Comics Review: X-ED OUT by Charles Burns

X-ED OUT by Charles Burns (Pantheon, October 2010)  Graphic Novel. Hardcover, 56 pages. ISBN # 0307379132 / 978030737139 Book One of the Last Look trilogy

Summary on the Goodreads website . . . . .

Doug is having a strange night. A weird buzzing noise on the other side of the wall has woken him up, and there, across the room, next to a huge hole torn out of the bricks, sits his beloved cat, Inky. Who died years ago. But who’s nonetheless slinking out through the hole, beckoning Doug to follow.

What’s going on? To say any more would spoil the freaky, Burnsian fun, especially because X’ed Out, unlike Black Hole, has not been previously serialized, and every unnervingly meticulous panel will be more tantalizing than the last...  

My Three-Star Review on the Goodreads website . . . .

     I haven't read anything like this since my college years when I frequented a book and music store that carried underground comics, where I read my share of Zap Comics, Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, and Death Gasp. This has the look and feel of those experimental tomes. 

     This is the first part of a trilogy, and I expect the later volumes to hopefully offer an explanation of what is going on. Not sure if I'm going along for the ride, but I might check to see if the county library has copies of the next two volumes or the complete collection. 

     Burns leaves plenty for the reader to figure out in X-ed Out. I read this with others as part of a monthly book club, and there were many theories expressed. 

     My guess is that the protagonist had a nasty accident (hinted at) or a traumatic experience (hinted at) that caused him to black out some of the memories. In his recovery, taking drugs (either prescribed or copped from his apparently deceased father) he drifts in and out of dream states where he utilizes a hole in his bedroom wall to enter another dimension of weirdness. 

     The art is stylistic, expressive and often quite disturbing. Prominent themes are fetal pigs, worms, bondage, alien fetuses, bullying lizard men, a dead cat with apparently one more life, eggs and more. Some images recall The Adventures Of Tin Tin, particularly the cover with the discovery of a bright giant egg in a devastated world. 

     I was entertained by this in spite of the strangeness.