Trillium #8

By Jeff Lemire & Jose Villarrubia

This week’s release of Trillium #8 marks the end of Jeff Lemire’s romantic sci-fi mini-series. Things look incredibly dark not only for our main characters but for all of humanity in general. With all of humankind in danger of extinction, it’s up to both William and Nika to save the last of the humans before the end of the world.

Trillium has been quite a unique storytelling journey that feels like it has spanned more than just eight issues. Even though the series is founded on how 2 people from alternate times lines meet and fall in love, there was always so much more going on surrounding both of their lives that their relationship always seemed to take a backseat to much larger problems they were dealing with. With so much going on outside of the typical romance story, and you throw in Lemire’s bizarre page and panel layout he has used with this series, Trillium’s plot had a lot of depth that made it an engrossing read. Since both William and Nika have been reunited in the last issue, it was nice that Lemire let this final issue read like a straight forward comic without distracting the reader from the finale. Lemire is known for having intense and sometimes beautifully depressing endings and Trillium is no exception. Without spoiling anything, let’s just say Trillium’s ending left me as a reader feeling satisfied.

Artistically, Trillium has probably been Lemire’s best work to date. Not only has his distinctive sketchy style of art more refined than ever but the way he also experimented with his page layouts challenged readers to read and look and physical comics in a different way. There were moments in Trillium that those particular layouts felt a bit distracting to the story but in the end it actually made for a much more absorbing read. Lemire and Villarrubia’s colors have really helped this series pop off the page. Trillium’s colors helped give readers a very pulp vibe you would expect from older sci-fi comics but still was able to make those colors seem so bright and dramatic. Trillium was a beautiful story to read but the art made it a stunning series to just look at.

Lemire has always been an incredible storyteller and Trillium is a prime example of just how much his craft has evolved over the years. Being his first authentically science fiction space series, he’s shown that he can tackle any genre. Trillium shows that no matter the genre, Lemire can build rich characters and an engaging story that keeps the reader interested from start to finish. After finishing this last issue, my first reaction was to take out all of the issues and read it again, which is the sign of a great series. It’ll be interesting to see how Trillium will be collected since every issue had different page layouts, but this is a series that’s definitely worth your time if you haven’t read it yet.