The Underwater Welder(2012, Top Shelf) andTrillium(2013-2014, Vertigo, 8 issues) are the two short stories that best show what Jeff Lemire is formally looking for.The first is a closed session on authorship, drawn in black and white; the second a love story through time, built with planks that must be turned over. Both can be read in isolation, without knowing anything else.
Two short stories, two experiences of form.These are the books to recommend to anyone who wants to try Lemire without committing to a long series.
They are also the most poorly served by their summary: “a welder haunted by his father” and “a romance between two eras” say nothing of what the reading produces. This article details each, explains why they make a cohesive pair, and which one to choose depending on what you're looking for.
The Underwater Welder: a closed door under water
Jack Joseph is a welder on an oil platform off the coast of Nova Scotia. His wife is pregnant, the term is approaching, and he continues the dives rather than returning. His own father, also a diver, disappeared at sea one Halloween night when Jack was ten.
During a dive, something happens underwater. Jack goes back to a version of the world where he no longer completely exists, and where the evening of his father's disappearance is replayed.
The book was presented by Damon Lindelof as the most moving episode ofThe Fourth Dimensionnever produced. The comparison is apt: the fantastic device is minimal, never explained, and serves entirely to confront a man with what he is reproducing.
What the book succeeds in is down to a staging detail: Lemire almost never draws Jack's face during the dives. The helmet, the visor, the reflections. A man whose eyes we don't see for a hundred pages, and who refuses to go home — the form says the subject without a single line of dialogue having to do so.
Trillium: two stories that meet in the middle
Nika is a botanist in 3797, sent to a distant planet to seek a cure for a virus that is killing humanity. William is a British explorer in 1921, searching for a lost temple in Peru. They meet, which makes no sense, and the series spends eight issues making that meeting possible.
The book you need to return
Several issues can be read from both ends: Nika's story on one side, William's on the other, up to a central double page where the two stories touch. The reader must physically turn the booklet over.
Deux langues, deux couleurs
The characters don't understand each other. Lemire refuses convenient translation and leaves the reader in the same incomprehension as them, by distinguishing the eras with opposing palettes.
Une seule fleur
The trillium of the title is the plant that connects everything. It's real — it's the emblematic flower of Ontario, the province where Lemire grew up. The detail is never emphasized in the book.
Why read them together
Published a year apart, these two books represent the moment when Lemire tests how far form can carry substance. They share three traits.
A fantastic never explained
Neither justifies its supernaturalness. No science, no rules, no final revelation. The process serves an internal state, and stops there.
Transmission as a subject
A man who is going to become a father and has not resolved the question of his; two people separated by eight centuries who try to pass something on to each other. It's the same problem in two costumes.
The page as a tool
The helmet which hides the face in one, the turning boards in the other: in both cases, the graphic device carries a part of the meaning that the text does not say.
A short and finished format
One hundred and thirty pages for one, eight issues for the other. No sequel, no extended universe. Two purchases that are closing.
Water and space: two ways of drawing emptiness
Both books are based on the same graphic problem: representing an environment where there is nothing to draw. Lemire resolves it differently in each, and the comparison is instructive.
DansThe Underwater Welder, the seabed is treated in solid black. No gradients, no depth effects: full ink, in which Jack's helmet sometimes forms the only light area on the page. The effect is stifling, and it turns each dive into a psychic descent rather than an action scene. When the story shifts into fantasy, this darkness becomes the place where memories come from — without any transition being necessary.
InTrillium, the space is on the contrary treated in flat areas of saturated color, often without decoration at all. The characters float on plain backgrounds, pink or green depending on the era. The void is not threatening: it separates, and that is the subject of the book — two beings who should not be able to touch each other.
This opposition sums up the two sides of his work quite well. The black of the sea is the Lemire ofEssex County: matter, weight, confinement. The colored areas ofTrillium, it is the one who will writeGo downwith Nguyen: abstraction, distance, gentle melancholy. The two books appeared a year apart, and it has never been more visible that he was working on two registers at the same time.
