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Last Look Trilogy #3
Sugar Skull
The long, strange trip that began in X'ed Out and continued in The Hive reaches its mind-bending, heartbreaking end.
Doug is forced to deal with the lie he's been telling himself since the beginning. In this concluding volume, nightmarish dreams evolve into an even more dreadful reality...
(With full-color illustrations throughout.)
Doug is forced to deal with the lie he's been telling himself since the beginning. In this concluding volume, nightmarish dreams evolve into an even more dreadful reality...
(With full-color illustrations throughout.)
64 pages, Hardcover
First published September 4, 2014
8 people are currently reading
904 people want to read
About the author
Charles Burns
98 books1,101 followersCharles Burns is an American cartoonist and illustrator.
Burns grew up in Seattle in the 1970s. His comic book work rose to prominence in Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly magazine 'RAW' in the mid-1980s. Nowadays, Burns is best known for the horror/coming of age graphic novel Black Hole, originally serialised in twelve issues between 1995 and 2004. The story was eventually collected in one volume by Pantheon Books and received Eisner, Harvey, and Ignatz awards in 2005. His following works X'ed Out (2010), The Hive (2012), Sugar Skull (2014), Last Look (2016) and Last Cut (2024) have also been published by Pantheon Books, although the latter was first released in France as a series of three French comic albums.
As an illustrator, Charles Burns has been involved in a wide range of projects, from Iggy Pop album covers to an ad campaign for Altoids. In 1992 he designed the sets for Mark Morris's restaging of The Nutcracker (renamed The Hard Nut) at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. He illustrated covers for Time, The New Yorker, and The New York Times Magazine. He was also tapped as the official cover artist for The Believer magazine at its inception in 2003.
Burns lives in Philadelphia with his wife and daughters.
Burns grew up in Seattle in the 1970s. His comic book work rose to prominence in Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly magazine 'RAW' in the mid-1980s. Nowadays, Burns is best known for the horror/coming of age graphic novel Black Hole, originally serialised in twelve issues between 1995 and 2004. The story was eventually collected in one volume by Pantheon Books and received Eisner, Harvey, and Ignatz awards in 2005. His following works X'ed Out (2010), The Hive (2012), Sugar Skull (2014), Last Look (2016) and Last Cut (2024) have also been published by Pantheon Books, although the latter was first released in France as a series of three French comic albums.
As an illustrator, Charles Burns has been involved in a wide range of projects, from Iggy Pop album covers to an ad campaign for Altoids. In 1992 he designed the sets for Mark Morris's restaging of The Nutcracker (renamed The Hard Nut) at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. He illustrated covers for Time, The New Yorker, and The New York Times Magazine. He was also tapped as the official cover artist for The Believer magazine at its inception in 2003.
Burns lives in Philadelphia with his wife and daughters.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 167 reviews
November 23, 2016
Gorgeous, Obsessive, Nightmarish
Charles Burns’ X'ed Out-The Hive-Sugar Skull Trilogy feels to me like an amalgam of all my personal obsessions, which in itself is a little scary: thick, clean, stripped-down lines – check; lots of soothing black ink – check; a fragmented narrative that subverts this soothing effect by messing with my mind – check; neurotic and obsessive compulsive behavior – check; doomed romance and psychological horror – check; punk rock and visual culture – check; some postmodern reflexivity – check. No surprise, then, that I am the story’s protagonist… or at least that my GR profile picture has been incorporated into the story in the form of a comic-book panel. Wait, or was it the other way round?
Anyway, what is the story all about? The plot is easily summarized: a young artist named Doug tries to work through mysterious, traumatic events from his past, while sliding into some kind of parallel world. What gives the story its hypnotic impact, though, is the way it is told. The reader is not provided with a reliable, stable perspective on Doug’s difficult situation, but is instead sucked right into the vortex of his struggles by a narrative that undermines conventional notions of reality and identity, blurring the line between external and internal states of being, between surface and depth. The narrative’s disorienting effect is supported by the artwork’s dense black ink and hard straight lines that take on a character of their own.
Gorgeous, obsessive, nightmarish - Burns at his best.
Charles Burns’ X'ed Out-The Hive-Sugar Skull Trilogy feels to me like an amalgam of all my personal obsessions, which in itself is a little scary: thick, clean, stripped-down lines – check; lots of soothing black ink – check; a fragmented narrative that subverts this soothing effect by messing with my mind – check; neurotic and obsessive compulsive behavior – check; doomed romance and psychological horror – check; punk rock and visual culture – check; some postmodern reflexivity – check. No surprise, then, that I am the story’s protagonist… or at least that my GR profile picture has been incorporated into the story in the form of a comic-book panel. Wait, or was it the other way round?
