Borderline Vol. 1

Written by Carlos Trillo
Art by Eduardo Risso

Having been so impressed with the first chapter of Vampire Boy when I read it about a year ago, I figured it was time to track down the rest of Trillo and Risso's collaborations.  They deserve to be seen as one of the legendary writer/artist pairings in comics, as their work together is phenomenal.

Borderline is set in a strange, dystopian future.  Two organizations, the Commune and the Council, run the show, although they do not communicate well, and often allow their rivalries to supersede anything else.  One group (I never did quite get a handle on which was which) employs Crash, a 'captive agent' and the girl on the cover.  She looks a little like Kelly Lebrock in Weird Science, if she had a gun and was unable to communicate with people around her because she had most of her organs removed and replaced with technology.  The other group employs Blue, a 'ten year'; an agent who has signed a contract making him an indentured servant for the period of a decade. 

Now Blue and Crash have some history, having been in love before Blue sold Crash to organ harvesters so he could buy drugs.  Now the two are in conflict with each other in a game of one-up-manship between their controllers.

This is a nice gritty comic, told in short episodic chapters.  There is an interesting set of supporting characters - I particularly like Mike and Jack, Crash's handlers, who are insanely jealous lesbian lovers.  There's a strange sense of humour at play in this bleak comic, and I'm very interested in reading the next three volumes.  I always knew I could trust that I would enjoy looking at any book Risso has drawn, but it's heartening to see that Carlos Trillo's writing is just as good as his reputation says it is.