Which one to choose
TakeThe Underwater Welderif you likedEssex Countyor if you want to know what Lemire does when he is alone in charge. It is the more personal of the two, the more stripped down, and the one that most resembles the rest of his intimate work.
TakeTrilliumif you come from science fiction, or if the idea of a book that plays with its own object appeals to you. It is the most formally spectacular, and the only one in his bibliography that pushes experimentation this far.
An honest reservation aboutTrillium: the reverse reading device works perfectly in soft issues, less well in bound collections. Some bound editions have had to rearrange the pages, which lessens the effect. If you are interested in the process as such, look for the original booklets.
The collection trap onTrillium:this is one of the rare cases where the original format is not only more authentic, it's functionally different. A collection that has linearized the flipping plates does not contain the same reading experience, even if the text and drawings are identical.
So note the format in your catalog, not just the title. This is one of the rare series where “I have it in a collection” and “I have it in numbers” do not mean the same thing.
Their place in the work
These two books come just afterSweet Toothand just before Lemire moved to Image as author of long series. They mark a shift: it is the last moment when he publishes entirely personal short stories beforeGo down,Black HammeretGideon Fallsoccupy his calendar.
We can readThe Underwater Welderas the fourth unofficial part ofEssex County: same region of Canada, same absent father, same man unable to speak. The difference is the profession — welder rather than farmer or hockey player — and water, which replaces snow as white space.
Trillium, he announces what Lemire will do later with Andrea Sorrentino onGideon Falls: make the composition of the page the place where the story happens. The difference is that he does it alone here, which makes the result rougher and, according to readers, more endearing.
Halloween, and the only time marker in the book
A detail ofThe Underwater Welderdeserves to be noted because it structures the entire story without ever being commented on: the action takes place on Halloween night, and the disappearance of the father took place on Halloween night.
Lemire never exploits the horrific potential of the date. No menacing disguises, no movie atmosphere. Halloween is for one thing: it's the night when there are knocks on doors, where children are waiting for their father, and where Jack's father hasn't come home. The party becomes the anniversary of abandonment.
This refusal to exploit a setting that lends itself to it is characteristic. Lemire systematically takes the most coded elements — the superhero, the ghost, the sea monster, the costume party — and refuses to make them what the genre expects. This is also what explains why his books circulate well beyond the comic book readership: there is never a code to know to enter.
Formats and availability
The Underwater Welderwas published directly as a single volume by Top Shelf, with a subsequent reissue. There is therefore no cutting puzzle: one book, one object. It's the easiest to buy in the entire bibliography.
Trilliumexists in 8 soft issues and in collection. As noted above, the two formats do not provide exactly the same reading — a rare case that is best known before purchasing.
A word on the state of the second-hand market: these two titles have not experienced the surge seenSweet ToothouBlack Hammer, one carried by a television adaptation, the other by an extended universe. They remain accessible, even in good condition, which makes them reasonable entries into the work for those who want to discover it without committing a budget.
Both titles circulated in French, with irregular availability depending on the period. As with the rest of the work, check the pagination and numbers covered rather than relying on the title alone.
Frequently asked questions
No, both are completely self-contained and require no prior reading. They are even good tests: short, finished, and representative of two very different facets of his work.
Less good. Plates designed to be read by turning the booklet over lose some of their effect when they are reorganized into a bound volume. If the formal process is what appeals to you, look for the original soft numbers.
No, and it's a complete story in one volume, with no sequels or recurring characters. A film adaptation has been mentioned several times without ever coming to fruition to date, which has no impact on the book. It is entirely self-sufficient, and that is precisely what makes it a good gift. A film adaptation has been mentioned several times without success to date. The book is entirely self-sufficient.
The Underwater Welderwithout hesitation. It is a unique volume, without reference to any universe, whose subject — becoming a father when you have not had a father — speaks to any reader.Trilliumrequires more familiarity with comics so that its device is a pleasure rather than an obstacle.
ForTrillium, yes, unlike most series. Soft issues and collection do not provide the same reading, which makes them two distinct objects and not two packages of the same content. This is one of the rare exceptions to the general rule.
The format matters as much as the title
Record the edition and format of each volume, not just the work — on some books it's not the same reading.