Border Worlds

by Don Simpson, Stephen R. Bissette (Afterword)

With her life in chaos and nothing left to lose, Jenny Woodlore joins her brother's ramshackle trucking business on Chrysalis, a huge floating platform on the edge of the galaxy — only to find herself in the middle of a cosmic conflict that could change the very fabric of the universe.

A dark and visionary adventure, Don Simpson's epic Border Worlds is now available in a single, hardcover volume, gathering the back-up features first published by the Kitchen Sink Press in issues #6 to #10 of Megaton Man as well as its own self-titled series and the one-shot Border Marooned . Simpson has also added an all-new chapter that finally brings his acclaimed work to a long-anticipated conclusion.
As a special bonus, this special edition includes an in-depth Afterword by legendary comics artist, editor, and publisher Stephen R. Bissette.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels

344 pages, Hardcover

First published August 15, 2017

About the author

Donald E. Simpson is a Writer-Artist-Teacher-Learner and the Cartoonist-Creator of the graphic novel Megaton Man™ as well as the comic series Border Worlds™ and Bizarre Heroes™.
Under the pseudonym Anton Drek, he created Wendy Whitebread and Forbidden Frankenstein. During the ‘80s and ‘90s, Simpson cartooned for almost every major and independent comic book publisher including Marvel, DC, Image, and Archie. He has more recently published his works with Fantagraphics. In 2013, Simpson earned a PhD in art and architectural history from the University of Pittsburgh. In 2023, he finally paid off his student loans without any government forgiveness.

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Down and out, Jenny Woodlore travels to the space station Chrysalis to work with her brother in his shipping business. By the time she arrives, her brother's business is a shambles and the space station itself may be in jeopardy...

Aeons ago, I read some Don Simpson books like Megaton Man and Bizarre Heroes. When It's Alive had their May sale, I bought this, vaguely remembering ads for it in the back of various Kitchen Sink Comix.

Okay, I misjudged Dandy Don Simpson over the years because he has some serious drawing chops. Some of the art reminds me of EC sci-fi like Wally Wood and Al Williamson. There's also some Moebius in here, typically in the space suits and the space station itself. The art is slick and detailed, nothing like what Don did on Megaton Man or Bizarre heroes.

The story starts off on a small scale and ratchets up. Jenny's personal life is in a shambles but nothing compared to her brother's and certainly not the degrading orbit of Chrysalis. Jenny tries to get her brother's shipping business going before getting caught up in something else all together.

I only have a couple gripes on this. One is that the art edits and the final chapter are a different style, which is jarring, but probably couldn't be helped since Don was doing them over a long period of time. My much bigger gripe is that it isn't finished! This is just book one and the rest of the saga doesn't exist!

As far as the first volume of never finished epics go, Border Worlds is hard to beat. Four out of five stars.

[Matt (Science Fiction Reads) · Rating 5 out of 5]

"...Our destinies are at the mercy of a dead man I've never met."

An awesome dark, noir, hard Sci-fi comic that I couldn't help but think would have made a better novel. It was interesting to read in the afterword that Don Simpson feels the same way. Its a shame the story remains unfinished. One of the most important plot points, (Why the rulers of the space station refuse to acknowledge its imminent demise) is never revealed. In fact, after 330 pages it still feels like the story is only just getting started. There's a lot left unfinished. This was my first experience reading a comic book/story, I've never had the slightest interest in the medium but with any luck, after some searching, I may find something that comes close to the Sci-fi subject matter and tone of Border Worlds. I absolutely loved it.

[Greg Trosclair · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this and was sad to get to the end. I miss Don Simpson artwork. I miss reading Megaton Man.

Anyway, Border Worlds was a nice starting point for a longer series that never happened. I would have enjoyed following Jenny Woodlore to the conclusion of her story. The book takes place on a space station far out i the Galaxy. Jenny Woodlore goes out there after losing her job on Earth to be with her brother and be a part of the family space trucking business. Unfortunately there is no business but a fancy escape car that she turns into a cab for lack of a better explanation. There are greater issues to deal with and Jenny gets caught up in them.

I enjoyed the book. I liked the art and the story. My only complaint might be that the story may never see an end.

