Shawn Huelle

Trees (issues 1-8) by Warren Ellis & Jason Howard

On page seven of issue seven, the professor character refers to the spaces that have grown up under the Trees as "interzones," an obvious reference to William S. Burroughs, but the professor characterizes these interzones negatively, saying, "Nothing good grows in the shadow of a Tree." Lots of things grow in the shadows of the Trees over the course of the first 8 issues of Ellis and Howard's graphic novel, not all of them bad. The community under the Chinese Tree, for example, seems to be the sort of utopian interzone Burroughs had envisioned, a place where one can "live differently . . . be comfortable and safe" and not "work for a living." But can one think of Burroughs' visions as utopian, or does he mix utopia and dystopia in much the same way Ellis then does: The bad gets worse and the good gets destroyed (every place in The Cities of the Red Night that starts out living under the Articles eventually sinks into depravity, right (or do they start out depraved?)?)? It's not yet clear what destruction means in the case of Trees. It might mean just that, or it might mean rebirth, which could, if one is honest, be much, much worse.