Anyway, what is the story all about? The plot is easily summarized: a young artist named Doug tries to work through mysterious, traumatic events from his past, while sliding into some kind of parallel world. What gives the story its hypnotic impact, though, is the way it is told. The reader is not provided with a reliable, stable perspective on Doug’s difficult situation, but is instead sucked right into the vortex of his struggles by a narrative that undermines conventional notions of reality and identity, blurring the line between external and internal states of being, between surface and depth. The narrative’s disorienting effect is supported by the artwork’s dense black ink and hard straight lines that take on a character of their own.
Gorgeous, obsessive, nightmarish - Burns at his best.
May 14, 2021
Are Junkies the Anti-Tintin? Yeah... sort of. The boy-reporter is the essence of a youthful independence and powerful curiosity, driven by a fearlessness, optimism and altruism that should be fucking obnoxious, rooted as it is in Georges 'Herge' Remi's own adolescent association in the Belgian chapter of the 'Boy Scouts'... back when the Boy Scouts were bad-ass motherfuckers, instead of profoundly lame do-gooders in painfully gay outfits. For all those proud Scouts: I'm kidding. No Boy Scout in the history of scouting has EVER been a bad-ass motherfucker.
01. Tintin illustration by Herge; Examples of Burns' long infatuation with Herge's greatest creation -- 02. Tintin illustration by Charles Burns; 03. Tintin end-papers for 'Destination Moon'; 04. the Charles Burns homage to Tintin from the design of 'Blood Club', dating back to the late 80's:
01.
02.
03.
04.
In contrast, Heroin and Opiate/Opioid addiction in general turns otherwise decent people inside out. Tintin is fiercely moral and patient, while junkies only care about the drug... abandoning their passions, morals and spiritual beliefs in the struggle to score their next fix; flipping the hour-glass for a short reprieve from the horrifying punishment of junk sickness. That's not a character judgement, it's just the nature of the disease; I've seen opiate addiction claim members of every race, culture, personality type, family background, economic strata, intelligence & educational level, taking the incalculable facets of human diversity and smoothing it into a crystal skull (or a skull of sugar crystals?)... absorbing individual narratives as they become a part of the homogenous junk culture in which only one story exists. It's the anti-religion and the only religion, anti-capitalism and the ultra-capitalist super-product. Death gets the credit, but Junk is the Grand Leveler, pulling the rich and powerful down to grovel at the feet of a 17-year-old gangster*. Tintin is a globe-trotting, moon-hopping symbol of freedom, while most junkies are tethered to their dealers by a radius defined by a 30-minute travel-time, completely dependent. They're governed by fear, desperation and the rewarding rush of euphoric warmth that makes the ugliest reality into paradise.
The third and final volume of Charles Burns' latest sequential art masterpiece is here. This is not his magnum opus. That honor goes to 'Black Hole'**. The completion of this trilogy -- which is made up of X'ed Out (Bk.1), The Hive (Bk.2), and Sugar Skull (Bk.3) -- is something important for long time Burns' fans like myself. Some may be put off by the ending, which I won't get into, but I'll suffice to ask: what fucking book did they think they were reading? Who the fuck did they think it was, drawing all these pretty pictures?
Anyone expecting a Hollywood ending -- or a comic-book ending, for that matter -- after the final page of Book 1, 'X'ed Out'... Wasn't. Reading. Hard. Enough. If this is you, Go back and Read Harder, ferfucksakes! Then Read 'The Hive' Again, But Harder, and with Feeling. And again. Re-Re-Read 'Sugar Skull' the Hardest, until the blood starts flowing from your eyes because you ran out of tears, but can't stop weeping. Keep reading when the blood-tears stop, replaced by an ink-like substance that might be retinal fluid, or cranial juice, or motherfuckin' ectoplasm... you should only stop Reading Hard when you believe that these books belong in some Special Phylum of Genius, with a certainty usually reserved for things like fire, the night sky, and your own hands... including the truly-true bitter END... Or don't. Maybe it's not your thing; IDW are putting out Transformers comics that suck in all the ways necessary to finding success with that coveted Sub-85 IQ cro-mag demographic. Thankfully, all the idiots buying IDW's 'G.I. Joe' comics allow the company to put out 'Artist's Editions' and 'Library of American Comics' reprints. Even dung-beetles do their part in the ecological balance...
= 
Now! Where was I? Ah. Boring shit. Very good, I'll just take it from the top.