[Paul Goracke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wanted to like this. Can see the influences and precursors yet was its own thing. I enjoyed the first couple hundred pages then it got sloppy with large scale conspiracies, rebellions, and characters that were barely more than sketched out.

Had a hard time rating this. Started 4 (enjoyed, would recommend), leveled the middle to 3 (meh, but I can see that others would enjoy), then 2 (would not recommend) the last hundred pages.

[Jefferson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit dated in terms of the art style, but still a great example of the "anything goes" creativity of 1980s independent comics.

[Leif · Rating 3 out of 5]

Striking SF art in the grimy future vein coupled with so-so, sometimes grotesque character designs.

The writing being a little "meh" and the inconsistency in the author's visual style* are definite detriments...as well as his occasionally ridiculous images of women. This can be chalked up to being a product of it's times, but...I still think they are pretty silly.

Definitely worth a glance if you are a fan of the production design of various late 70s SF films.

*To be fair, he addresses this in an excellent afterword by Stephen Bissette.

[Bill · Rating 3 out of 5]

The original Border Worlds was a comic book that ran in the late 1980s. This book collects the entire series and some previously unpublished pages (although a few of the major plotlines are not resolved.) Some sections seem prose heavy to me, and not all the artistic styles work. But there's some excellent world-building here and some strong female protagonists, from a time when they were fairly rare.

[E · Rating 3 out of 5]

- while reading i wondered why this wasnt seminal sci fi comic canon
- but the story didn't go anywhere, abruptly ended, characters didn't make up the difference, no beating heart behind the nudie bits either
- great grimy aesthetics, great art for most of it tho

[Jason Arnett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good science fiction noir from a terrific artist.

[Googoogjoob · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is kind of an odd beast- an ambitious, arty sci-fi epic which never got off the ground, for a combination of economic and artistic reasons.

"Border Worlds" was initially a side-story in creator Don Simpson's well-known series "Megaton Man." This incarnation of the story ran for five issues. The episodes are short and relatively rudimentary in their storytelling, giving snapshots of the story of Jenny Woodlore, an Earth woman who's ended up running a taxi service off of a far-flung space station, Chrysalis. Despite the brevity of these chapters, they already show an interest in experimentation with their presentation and storytelling (eg the fifth episode takes the form of a series of dual-page spreads captioned with a nameless law officer's report on events that took place in the first episode). These are in color.

Then "Megaton Man" ended, and "Border Worlds" was its own standalone book. This lasted for seven issues. The art is black and white, but more fluid and vital than before, with strong use of light and shade, and the page compositions are more ambitious. (The downside to this is that there are some panels that span both pages of a spread, and sometimes there's important stuff near the center- which naturally gets lost in the binding, and diminishes the effect of the spread.) Simpson experiments more with style and tone here, and the storytelling is slow and moody. The story expands to cover two main threads- Jenny & co. on the run from the law with two fugitives from an oppressive imperial Earth; Dr. Beecher, the designer of Chrysalis, struggles to save the station from an impending doom which is denied by the station's reactionary leadership- and a few minor ones, including the fate of supposedly-dead smuggler Rory Smash.

Then, a few years after that book ended in mid-stream, Border Worlds was a one-off attempted revival, "Marooned"- the first issue of an intended four-part miniseries, which thus ends quite inconclusively.

Then, 25-odd years later, Border Worlds is this, a slick hardcover compiling all of the previous (minus a gratuitous sex scene, excised from "Marooned" by an older and wiser Don Simpson, less interested in shocking his readers' sensibilities), and adding a newly-created epilogue that brings the series to a close.

The ending is tenuous in the extreme, and leaves many loose ends; this is implicitly acknowledged- instead of "the end," the last page reads "END BOOK ONE." Border Worlds is over, but it hasn't really ended, and it was probably never going to reach a proper ending- it was intended more as a space in which Don Simpson could explore the genre and format, making it up as he went along, varying the pace and style at will. And that's fine! It means the series has a vitality that persists to this day. I enjoyed it.

Also appended to this collection is a long, useful afterword by Stephen Bissette, which explains the series's history and context.

[Dominick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh. Mildly creative space opera in comics form, not helped by the piecemeal publication and incompleteness.