X'ed Out: Charles Burns

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But I like that feeling of collecting puzzle pieces with the hope that by the end I'll have some understanding of the bigger picture. The fragments of the past collide with the reality of the present, nightmarish dreams evolve into an even more dreadful reality, and when you finally find out where all of this has been going, and what it means.

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. I'm about to read The Hive next—if I can glimpse a narrative among the hairless mole-people, maybe I will go back and retroactively give this book another star.There is a kind of suspension of disbelief to all of his works; 'quicksandish' in ability to take you down slowly; very effective in scope. Burns's style was a source of inspiration for Martin Ander's artwork for Fever Ray, Karin Dreijer Andersson's solo project. I picked up Charles Burns' Black Hole a few years ago when it first appeared, and was amazed by his drawing, which elevates into art a style I first discovered in Jack T. Through the hole there is the remains of an enclosed dump, a black river, logs, some creature floating by asking ‘Numm?

Currently, New Zealand’s Karl Wills uses the look in his punk “Jessica of the Schoolyard” series, and filmmaker Steven Spielberg’s Tintin adaptation is supposed to appear as a 2011 Christmas release. Doug escapes from the Hive and then falls into a river where he floats until he climbs onto a rickety wooden bridge and passes out. Burns’ art is on point though; the illustrations are always crisp and viscerally disturbing (when necessary. In 2007 Burns contributed material for the French made animated horror anthology Fear(s) of the Dark. Some of what he is about can be deduced or indicated from recurring images: A man’s face; dead foetuses; eggs; a pink blanket; television screens, and so on.

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. After graduation he submitted strips to punk zines and free advertising papers across the US, toting his portfolio around and looking for commercial work.