The color art on this trilogy affords Charles Burns fans to see the strong European influences. The 'ligne claire' technique he employs for the deepest dream levels of the story tie in to the narrative as well. Doug, the protagonist, is a performance artist and poet who goes by the stage-name 'Nitnit', which is 'Tintin' in reverse. His 'act' is an unfortunate variation of the Burroughs/Gysin 'cut-up' method: imagine a collage poet and automatic writer puking on on each other. The Moroccan motifs of the 'Interzone' world, with its Mugwumps and lizard-men, are executed in the style of Herge and Jacobs, as are the end-papers and the design of the albums themselves; all based on the adventures of a teenage journalist from Belgium. Even Doug's silent Virgil, a dead black cat named 'Inky', is a direct contrast to Tintin's little white dog, 'Snowy'... who could also speak (though I don't think anyone understood him).
The Burroughs influence is just as strong -- the Moroccan Interzone-world where Doug has layered his memories in 'Naked Lunch'-nightmares -- and it signals Doug's state of mind as a morphine addict, as well as the horrors of withdrawal. We also learn that there is nothing in Doug's life so horrible that it justifies his fear. He's a coward, which is no doubt a terrifying revelation itself. He really is Nitnit, the reverse of Tintin. If Tintin represents bravery, curiosity, and a love of life, Doug has become the anti-Tintin.
As to the specifics of the story, I'll keep this spoiler-free. This is essentially a dark psychological drama, with a very sad outcome. But this trilogy is one of the most beautifully executed examples of comic art ever created. Period. I can't say that it's better, artistically, than the infinite pools of Feldstein spot-blacks that make up the 360-pages of Black Hole, but it's close. Black Hole remains the high-water mark in my bloody eyes, not just for Burns, but the medium itself. If you disagree, you need to Read Harder, Motherfucker.
*(Hell, look at Rob Ford, the wealthy former mayor of Toronto, smoking crack with his drug dealer pals and using his influence to do them favors. And that was just crack, which is addictive, but not in the same overwhelming way Heroin is.)
**(Apropos of fuck-all, 'Black Hole' featured prominently in 'Dawn of the Planet of the Apes', as the graphic novel that a human character offers to the wise, semi-literate Orangutan; later, he reads from it to his new friend, before things go wrong at the hydro dam... )
01. Tintin illustration by Herge; Examples of Burns' long infatuation with Herge's greatest creation -- 02. Tintin illustration by Charles Burns; 03. Tintin end-papers for 'Destination Moon'; 04. the Charles Burns homage to Tintin from the design of 'Blood Club', dating back to the late 80's:
01.
02.
03.
04.
In contrast, Heroin and Opiate/Opioid addiction in general turns otherwise decent people inside out. Tintin is fiercely moral and patient, while junkies only care about the drug... abandoning their passions, morals and spiritual beliefs in the struggle to score their next fix; flipping the hour-glass for a short reprieve from the horrifying punishment of junk sickness. That's not a character judgement, it's just the nature of the disease; I've seen opiate addiction claim members of every race, culture, personality type, family background, economic strata, intelligence & educational level, taking the incalculable facets of human diversity and smoothing it into a crystal skull (or a skull of sugar crystals?)... absorbing individual narratives as they become a part of the homogenous junk culture in which only one story exists. It's the anti-religion and the only religion, anti-capitalism and the ultra-capitalist super-product. Death gets the credit, but Junk is the Grand Leveler, pulling the rich and powerful down to grovel at the feet of a 17-year-old gangster*. Tintin is a globe-trotting, moon-hopping symbol of freedom, while most junkies are tethered to their dealers by a radius defined by a 30-minute travel-time, completely dependent. They're governed by fear, desperation and the rewarding rush of euphoric warmth that makes the ugliest reality into paradise.
The third and final volume of Charles Burns' latest sequential art masterpiece is here. This is not his magnum opus. That honor goes to 'Black Hole'**. The completion of this trilogy -- which is made up of X'ed Out (Bk.1), The Hive (Bk.2), and Sugar Skull (Bk.3) -- is something important for long time Burns' fans like myself. Some may be put off by the ending, which I won't get into, but I'll suffice to ask: what fucking book did they think they were reading? Who the fuck did they think it was, drawing all these pretty pictures?
Anyone expecting a Hollywood ending -- or a comic-book ending, for that matter -- after the final page of Book 1, 'X'ed Out'... Wasn't. Reading. Hard. Enough. If this is you, Go back and Read Harder, ferfucksakes! Then Read 'The Hive' Again, But Harder, and with Feeling. And again. Re-Re-Read 'Sugar Skull' the Hardest, until the blood starts flowing from your eyes because you ran out of tears, but can't stop weeping. Keep reading when the blood-tears stop, replaced by an ink-like substance that might be retinal fluid, or cranial juice, or motherfuckin' ectoplasm... you should only stop Reading Hard when you believe that these books belong in some Special Phylum of Genius, with a certainty usually reserved for things like fire, the night sky, and your own hands... including the truly-true bitter END... Or don't. Maybe it's not your thing; IDW are putting out Transformers comics that suck in all the ways necessary to finding success with that coveted Sub-85 IQ cro-mag demographic. Thankfully, all the idiots buying IDW's 'G.I. Joe' comics allow the company to put out 'Artist's Editions' and 'Library of American Comics' reprints. Even dung-beetles do their part in the ecological balance...
