X'ed Out

An alternating pattern of panels at the front of Charles Burns' latest work in comic art, X'ed Out, presents (almost theatrically) the story to come in the truest and simplest form of comic language. The six by three arrangement of vertical panels (solid black, black, red, red, etc.) sets the precedent for the panel structure of every page to follow. The visual tension of the two colors set on the white background reflects the sometimes sharp and painful moments found within as well as the jumps in the story from the dream world to the real world, and from memory to memory. And look: don't the black panels together form an "X"? The red panels a crude "O"?X'ed Out is the first book in what will ultimately be a three volume series. The format of the book is based on a European comic album (Tim Hensley's Wally Gropius, released earlier this year, is presented similarly) and is printed in beautiful full color (Burns' work is normally presented in a strikingly graphic black and white). On one side of this checkerboard of a story is Doug, an art school student in 1970's America who reads his William Burroughs inspired poetry at punk shows and snaps photos with his Polaroid SX-70 instant camera; on the other side is Doug's dream-world alter-ego Nitnit, a character homage to one of modern comics more important ancestors, Hergé's Tintin. For the story, Burns' drew on his own subconscious influences and conscious memories, collected over the span of his lifetime and arranged à la Burroughs' cut-up into the final product.Tintin, though, is perhaps the most important influence found in the pages of X'ed Out. Burns' has been creating loving tributes to the adventurous boy reporter and his band of misfit friends for some time now -- the back cover of his 1992 collection Blood Club and the endpapers of 1999's El Borbah are both direct references to images from the original Tintin albums, in both cases a cast of Burns' own characters replacing Hergé's.A quote from "Dr. Jerry" (Burns himself) on the back of Blood Club reads:Pictures within pictures for children who aren't quite sure what they're looking at.Burns was introduced to the Tintin series when he was a young child, even before he could read the text in the speech bubbles. His family owned just a few of the volumes, so the drawings he saw on the back cover and endpapers would fill him with intrigue, offering only the most frustratingly small clues to the adventures awaiting him in the other books, unknown characters and places. Later on in his youth, a friend showed him a French language version of The Shooting Star (the Tintin book from which X'ed Out borrows its cover imagery), and once again blocked by a language barrier, Burns was unable to read the whole story.X'ed Out, like Burns' early experience with Tintin, is a tale of fragmented and missing pieces. Burns (no surprise here) employs the comic book medium with mastery, pushing the unique visual strengths of the medium to their maximum potential. The book becomes a flip-through puzzle, a dreamy labyrinth of colors and snapshot memories. Solid color panels (like the black and red panels mentioned at the start) litter the book, serving as bumps between moments in time and space and creating a tense psychological atmosphere by teasing out connections that may or may not have any significance (notice, for example, the color of the green panel below compared to the color of Sarah's shirt).Repeating images do the same -- the endpapers offer up a few of the more frequently used, like a running river, Mary with the Christ-child, and fetal pig in a jar, to name a few. These repetitions don't answer any questions but instead build up the importance of certain moments in the story and tie them together emotionally -- for example, Nitnit is awoken on the first page by a BZZZZZ which readers can link to the BZZZZZZ! of Sarah's intercom, or even to the ZZZZZ of Doug's tape player during his performance. And I would be remiss if I failed to mention the eggs, oh those eggs! "You like eggs, right?"As if this all weren't enough, hardcore fans of Burns or X'ed Out will be pleased to know that much more of the story of Doug and Nitnit exists outside of this volume (or even the following two). Monthly magazine The Believer has already published a few of what Burns has called "sketchbook" comic strips under the title Random Access, small snippets of inspiration which may or may not have anything to do with the final story (though one strip does feature a lot of eggs). Inspired by Chinese bootleg versions of Tintin books, Burns has also been working on a series of "foreign cover" prints of Nitnit comic album covers, and will soon be publishing in France his own limited edition "knockoff" of X'ed Out. His "pirated" version will tell a completely different narrative by rearranging the panels of the original comic. It will be printed in just one color, and will be written in a made-up language of Burns' design (recall the noseless man who tries to sell Nitnit that terrified grub-creature, or the text in the ads and posters in Nitnit's world). X'ed Out alone is a terrific comic that fans can really dig deep into, but by telling such a story through so many different channels, Burns has elevated not just his own art, but comic art in general.

Charles Burns is a unique and mysterious artist. I find his stuff surreal and spooky and suffused with mid-century American symbology. I buy all of his books that I can reasonable find. I've had a few quality issues with some of the shipments, but this particular seller there were no problems like that, the book was shrink wrapped and came in a sturdy cardboard mailer.

