Vertigo Comics’ Trillium Spins A Time-Tripping Tale Of The Last Love Story Ever
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We’ve got a couple of die-hard comic readers lurking around here in the highly fictional halls of GFR HQ. In fact, my most recent installment of my This Week in Science Fiction column is all about some of the intriguing sci-fi comic-y goodness hitting shelves this week. (Saga!! Read it!) DC’s Vertigo imprint is always a good place to check if you want something a bit more out there than the usual capes-and-spandex set, having served up classic series such Brian K. Vaughan’s Y: The Last Man, Paul Cornell’s amazing but short-lived Saucer Country, and Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman. Now they’ve launched Trillium, a time-tossed sci-fi love story penned by Jeff Lemire, for my money one of the best writers working in the business these days.
The official description reveals that the story unfolds in two different timelines, one on Earth in 1921 and the other in the far future of 3797. The paths of a soldier and a scientist are somehow destined to converge across the ages…finding out how will be half the fun. On first glance it gives me the same vibe as Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain, and that’s high praise ‘cause I’m a huge fan of that underrated flick. It’s also an eight-issue miniseries, so if you want to read the whole thing, you’ll only have to wait less than a year for the collected edition.
Here’s Vertigo’s synopsis for Trillium:
It’s the year 3797, and botanist Nika Temsmith is researching a strange species on a remote science station near the outermost rim of colonized space. It’s the year 1921, and renowned English explorer William Pike leads an expedition into the dense jungles of Peru in search of the fabled “Lost Temple of the Incas,” an elusive sanctuary said to have strange healing properties. Two disparate souls separated by thousands of years and hundreds of millions of miles. Yet they will fall in love and, as a result, bring about the end of the universe. Even though reality is unraveling all around them, nothing can pull them apart. This isn’t just a love story; It’s the LAST love story ever told.
Trillium is an 8-issue series that combines rich historical adventure and mind-bending science fiction into a sprawling, unconventional love story by Jeff Lemire (SWEET TOOTH, CONSTANTINE, ANIMAL MAN).
This amazing miniseries kicks off with 28-pages of story in a flip-book with two covers and two separate but connected stories!
So who is this Jeff Lemire chap? He was nominated for Eisner and Harvey Awards for his 2008 – 2009 Essex Country Trilogy, and he’s done two series for Vertigo: 2009’s The Nobody and the quirky post-apocalyptic tale Sweet Tooth. I first discovered his work during DC’s big highfallutin’ New 52 event, where they rebooted their decades-old comic universe and relaunched with 52 new ongoing series. Lemire penned the relaunched Animal Man series, as well as the new ongoing Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E.. One was about a washed-up retired superhero/celebrity who gets dragged back into a war between the forces of animal life (The Red), plant life (The Green), and death (The Rot). The other was indeed about Frankenstein’s monster, still alive undead and kicking, and now working with a top secret government organization tasked with investigating paranormal and superhuman activity.
They were both gloriously weird series that constantly surprised you with sheer imagination, so I’m eager to see what Lemire has in store for us with the science fiction tale Trillium. The first issue hit stands last week, so you can find your local comic shop or peruse the virtual shelves of digital comics retailers like Comixology. In the meantime, check out a pair of covers and pages from Trillium’s first issue below. (All images can be clicked for larger versions.)
Issue #2 is due out on September 4.