= Now! Where was I? Ah. Boring shit. Very good, I'll just take it from the top.
The color art on this trilogy affords Charles Burns fans to see the strong European influences. The 'ligne claire' technique he employs for the deepest dream levels of the story tie in to the narrative as well. Doug, the protagonist, is a performance artist and poet who goes by the stage-name 'Nitnit', which is 'Tintin' in reverse. His 'act' is an unfortunate variation of the Burroughs/Gysin 'cut-up' method: imagine a collage poet and automatic writer puking on on each other. The Moroccan motifs of the 'Interzone' world, with its Mugwumps and lizard-men, are executed in the style of Herge and Jacobs, as are the end-papers and the design of the albums themselves; all based on the adventures of a teenage journalist from Belgium. Even Doug's silent Virgil, a dead black cat named 'Inky', is a direct contrast to Tintin's little white dog, 'Snowy'... who could also speak (though I don't think anyone understood him).
The Burroughs influence is just as strong -- the Moroccan Interzone-world where Doug has layered his memories in 'Naked Lunch'-nightmares -- and it signals Doug's state of mind as a morphine addict, as well as the horrors of withdrawal. We also learn that there is nothing in Doug's life so horrible that it justifies his fear. He's a coward, which is no doubt a terrifying revelation itself. He really is Nitnit, the reverse of Tintin. If Tintin represents bravery, curiosity, and a love of life, Doug has become the anti-Tintin.
As to the specifics of the story, I'll keep this spoiler-free. This is essentially a dark psychological drama, with a very sad outcome. But this trilogy is one of the most beautifully executed examples of comic art ever created. Period. I can't say that it's better, artistically, than the infinite pools of Feldstein spot-blacks that make up the 360-pages of Black Hole, but it's close. Black Hole remains the high-water mark in my bloody eyes, not just for Burns, but the medium itself. If you disagree, you need to Read Harder, Motherfucker.
*(Hell, look at Rob Ford, the wealthy former mayor of Toronto, smoking crack with his drug dealer pals and using his influence to do them favors. And that was just crack, which is addictive, but not in the same overwhelming way Heroin is.)
**(Apropos of fuck-all, 'Black Hole' featured prominently in 'Dawn of the Planet of the Apes', as the graphic novel that a human character offers to the wise, semi-literate Orangutan; later, he reads from it to his new friend, before things go wrong at the hydro dam... )
December 7, 2014
Dear me. By the end of The Hive, Charles Burns cranked this beauty up to top speed - then in Sugar Skull he ran it smack into a brick wall.
Sugar Skull was an immensely disappointing let-down to what has otherwise been a fascinating series. Charles Burns explains everything in this final volume of his X’ed Out Trilogy, which is something you’ll either appreciate, because you hate any ambiguity at the end of a story, or dislike because that’s not consistent with the way this has been written thus far.
But worse - far worse - is the disproportionate balance between the apocalyptic, messed-up, heightened tragedy of Doug and Sarah’s story, that has been built up now over two volumes, and the bafflingly banal and truly uninspired reveal of the secret at the heart of this series.
I was expecting Burns to show us something shocking and horrific that explains why Doug’s life has been shattered and why he’s created this elaborate fantasy world to cope. And the reveal, without going into spoilers? It’s so ordinary and unbelievably disappointing, not least because there’s no mystery, while the ending was terrible - it was an art school cliche!
I re-read the first two books in preparation for this final volume so I wouldn’t miss anything and so I could fully appreciate what I was sure was going to be a modern masterpiece - and all I got from doing this was the renewed admiration of the journey, and gorgeous art, that Burns provided. He completely fumbles the ending like you wouldn’t believe.
And those are the reasons to read this series: the journey and the art. Maybe it’s just me and you’ll love the ending too - it’s all there, no further mystery leftover - in which case you’re really going to enjoy the series. But if you spent any time in thinking up elaborate explanations for what it all means, prepare for major disappointment going in.
What, specifically, am I talking about? What’s seriously got my goat and how does it all play out? It’s spoiler time!
Sugar Skull was an immensely disappointing let-down to what has otherwise been a fascinating series. Charles Burns explains everything in this final volume of his X’ed Out Trilogy, which is something you’ll either appreciate, because you hate any ambiguity at the end of a story, or dislike because that’s not consistent with the way this has been written thus far.
