X'ed Out: Charles Burns

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To judge Charles Burns' X'ed Out immediately would be unfair; being the first of a series, it's kinda hard to tell where this one is going. Sure, the first installment always sets the tone, always, for what will be one's lingering, nagging initial impression of it all, the one opinion that, no matter how long and dragging or short and succinct the entire series is, you will never be rid of. Charles Burns hat einmal mehr eine Ausnahme-Graphic Novel vorgelegt, die das Potenzial der Gattung zeigt, es qualitativ mit großen Romane aufnehmen zu können. Reading X'ed out is like staring at a Salvador Dali painting. The familiar mixed in with the morbid. The real mixed in with the surreal. There are no linear plot lines here. On no sir. X'ed out is almost manically multi layered.

Sugar Skull was an immensely disappointing let-down to what has otherwise been a fascinating series. Charles Burns explains everything in this final volume of his X’ed Out Trilogy, which is something you’ll either appreciate, because you hate any ambiguity at the end of a story, or dislike because that’s not consistent with the way this has been written thus far. You have a reputation for meticulous work. Is it just a question that every step takes a lot of time? The main character is Doug (sometimes Dougy, sometimes Johnny 23). The reader plays uncomfortable voyeur to Doug’s quest – a quest that is never fully defined but revealed in stages, a quest at the intersection of the sacred and the profane. His daily activity is easy enough, if painful, to follow. We see the women he dates and the relationships that bloom and wilt. We see his attempts to be an artist in a world of hollow fakes that inevitably “make it” (or at least are accepted by the crowds, but that doesn’t denote substance), while he goes misunderstood both by others and by himself as he comes to terms with his ambitions, failings, and the potential hollowness of his own efforts. We see the ways he grapples with the loss of his father, as well as the ways he avoids dealing with it. Through his father he reveals parallel preoccupations with “the one who got away”, the ultimate significance of which the reader is left to interpret herself. In many cases there seems to be a disconnect with regards to the reality in the comic, and in some cases it seems to follow the format of Fun Home, where the story does not have some definite beginning or end, but rather seems to act within some sort of circular form, as can be expected from the new form of literature. The story itself (and this is only part one, which is really annoying because the story does not come to some conclusion but is left on a cliff hanger, which seems to have annoyed some readers, though by glancing through the other commentaries there seems to be the strong suggestion that this is the nature of the work of Charles Burns) certainly has a beginning, but where the actually story begins not not necessarily all that clear in this album.The most impressive thing about the book, in my opinion, is the incredible use of symbolism throughout. It's more profound upon second reading, and who knows, even more, and Burns has a talent in taking mundane objects like a purple dressing gown, an apartment buzzer, or a glass of water, and soaking them with meaning and emotional weight. These are the main things that link Doug and Nitnit, other than their vague resemblance. Xavier Guilbert: While in the Nitnit trilogy, with this subdivision, you’re using it to break the rhythm, to have successions of very short cuts, and in the end, it brings the storytelling towards fragmentation.

I think, too, this trilogy is in some ways formally a tribute to William Burroughs and the kind of storytelling surrealism Burroughs did. Burns shows us a single, clearly and (maybe) lovingly rendered portrait of William Burroughs in this volume as a clue to the considered madness of his method. What's the feeling of it? Dream, but often nightmare, that really infuses his work, or seems to. A resolution to Doug's relationship with Sarah takes place, we get to learn what all the recurring fetus/egg images may mean (or not). Time expands, we move into the future, other men, other women, work their ways into the narrative. There's other connotations as well. There's the whole punk culture where you're "X'ing" yourself out of "mainstream society." That was a theme than ran through that whole entire period.Nightmarish but oddly innocent… some of his most visually mesmerizing and handsomely presented work to date.”— Santa Cruz Metro This is a complex, multi-layered narrative with a classic unreliable protagonist…. Burns’ art is sensational. The images from Johnny’s story are genuinely disturbing on every level. As always, his characters tap into various archetypes of American youth and family life, but with a sinister edge showing darkness behind the American dream. Burns’ work is seductive, disquieting and original and if you don’t already have the separate volumes, this is a great chance to read the story for the first time.” —The Quietus El mundo de fuera es el de siempre, el de dentro, seguro, el que puede tener cualquiera que esté a nuestro lado, sin nosotros saberlo.

Images, scenes, phrases noticeably begin repeating immediately. The Japanese romance comic that opens the book re-tells the story of how Doug met Sarah in the first book, and then later we discover Sarah loved to read old romance comics that Doug bought her at a flea market. In each version of the stories Doug is telling, romance comics play a part, and, mirroring this series and his own life, there are issues missing in between the comics Sarah is reading so she’s not getting the whole story. The comics seem to be the key to Doug’s story AND comics are how we’ll find out Doug’s full story. Layer upon layer of meta detail! In the tradition of the Franco-Belgian albums, where there's usually a few years in between volumes. Xavier Guilbert: Would you say that the dream world, with the hive, was more of a challenge for you? Because that’s definitely the part of the story that’s the closest to the ligne claire.Xavier Guilbert: It’s not as positive as a river, because there’s a lot of sewers pouring out into it… it’s not really a positive image. i blame comic book nerds for this and for everything. charles burns seems to think that now that graphic novels have "arrived" on the NPR scene, and literate adults with the love of a good pencil line and a more complex storyline than "zap" or "pow" will still somehow retain the same collectivist impulses of pimply comicbook preteens who buy two copies and immediately slip one into a protective mylar cocoon. he is counting on the collector tendencies. Bizarre, haunting, horrific, funny…Burns is skilled at paralyzing readers, and leading us into worlds we never knew existed.”— USA Today The Burroughs influence is just as strong -- the Moroccan Interzone-world where Doug has layered his memories in 'Naked Lunch'-nightmares -- and it signals Doug's state of mind as a morphine addict, as well as the horrors of withdrawal. We also learn that there is nothing in Doug's life so horrible that it justifies his fear. He's a coward, which is no doubt a terrifying revelation itself. He really is Nitnit, the reverse of Tintin. If Tintin represents bravery, curiosity, and a love of life, Doug has become the anti-Tintin. Burns is gifted at rendering a peculiar mix of lust and innocence…The brilliance of this volume of X’ed Out is that Burns’s mirroring of Herge’s visual and thematic motifs never seems heavy-handed…a masterful volume”— Book Forum