium” built throughout the series as one of the most genuinely well-written romances in comics as well as being a platform for Jeff Lemire to completely screw with medium conventions to create a genuinely satisfying and wonderful conclusion to an amazing series. I mean, who would have guessed? It turns out the Jeff Lemire is an amazing writer and artist who can craft a simply, eight-issue series that has more heartfelt creativity than most long-running series. This is a truly great conclusion to a series that it’s hard to overstate the quality of and anyone who picked this up at first and dropped it should be ashamed of themselves and anyone who hasn’t picked it up should immediately do so.
This has been your Public Service Announcement on just how good “Trillium” is, brought to you by Multiversity Comics.
Final Verdict: 9.8 – A wonderful conclusion that showcases all of Jeff Lemire’s strengths as a storyteller in comics.