But worse - far worse - is the disproportionate balance between the apocalyptic, messed-up, heightened tragedy of Doug and Sarah’s story, that has been built up now over two volumes, and the bafflingly banal and truly uninspired reveal of the secret at the heart of this series.
I was expecting Burns to show us something shocking and horrific that explains why Doug’s life has been shattered and why he’s created this elaborate fantasy world to cope. And the reveal, without going into spoilers? It’s so ordinary and unbelievably disappointing, not least because there’s no mystery, while the ending was terrible - it was an art school cliche!
I re-read the first two books in preparation for this final volume so I wouldn’t miss anything and so I could fully appreciate what I was sure was going to be a modern masterpiece - and all I got from doing this was the renewed admiration of the journey, and gorgeous art, that Burns provided. He completely fumbles the ending like you wouldn’t believe.
And those are the reasons to read this series: the journey and the art. Maybe it’s just me and you’ll love the ending too - it’s all there, no further mystery leftover - in which case you’re really going to enjoy the series. But if you spent any time in thinking up elaborate explanations for what it all means, prepare for major disappointment going in.
What, specifically, am I talking about? What’s seriously got my goat and how does it all play out? It’s spoiler time!
July 10, 2016
I think this is a fine conclusion to this three volume work, beginning with X'Ed out, continuing with The Hive, and ending here with The Skull. It's a terrific and carefully done story, the specifics of which I won't reveal as they would give away too much. I initially gave the first volume, X'ed Out, three stars, as I found it seemingly deliberately confusing and disturbing, but I came to see how it all worked to tell a pretty coherent, if bizarre, tale of a pretty ordinary loser named Doug. There's the tone of an almost confessional element of the story, too, in spite of all the sci-fi aliens.
I think, too, this trilogy is in some ways formally a tribute to William Burroughs and the kind of storytelling surrealism Burroughs did. Burns shows us a single, clearly and (maybe) lovingly rendered portrait of William Burroughs in this volume as a clue to the considered madness of his method. What's the feeling of it? Dream, but often nightmare, that really infuses his work, or seems to. A resolution to Doug's relationship with Sarah takes place, we get to learn what all the recurring fetus/egg images may mean (or not). Time expands, we move into the future, other men, other women, work their ways into the narrative.
Much is still unexplained, in my opinion, which would be consistent with Burroughs, the author of Naked Lunch, Junkie, The Soft Machine, Queer, The Book of Dreams. Burroughs creates a heroin- and dream-infused series of stories, which is often a wild beat commentary on the American scene and presumptions we have about the nature of "reality" and romantic expectations about relationships. Burns cares about that stuff here, too. Burns also has corporate types depicted in this story that are worthy of Burroughs skewering authority, but the feel of this is not so much political or social, an indictment of the American Dream, but personal, a sad reflection on Doug's life, I think. Much of Burroughs's work is known to be semi-autobiographical; is this? I have no idea, but I am curious. What matters is that the story works on the human level, and is both sort of alienating and humane at the same time.
So, he's (maybe) not just screwing with our heads, fellow readers (including me) who may have wanted to give up after the first book! This is a bizarre tale, but there also may be a fairly straightforward core to the story, wrapped in layers of fear and wonder and purple haze. I am coming to better understand horror as a genre. This is, as others have noted, work that is both horror and also somewhat surprisingly influenced by the deep warmth and charm of TinTin, seemingly simple kid comic stories (that seem less simple in some ways the more you look at them), the comics Burns loved as a kid, now twisted by alienation, rage, yet retaining some humor. There's an innocence and sharply drawn, boldly colored starkness about it all that is technically impressive, of course.
Very much worth reading. I found it, finally, very challenging and ultimately satisfying.
I think, too, this trilogy is in some ways formally a tribute to William Burroughs and the kind of storytelling surrealism Burroughs did. Burns shows us a single, clearly and (maybe) lovingly rendered portrait of William Burroughs in this volume as a clue to the considered madness of his method. What's the feeling of it? Dream, but often nightmare, that really infuses his work, or seems to. A resolution to Doug's relationship with Sarah takes place, we get to learn what all the recurring fetus/egg images may mean (or not). Time expands, we move into the future, other men, other women, work their ways into the narrative.
Much is still unexplained, in my opinion, which would be consistent with Burroughs, the author of Naked Lunch, Junkie, The Soft Machine, Queer, The Book of Dreams. Burroughs creates a heroin- and dream-infused series of stories, which is often a wild beat commentary on the American scene and presumptions we have about the nature of "reality" and romantic expectations about relationships. Burns cares about that stuff here, too. Burns also has corporate types depicted in this story that are worthy of Burroughs skewering authority, but the feel of this is not so much political or social, an indictment of the American Dream, but personal, a sad reflection on Doug's life, I think. Much of Burroughs's work is known to be semi-autobiographical; is this? I have no idea, but I am curious. What matters is that the story works on the human level, and is both sort of alienating and humane at the same time.