It is a good comic, and if you aren't familiar with Charles Burns' work, you're missing out. His drawing and writing is beautiful, weird, smart, and powerful. I consider him one of the 5 best cartoonists working today. HOWEVER, this is part of a continuing series that will be reprinted in one volume, eventually, at a much more reasonable price. That's just not a good value, and the story doesn't resolve in any satisfying way; there are just a few nice moments (and the amazing art.) I expect in 5 years or so he'll have built it into a masterpiece. For now, though, there's 56 pages of comics in here for a cover price of twenty dollars. It took me 10-15 minutes to read it. They have to charge that much because they know it won't sell well, but die hard fans will shell out the money for anything he does. It's like the hardcover mark-up on steroids. As recently as five years ago, this would have been printed as 2 comic books for 4 each. It pains me to watch the comic business continue to fade into irrelevance and possibly extinction. So don't listen to my review. Buy this book. Help these brilliant, under-appreciated artists out and keep this wonderful medium alive. If enough readers buy them, prices will drop. But I don't see that happening, so I'll call it like I see it: overpriced.

What can I say about this new adventure? Well for starters, it's like, he's revisiting "Black Hole" Alley again, -in a manner of speaking- the vibe is sort of the same way, but the colors add a bit more to it so it's not entirely the same at all. A combination between David Lynch's Eraserhead, *I don't know why but he was the first to pop up, you'll see why* Tin Tin, Dr. Seuss? *mainly because of all the randomly bizarre colored eggs* and the eccentricity of William S. Burroughs, at some point even a bit of C.S. Lewis (as it starts to build up a bit ~more specifically when crosses the wall to another world~ (sorry for the spoiler!) Maybe there's other better suggestions that are more inclined to it but that's the mash up I thought of as soon as I finished it. I hear there's still some more material, maybe a trilogy? I'm anxiously waiting for the others! Been a Charles Burns fan since I was like 17 years old *I'm 23 now* so yeah pretty much. Never thought I'd do a review, but here I am, giving it a whirl, because this is worth the time! If you like "X'ed Out" you should think about getting Black Hole, it's a masterpiece!

I bloody love Charles burns... he is the man! I've read everything he's done. I finally tried X'ed Out after reading all of his older stuff. Black Hole was such a fantastic book and I figured this newer book he did might be on the same level.It was... kind of... sort of... I'm not sure if he did this in a book format because he couldn't get it published as a comic? I don't know, maybe it was. It should have been released as a comic because it lacks too much to be bound in a hardcover book.All the goodies exist in the book... trippy visuals, great art, symbolism, beautiful women, erotic goods... but you never knew where it was going. Unlike a Lost episode where you never knew what the hell was going on, they always gave you enough of the puzzle or a morsel to keep you satisfied. This book left too many things open. I wish I knew it had a to-be-continued ending, because I wouldn't have bought it. I would have waited until all the books are out. I finished this book in about 45 minutes and I was a dissapointed as the pages started running out the end as I had nothing to sink my teeth into.Sorry Charlie... I'm 99.9% sure when all the books are released that I'll score it 5 stars; but, it was published in 2010, and were now in 2012. That's a hell of a wait.

Certainly worth a look but perhaps lacking substance. I can't see myself returning to this but glad to have read it once.

I'm a huge fan of Charles Burns work. This series of books are really out there on their own. It's (so far) a total enigma as to what exactly is going on-think, if David Lynch wrote graphic novels then you're half way there. There will be three in total (this is 1st). Artwork is stunning and a very trippy homage to Tintin and I cannot wait for more.

perfect state fantastic comic book - the volume was new without imperfections - the story is psychedelic and surrealistic. Must have

I am a massive fan of Charles Burns and this defiantly does not disappoint, the art work is amazing and the story very intriguing defiantly leaves you wanting more! It is a very cryptic story with lots of hidden meaning behind the story on the surface, which is an apparent trend in Charles Burns work, most noticeably in Black Hole. Anyone interested in buying this book i would defiantly recommend it and i would also suggest that you buy black hole as well as after reading this you are going to be left wanting more!P.S.Notice to buyers this is the first book in a series that has not yet all been released, this should not put you off but thought that I'd state it in case you were not aware of this.P.P.S Go buy it!

Primo capitolo di una serie. Per ora sono stati tradotti solo questo e il volumetto successivo "The Hive", ma ne esiste un terzo "Sugar Skull" in lingua originale.Il fumetto è di qualità buona: copertina rigida con rilegatura di stoffa, ottima la carta e la resa dei colori.La storia è un'altra allucinata avventura dove realtà oggettiva e prodotti dell'inconscio si fondono senza dare alcun cenno di ritorno alla "normalità". Burns è un vero maestro nel giocare con gli stati d'animo che una realtà sovvertita può scatenare nel lettore.Una serie sicuramente da leggere e, perchè no, collezionare, godendosi il mirabile stile grafico dell'autore, questa volta ammorbidito da splendidi colori.