Presented by Harvard Book Store
$5 tickets on sale now at harvard.com, at Harvard Book Store, and over the phone with a credit card (617.661.1515). [Special Event: No Brattle Passes]
Harvard Book Store is excited to welcome comics artist CHARLES BURNS as he discusses his new book, X′ed Out, the first volume in an epic graphic fiction masterwork.
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?
“Fusing the unsettling kitsch of EC horror comics, the storytelling sensibility of Euro-classics likeTintin, and the astute observations about young adults that made Black Hole so engrossing, Burns has turned out a haunting first chapter in what promises to be a spellbinder. The opening pages flip among the various realities of Doug, a young man recovering from a head injury of some kind with only a box of pills and some strawberry Pop-Tarts to speed his recovery. Flashbacks and dreams switch among various scenes: Doug and his hypocrite father; a wild party gone awry when Doug’s crush object’s crazy (but unseen) boyfriend goes on a rampage; and, most mysteriously, another world—found behind a hole in a brick wall—where dead cats live, worms weep, and a giant hive rules a grim city of deformed creatures. Burns’s control of the story is masterful—the recurring imagery make it unclear just which is the reality and which is the dream. His sharply delineated art captures a grotesque yet sympathetic view of kids thrust far beyond a world that they can control or even understand. The only disappointment about X’ed Out is its brevity—the first of several installments, it will leave you begging for the rest of the story.” —Publishers Weekly
Charles Burns
Presented by Harvard Book Store
$5 tickets on sale now at harvard.com, at Harvard Book Store, and over the phone with a credit card (617.661.1515). [Special Event: No Brattle Passes]
Harvard Book Store is excited to welcome comics artist CHARLES BURNS as he discusses his new book, X′ed Out, the first volume in an epic graphic fiction masterwork.
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?
“Fusing the unsettling kitsch of EC horror comics, the storytelling sensibility of Euro-classics likeTintin, and the astute observations about young adults that made Black Hole so engrossing, Burns has turned out a haunting first chapter in what promises to be a spellbinder. The opening pages flip among the various realities of Doug, a young man recovering from a head injury of some kind with only a box of pills and some strawberry Pop-Tarts to speed his recovery. Flashbacks and dreams switch among various scenes: Doug and his hypocrite father; a wild party gone awry when Doug’s crush object’s crazy (but unseen) boyfriend goes on a rampage; and, most mysteriously, another world—found behind a hole in a brick wall—where dead cats live, worms weep, and a giant hive rules a grim city of deformed creatures. Burns’s control of the story is masterful—the recurring imagery make it unclear just which is the reality and which is the dream. His sharply delineated art captures a grotesque yet sympathetic view of kids thrust far beyond a world that they can control or even understand. The only disappointment about X’ed Out is its brevity—the first of several installments, it will leave you begging for the rest of the story.” —Publishers Weekly