So, he's (maybe) not just screwing with our heads, fellow readers (including me) who may have wanted to give up after the first book! This is a bizarre tale, but there also may be a fairly straightforward core to the story, wrapped in layers of fear and wonder and purple haze. I am coming to better understand horror as a genre. This is, as others have noted, work that is both horror and also somewhat surprisingly influenced by the deep warmth and charm of TinTin, seemingly simple kid comic stories (that seem less simple in some ways the more you look at them), the comics Burns loved as a kid, now twisted by alienation, rage, yet retaining some humor. There's an innocence and sharply drawn, boldly colored starkness about it all that is technically impressive, of course.
Very much worth reading. I found it, finally, very challenging and ultimately satisfying.
October 1, 2014
A fitting end to Charles Burns's trippy, melancholic trilogy of comics, starting with X'ed Out, followed by The Hive, and now hitting its final somber notes in Sugar Skull. Expect no grand epiphanies or show-stopping reveals between these two cardboard covers: the narrative winds itself down to an inevitable but tonally consistent denouement. In all honesty, and with my hindsight goggles firmly in place, I'm not sure these three comics stand well as separate, self-contained pieces of a whole. With the grace of a resounding novel entire, but measured out into three 60-page parts (with a maddeningly long period of two years between each installment), Burn's final product deserves to be bound together into one comprehensive volume and then re-read by me so that I may better appreciate the totality of his artistic endeavor. Yes, I dropped the A-word because Burns's style - a heady emulsion of sexy, disturbing, and iconic imagery - is as always an achievement and absolutely deserves to be ogled over like a lecher undressing the hotbody of his or her preferred sexual orientation. Burns is at the peak of his visual talent throughout these three works, whether carefully lining and shading out the emotional travails of an aging, (arguably)lovelorn hack artist's youth, or doodling a Tintinish nightmare world which doles out metaphorical meaning to all the (arguable) lovelorning, and features food which screams as you eat it, foul-mouthed corporate lizard people, and insectile appendages that definitely do not belong on any human body. No point in picking up this volume lest you've read the first two. So you'd better pick up the first two volumes and get the hell on with it. Capiche?
October 16, 2016
This was a great trip...would love to get feedback from Ram Dass, Aldous Huxley and Timothy Leary on what it all was about.
August 24, 2021
I found this to be a somewhat underwhelming conclusion to what was an otherwise intriguing trilogy. I think the trilogy as a whole could have benefited from being longer, especially if Burns had delved further into the parallel dream world, which I found more interesting than Doug's 'real' life. Maybe I'll read the volumes again in an effort to extract more substance, although that doesn't sound appealing at the moment. (Biggest mystery for me: why were those lizard people so angry all the time?)
February 11, 2018
I've been a definite fan of Charles Burns ever since I picked up and read Black Hole in a single sitting. Never was I so utterly impressed with such rich artwork implemented with such a starkly simple palette of black and white. This truly warped bildungsroman with equally fantastic art definitely deserved the Eisner it picked up.
As impressed I was with Black Hole, I've struggled to locate as much as enjoy his other works in the canon. His idiosyncratic themes of the overlaps and divides between youth and adulthood were brilliantly explored in Big Baby, which will always remain a favorite of yours truly. However, it's been the predecessors to Sugar Skull, X'ed Out and The Hive that have left a bittersweet taste in my psyche.
Its (admittedly) been some time since I've read them however, while the art is, as it always is, great; the overarching story was so-so to mine eyes more than anything. Deep subconscious dreamworld and all the bizarreness that growing up entails fleshed out Black Hole awesomely, X'ed Out and The Hive seemed to be a bit of a step back from the previous successes.
As much as a step back as the antecedents struck me, Sugar Skull (for all it successes) seems to be another few recessive footsteps. Again, I loved the art, strong usage of contrasts between the detailed and the minimalist; happiness and sorrow; and love lost and love gained, I found to be well illustrated. Strong transitions also helped buoy the art with tight sequences bound by sharp differences in color moved the story along well. Repeated patterns of repeated chromatics entwined the story in a tightly illuminated fasces.
Yet, the prettiest or dingiest art was unable to emotionally involve me in a story that I found underdeveloped at best and lackluster at worst. I kept expecting to be wowed with either words and/or illustrations but, was continually greeted with more of the same. Nothing particularly stood out and the story was finished much faster than I anticipated. The tragedy was there so was the drama and heartbreak that presaged it, the personal connections just weren't. Moreover, found the dreamworld sequences to weakly intertwine with the real world themes that floated above it.
