Border Town From Vertigo Takes All The Right Risks

Writer: Eric M. Esquivel / Artists: Ramon Villalobos and Tamra Bonvillain / Vertigo Comics Hormones and Horrors In pop culture, paranormal stories with adolescent protagonists conjure up a mental checklist of tropes. Familiarity can breed a wearying predictability. “Here are some teens, in a town with a sinister secret,” a typical summary of this genre might say. “Together, they’ll struggle through adolescence and against supernatural forces. ‘Hormones and Horrors’ premieres this fall! ” Confronted with an echo chamber of similarity, the only way for genre stories to stand out is to be a statement rather than an imitation. Then again, that’s the risk; isn’t it? Tales about characters pulled between mysterious activity and pre-adulthood thrive because of their enduring theme: encountering something out of the ordinary in a time of societal pressure to fit in. Conformity guarantees community. To define yourself, to be about something, risks isolation. So from the first panel of the first page to the final reveal of the issue, Border Town #1 knows exactly what it is. It is a risk, but in the broadening era of prestige television and long-form serialized narrative it’s also a gift not to be underestimated. Devils In The Details “The American Dream is dead. Viva the American Nightmare.”

Perhaps a lesser creative team might give cause for concern approaching such subject matter. By opening on a self-appointed white American border patrol on the hunt for migrants crossing from M…