Creepy cool. ( )

I picked this up on a whim from the library from the graphic novels display. I'd heard the name Charles Burns, but aside from perhaps a collection of authors, had not read any of his work.

His non-linear storytelling, graphics style, and typography are all appealing to me. What was not appealing was that this is not a stand-alone volume. In fact, after reading it, I knew very little of the storyline at all-- and not enough to ensure that I will pick up the next volume.

Bound in hardcover, I was expecting a standalone or at least a complete story in a collection of others. However, in fact, the scene shown on the cover of the book does not even happen in this volume.

Burns's style is much more intriguing in color than in black and white (I picked up a collection in which he appeared as a featured author, but in black and white, to compare) and I think he's heading somewhere interesting with _X'ed Out_: a story which plays with the malleability of memory, family patterns, memory loss, mental illness, identity...with a nice dose of a possible parallel universe thrown in. Maybe.

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This modest-length graphic novel is in the Belgian-French physical format for these things, and it visually cites TinTin. It recounts a portal fantasy and/or drug trip stitched together with quotidian flashbacks. It is introduced and internally linked with "the part where I wake up and I don't know where I am." The end points to more engagement with the fantasy world and resolves the volume as the opening chapter of a longer work.

I enjoy Burns' art, and a highlight of this book is the shifting self-image of the protagonist Doug. While visually consistent characters can be useful for illustrated narrative, the range of depictions here help to open a register of psychological reflection.

A cross between William S. Burroughs and TinTin. I think a lot of reviewers get this book all wrong. Has more to do with Expressionism and Surrealism than conventional story telling. There is a lot of criticism of "dream sequences and imagery." This gets it all wrong too. There is no way to separate dream from reality here. The protagonist keeps "waking up" (with more or less hair) to the next reality, not the next dream. This has more in common with P.K. Dick themes about the nature of reality than anything else. This is another graphic novel that is going to appeal to the snobs who never stoop to reading comics or GNs. I guess that's okay and a good thing for Charles Burns. It will still appeal to the geek comic book folks, which is a good thing too. Next up in October, part 2, The Hive. ( )

Good art *shrug* ( )