The art is there, the story is not.
I refuse to give a single thumb either way for this one.
Read and discover.
As impressed I was with Black Hole, I've struggled to locate as much as enjoy his other works in the canon. His idiosyncratic themes of the overlaps and divides between youth and adulthood were brilliantly explored in Big Baby, which will always remain a favorite of yours truly. However, it's been the predecessors to Sugar Skull, X'ed Out and The Hive that have left a bittersweet taste in my psyche.
Its (admittedly) been some time since I've read them however, while the art is, as it always is, great; the overarching story was so-so to mine eyes more than anything. Deep subconscious dreamworld and all the bizarreness that growing up entails fleshed out Black Hole awesomely, X'ed Out and The Hive seemed to be a bit of a step back from the previous successes.
As much as a step back as the antecedents struck me, Sugar Skull (for all it successes) seems to be another few recessive footsteps. Again, I loved the art, strong usage of contrasts between the detailed and the minimalist; happiness and sorrow; and love lost and love gained, I found to be well illustrated. Strong transitions also helped buoy the art with tight sequences bound by sharp differences in color moved the story along well. Repeated patterns of repeated chromatics entwined the story in a tightly illuminated fasces.
Yet, the prettiest or dingiest art was unable to emotionally involve me in a story that I found underdeveloped at best and lackluster at worst. I kept expecting to be wowed with either words and/or illustrations but, was continually greeted with more of the same. Nothing particularly stood out and the story was finished much faster than I anticipated. The tragedy was there so was the drama and heartbreak that presaged it, the personal connections just weren't. Moreover, found the dreamworld sequences to weakly intertwine with the real world themes that floated above it.
The art is there, the story is not.
I refuse to give a single thumb either way for this one.
Read and discover.
January 29, 2015
Really enjoyed this series. It was hard to make a judgment call the past few years with only the first and second volumes of the story to go on. But it was an interesting way to release it, almost as if the fragmented way readers had to intake the story mirrored the fragmented nature of Doug's drug-saturated and ambiguous tale (whoa trippy, man). First off, the book is beautiful. Burns' art has never looked more vibrant. I'm not used to seeing his work in color, so that's a treat. The whole 'down the rabbit hole' aspect of the story really appealed to me, and that it was grounded in some sort of cryptic, dismal reality is how Burns roped me in. There is a distinct feeling of dread and foreboding throughout the volumes, as the readers slowly piece together Doug's story. What I love about Burns is how deftly he balances honesty and surrealism. If you can get into the heaviness and headiness of the tale, Burns can really make your heart ache. The story as a whole was terrific, beautiful, hallucinatory, sad, and emotionally-conflicting.
January 8, 2015
This review originally appeared in Shock Totem 9 as well as on the Shock Totem blog: http://www.shocktotem.com/01/07/2015/...
The concluding volume in a haunting graphic novel trilogy, Sugar Skull concludes the hallucinatory, heartbreaking, hilarious, and mysterious odyssey begun in X’ed Out and continued in The Hive.
Like all of Charles Burns’s works, including the acclaimed graphic novel Black Hole, the Xe’d Out trilogy features the same starkly-penned, startlingly-detailed drawings, but with one major difference: it’s all rendered in full color, adding a whole other dimension of dark beauty.
I could get more into some of the specifics of Sugar Skull, but the thing is, the X’ed Out trilogy doesn’t unfold in a traditional linear narrative. With each volume, Mr. Burns presents bits and pieces of a mosaic of five different storylines, and it’s up to the reader to figure out how they all add up.
Over the course of those different storylines, we get to know Doug, a lonely nebbish who’s just trying to get a good break in life. In one of the storylines, Doug is in his teens, living with his overbearing father and occasionally performing spoken-word songs from behind a mask at punk rock shows; at one point, he befriends and starts to date a moody and mysterious girl named Sarah. In another timeline, there are scenes of Doug and Sarah living together, while still learning more about each other—often through Sarah’s photographs of darkly erotic self-portraits. Then there’s Doug’s life after Sarah, where he wastes his days in his father’s house, recovering from a (mostly) unexplained accident. Later still, we see Doug, now seeing someone else, trying to come to terms with all his problems. Finally, there’s Doug, several years later, having recovered from an addiction and trying to move on with his life with his ultimate lover, Sally.
