Terror at the Border

By Joe Hilliard

I'm going to put a dent in my horror movie credibility here. I haven't actually seen any of the After Dark Horrrofest 8 Films to Die For of 2007. At the time, none of them really jumped out at me. But that's changed after checking out the Borderland comic by Jason M. Burns and Paul Tucker from Viper Comics. It's not an adaptation of the film, but presented as slip into that same world. A related tale of similar circumstances and consequences.

With its lurid red cover and silhouette of a body hanging upside down, the words "Based on a True Story" neatly on the horizon line, the comic certainly jumps off the shelf. The story itself is a true story in the same vein The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is presented as such. Burns story hinges on the basics of the Adolfo de Jesús Constanzo case in Mexico: con man, drug dealer and cult priest extraordinaire who sacrificed humans to ensure his drug trade, and whose ultimate mistake was killing an American student in Mexico while on Spring Break. Burns does an excellent job of hanging a more supernatural tone on those bones. By shifting back and forth in time, he ratchets up the tension in the situation. Somehow, subconsciously, we know this is going to end badly, and yet Burns neatly maintains our hopes, building them up again and again as we follow our hapless college students. The parallel journeys of the college students and a Texas Ranger retracing their steps two days later create a swirling kaleidoscope of back alleys, desertscapes, hidden rooms and hidden agendas. Nothing is as it seems, and yet everything is exactly what it is presented to be.

The art by Paul Tucker only magnifies the seamier aspects of the story. Nothing is pretty. Nothing is dignified. People are blocky and blobby. Their faces are messes. These college kids aren't Ashton Kutcher and the bargirls aren't Salma Hayek. They look like normal people. Everyday people. I particularly liked the blurring effect on close-ups of the faces in certain panels spread throughout the book. It's subtle, and yet, when you look again, the displacing effect is disorienting. It builds this distorted undercurrent to the proceedings, something malevolent blurring the gaps. Tucker's work fits the seamy tone of the book very well. There isn't a colorist listed, so I presume the colors are Tucker's as well. The muted dark palette that permeates the early sequences again helps capture the disorientation. And makes the sudden bright white of day near the end of the book that much more potent.

Which is not to say the book is perfect. Much like its horror movie counterparts, the book relies heavily on stock figures for its characterizations. The college students couldn't be much more the ugly American with their patronizing attempts at Spanish, loutish behavior and insensitivity. The Mexican characters run the gamut of the loose, the depraved, the corrupted. The border town is a collection of cantinas, back alleys and charnel houses. Not pretty. Most of the characters fail to rise above the stereotype, making sympathy for the college students hard to come by. Burns mitigates this to some degree with his portrayal of the Texas Ranger and his Mexican counterpart who doggedly pursue the path taken by the students. In a short, 24 page comic, it's hard to create strong characterizations, but the lack of depth hurts the resonance of the story.

Do I recommend Borderland? It's a qualified yes. If you like seamy crime tales, yes. If you like detective stories with a supernatural undercurrent, yes. If those don't appeal to you, this book won't change your mind. I fall into those categories, and I ended up finding the book fascinating and chilling. Check it out.

Borderland was a one-shot that came out in December 2007, and is still available through Viper Comics. The website for the 8 Films to Die For is: http://www.horrorfestonline.com/.Writer Jason M. Burns' website is: http://www.jasonmburns.com/. Viper Comics website is: http://www.vipercomics.com/.

And coming next, a review of the Wulf & Batsy, also from Viper Comics.

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