Borderline Vol 4. Carlos Trillo (Writer), Eduardo Risso (Art). Dynamite Entertainment (2011)

The final volume of a bleak dystopian science fiction story. In the crumbling remains of the earth the sub-dregs sell body parts to survive or trade for drugs sold by the two competing powers, the Commune and the Council. Climate change started the social and political breakdown, the work of Open Heimmer who turned acid rain into a weapon and designed a weapon of mass destruction to complete the elimination of official enemies completed the process that brought about the existing brutal reality.
The stories in the volume are loosely linked as they follow the cast on the Moon where the Marshall controls both the Council and the Commune to Lisa, the deaf mute assassin of the Council and Wolf, the savage agent of the Council. Moving from the activities and nightmares of Lida and Wolf on a radioactive night when the barely living come out to dance in the polluted night to a brutal trip back in time by Wolf , who discovers that he has the time to cut a swathe through an unsuspecting city to his unexpected meeting with his daughter the stories flow in violence and rage.
Gradually the the final descent comes into view lead by a physic that whose Life Lisa saved and who launches a plan to take down down both the Council and the Commune. The conclusion is as dark, cold and bleak as the rest of the stories, as inevitable as it needs to be.
One of the problems with dystopian fiction is reader fatigue, unrelenting misery and profound pessimism are wearing, Carlos Trillo manages to move through this by both stripping the stories down to the barest details required to move the action forward and by the very careful use of a cutting humor that gives the reader a break. The cast are all vibrantly alive, the most brutal are never just one note shadows, they have interior as well as exterior lives. This creates a subtle and engaging emotional context for the action which Carlos Trillo uses to frequently astonishing effect. His consistent ability to find and contrast shades of black in the drams is amazing, no one is going to go quietly into the good or bad night.
Eduardo Risso matches the art to the story, it is extraordinary use of black and white, it provides the necessary details for the stripped down stories. The cast are expressive and individual, extreme in their portrayal  as they are in their actions. The two tone art never seems limited or restrictive, it creates consistently unexpected mood, space and shadow, the high contrast underlining the extremity of the circumstances. The sustained vision of the two creators across the four volumes is wonderful, the bitter conclusion fitting and satisfying.  A tightly focused and exhilarating work, it  never softens its premise nor the outcome, the energy of the storytelling and the art lift it above its own otherwise numbing despair.

Borderline Volume 3. Carlos Trillo (Writer), Eduardo Risso (Art), Maria Barrucci (Translation), Zach Matheny (Letters) Dynamite Entertainment (2009)

Pitch black dystopian science fiction, stripped down to the barest essentials for the story and illuminated by astonishing art. In the shattered ruins of a future Earth two groups fight for dominance, the Commune and the Council both struggling to capture the market for their competing mix of drugs and salvation. Ex-lovers, Emil and Lisa are employed on each side of the struggle.  Emil racked by guilt at having sols Lisa to organ harvesters to pay for drugs works for the Commune while Lisa, now known as Crash works for the council, to pay for restored organs. Her hearing and speech were not restored and remain scrambled, she can communicate freely only with a doll, Lara.
The longest story in the book concerns the search for a woman, a mutant who can sense future events. Such mutants are vital to the plans of Marshal Saki who rules both the Commune and the Council from his base on the moon. He uses the pre-cogs to know what his enemies are planning on and to stop them first, with the last one in his power dying the search for a replacement is urgent. The search pulls in both Emil and Lisa as the woman is hunted by combined forces of both the Commune and the Council. The best story in the book is a short episode where Lisa's doll is stolen by a virtual walking skeleton for an astonishing reason and in a clever and bleakly humorous episode Lisa's deafness is used as a weapon against a significant threat to the existing structure.
The stories are as bare bones as possible, sometimes there is extra information provided to make sense of the actions, Emil explains about his relationship with Lisa because the it will become important a little later. Otherwise there is the minimal amount of information provided, just enough to set the scene and give enough depth to the context so the cast are not actually moving through a vacuum. The cast of grotesques that race, rage and kill and sometimes rest are get all the attention, they are given a surprising degree of depth while all operating with very narrow emotional ranges. Carlos Trillo has managed to give them more than enough humanity to really pull in the reader and give the ferocious melodrama a considerable punch.
Eduardo Risso's luminous black and while art is breathtaking. It is genuinely black and white, there is no shading in the art, the definition and detail is provided only by direct contrast. This extreme approach is perfectly suited to the extremity of the story and the context, this is the end of the world, down in the ruins there is no room left for anything except the most explicit actions and motives. The cast are a range of astonishing grotesques, some human males and absurdly beautiful women who are more frequently undressed than not.  Eduardo Risso avoids the kind of sleazy coyness epidemic in comics by simply having half naked women because he wants to. This straightforward approach means that the female cast are not undermined as characters by having breasts, they are very much part of the character rather than being the character.
Using melodrama to shelter subtle points and unexpected character depth this is a great comic.

Borderline. Volume 1. Carlos Trillo (Writer), Eduardo Risso (Art). Dynamite Entertainment (2006)

A brilliant series of increasingly connected stories set in a severely dystopian future. The location is a city dominated by two opposing groups the Council and the Commune, the rich are happy and the poor , the sub-dregs, are valued only for their organs. Both power groups have armed forces to enforce their will and Lisa, know as Crash, works as a captive agent for the Council, Emil, known as Blue, works as a ten year agent for the Commune. Lisa and Emil were lovers before Emil betrayed Lisa in a horrific fashion and now they on opposing sides of an ongoing struggle for power and the control of the narcotics market in the city. The episodes steadily build up the background of Lisa and Emil and the context in which they find themselves, the stories progressively develop in emotional and dramatic weight and power.

The luminous black and white art by Eduardo Risso dominates the early episodes of the book. Where black and white frequently means "uncoloured", this art glories in the extreme contrast between black and white, there are no tones in the art. The line drawings are stunningly expressive, they capture the details of the context and the emotions of the cast with clarity and grace. It manages to be both flamboyant and to effortlessly serve the story at the same time. In the opening episodes when the introductions to the cast and context are being completed the at rightly carries the weight, as the chapters progress the writing become more significant and the art embodies it and enhances it flawlessly.

Carlos Trillo takes a well worn path in science fiction and steadily moves past the usual cliches to delivers stories that capture the lives of the cast and the terrible and emotions that drive them. Lisa and Emil, as well as the surrounding cast emerge from the context they are placed in as damaged, fragile creatures who draw on the reader's sympathy and concern naturally and deeply. Their actions are credible and forceful, they are all struggling to accept the burden of past actions and to cope with desperate circumstances. This is not a pessimistic book, the future is bleak and barren, that is simply a given, the focus is on how the cast manage within this context and how the retain or loose their humanity.

It is also a gloriously action driven science fiction adventure with a mission to enthrall and entertain and it does so with lashings of style and energy. This is a brilliant comic.