2000 AD: The Ultimate Collection #107. Originally serialised in 2000 AD Progs 1978-1992 & 2023-2040.

It’s April 2016. 2000 AD works perfectly well when it’s just being ridiculously entertaining. The 5-6 page serial format lends itself to fast-paced action that drags you back next week, or keeps you hooked reading a collection edition. But the anthology format also means there’s room for something different, something more immersive and slower-paced. Welcome to the Brink.

While there’s been quite a few series across these two Collections that I’ve known almost nothing about, Brink was one that I knew was popular in the modern 2000 AD output. The basic premise – detectives on future space stations – would have hooked me anyway, but the involvement of INJ Culbard on art placed this on my “can’t wait to get to it” list. I’d already encountered Culbard’s work prior to commencing this project, thanks to a second-hand copy of Brass Sun (coming up later on this blog) – but more importantly, his adaptations of a handful of H.P. Lovecraft’s works for Self Made Hero. Not to get too far off track with a review within a review, but I can’t recommend the collected book Lovecraft highly enough. It’s simply beautiful.

This is definitely one of those posts where I’ll highlight the art first before the writing, as it’s absolutely the lynchpin of Brink’s success as a comic. Something about Culbard’s work has always insistently appealed to me, and I find it difficult to articulate what it is exactly. It’s a deceptively simple style, with broad brush lines and mostly flat colours. But his mastery of character and setting is just incredible, and he has some magical ability to place believable people into fantastical settings that blows me away.

It’s particularly important for Brink, which operates by taking an almost mundane and workaday approach to the business of being in space, but hints at an unsettling and dark world just beyond it. It’s interesting to compare with The Ten-Seconders from last week, where I wasn’t able to get a sense of the characters as a reader. Culbard’s style is much less detailed than any of the motley crew of artists we got last week, but I am never in any doubt on a single page of this book which character is which and what they are doing. It’s a vital grounding for the series, and gives us clear emotional connections to the main characters – particularly the magnificent Bridget Kurtis, who is well developed by writer Dan Abnett but absolutely comes alive in Culbard’s art.

And the colouring on this series! I don’t know if I’ve ever really gotten into colouring on this blog, mainly due to a lack of technical knowledge and a bias towards the written word. But Culbard’s colouring choices and techniques are incredible across both stories collected in this Volume, and demand attention. Brink is determinedly in a hard sci-fi world, but Culbard employs some fairly “un-sci-fi” colours throughout, with sections drenched in greens, reds, and purples. It’s all hugely atmospheric and drags the reader into the world.

With that meeting of the INJ Culbard Fan Club over, we have to also give props to Abnett for coming up with yet another knockout idea for a 2000 AD strip. In broad strokes, Brink deals with the remaining human population that has fled the dying Earth and live in corporation-owned space stations, protected by Investigators from the Habitat Security Division. Abnett draws on a range of cultural touchpoints to streamline his storytelling, from detective dramas to noir novels, as well as movies such as 2001: A Space Odyssey.

But the plot itself, which deals with two Investigators falling deeper into a world of sects, almost becomes secondary at times to a slow exploration of what being human means in this extreme situation. How do we respond to constant stress and claustrophobia, when we’re pushed to the brink? This is more philosophical and exploratory than the anthology-based comic often goes, but Abnett provides the reader a huge amount to chew over.

Abnett also manages to deliver something new in terms of his approach to storytelling as well, no mean feat for a writer as prolific as he is. Language has always played a vital role in Abnett’s series, used to build the world of a particular strip through strange turns of phrase or invented terminology (Sinister Dexter and Kingdom do this particularly well). Here, Abnett uses language in a very specific way, by stripping it back and going for an almost utilitarian approach. The unusual language is reserved for the world of the sects, and it’s just a few careful phrases that only appear rarely but have dramatic effects on the characters. Abnett’s used language and terminology previously to reveal meaning, in relation to the worlds he is building. That’s cleverly inverted here, where words only point to hidden meanings that can’t be understood. It absolutely adds to the unsettling atmosphere of the series.

With two quite lengthy stories to play with (15 episodes for Brink [2016] and 18 for Skeleton Life [2017] respectively), Abnett doesn’t go for sprawling action and incident, but instead a slow burn approach. It’s a great use of the anthology format, with lots of time for characters to just interact and become fleshed out. The mysteries themselves are given time to develop, and the action when it does come is sharp and punchy.

Honestly, this might come close to being one of the most flawless collections I’ve covered on this project. It’s a series that absolutely wears its influences on its sleeve, but yet somehow feels utterly unique – an impressive feat for a comic going into its 40th year. It’s fantastic to finally be able to spend some time with one of my favourite comic artists as well, and luckily there’s more Culbard to come. I’m hopeful Volume Two will continue the success of this opening collection, but this is most definitely a series I’ll be following from now on.

Next time: It’s time to join up with the Fiends of the Eastern Front.