Woven throughout Doug’s story, there are glimpses of the strange saga of “Nit Nit,” a character that’s at once a surreal caricature of Doug and a bizarro parody of the famous comic character Tintin, created by Belgian artist Hergé. The darkly humorous adventures of Nit Nit take place in a strange dystopian world full of odd creatures, including a foul-mouthed, porcine-featured midget of a man wearing a diaper, who in showing Nit Nit around, becomes almost like a friend. Nit Nit where he is put to work by (and alongside) lizard-like creatures in office suits, slaving away at “the Hive,” where…well, let’s just say that’s where it starts to get really weird. Is this all a dream, drug-induced or otherwise, of Doug’s? Maybe. Is it a surreal summary of different passages of Doug’s life? Maybe. Is it an alternate reality from Doug’s altogether? Maybe. Does it really matter what this storyline means? Probably not.
Ultimately, I spent a lot of time reading these books with my brow furrowed, because honestly, the fractured narrative was more than a little puzzling. I even re-read the previous volumes before each new one came out, just to make sure everything was as fresh as possible, but that didn’t always help. I suppose, if one was to cut out all the pieces of the comic and arrange them into a somewhat linear storyline, one might be able to discern the big, weird picture—but what would be the fun of that? Although the X’ed Out trilogy thumbs its nose at the reader with one hand, its other is pointing the reader to travel even deeper down the rabbit-hole of its strange story. Like all of his previous books, this is a tale that only Charles Burns could tell.
The concluding volume in a haunting graphic novel trilogy, Sugar Skull concludes the hallucinatory, heartbreaking, hilarious, and mysterious odyssey begun in X’ed Out and continued in The Hive.
Like all of Charles Burns’s works, including the acclaimed graphic novel Black Hole, the Xe’d Out trilogy features the same starkly-penned, startlingly-detailed drawings, but with one major difference: it’s all rendered in full color, adding a whole other dimension of dark beauty.
I could get more into some of the specifics of Sugar Skull, but the thing is, the X’ed Out trilogy doesn’t unfold in a traditional linear narrative. With each volume, Mr. Burns presents bits and pieces of a mosaic of five different storylines, and it’s up to the reader to figure out how they all add up.
Over the course of those different storylines, we get to know Doug, a lonely nebbish who’s just trying to get a good break in life. In one of the storylines, Doug is in his teens, living with his overbearing father and occasionally performing spoken-word songs from behind a mask at punk rock shows; at one point, he befriends and starts to date a moody and mysterious girl named Sarah. In another timeline, there are scenes of Doug and Sarah living together, while still learning more about each other—often through Sarah’s photographs of darkly erotic self-portraits. Then there’s Doug’s life after Sarah, where he wastes his days in his father’s house, recovering from a (mostly) unexplained accident. Later still, we see Doug, now seeing someone else, trying to come to terms with all his problems. Finally, there’s Doug, several years later, having recovered from an addiction and trying to move on with his life with his ultimate lover, Sally.
Woven throughout Doug’s story, there are glimpses of the strange saga of “Nit Nit,” a character that’s at once a surreal caricature of Doug and a bizarro parody of the famous comic character Tintin, created by Belgian artist Hergé. The darkly humorous adventures of Nit Nit take place in a strange dystopian world full of odd creatures, including a foul-mouthed, porcine-featured midget of a man wearing a diaper, who in showing Nit Nit around, becomes almost like a friend. Nit Nit where he is put to work by (and alongside) lizard-like creatures in office suits, slaving away at “the Hive,” where…well, let’s just say that’s where it starts to get really weird. Is this all a dream, drug-induced or otherwise, of Doug’s? Maybe. Is it a surreal summary of different passages of Doug’s life? Maybe. Is it an alternate reality from Doug’s altogether? Maybe. Does it really matter what this storyline means? Probably not.
Ultimately, I spent a lot of time reading these books with my brow furrowed, because honestly, the fractured narrative was more than a little puzzling. I even re-read the previous volumes before each new one came out, just to make sure everything was as fresh as possible, but that didn’t always help. I suppose, if one was to cut out all the pieces of the comic and arrange them into a somewhat linear storyline, one might be able to discern the big, weird picture—but what would be the fun of that? Although the X’ed Out trilogy thumbs its nose at the reader with one hand, its other is pointing the reader to travel even deeper down the rabbit-hole of its strange story. Like all of his previous books, this is a tale that only Charles Burns could tell.
January 7, 2015
I love Charles Burns.
I love trilogies.
I love Tintin.
I love fragmented storylines.
I love immersive imagery.
I love the eerie and the uncanny.
Then what's not to love about the X'ed Out trilogy?
The beautiful soothing order of the accurate, thought-out lines and the lively colours grasp the chaos of the world around us, making it somehow tolerable or acceptable. Burns created a maelstrom of images, a mosaic of story elements, a nightmare of the unseizable and the grotesque. The shards of his story show various meta-levels of writing and creating, including several references to Tintin. I especially enjoyed the resemblance of the stall vendor.
The horror of this trilogy has roots in the failure to find comfort in love, in birth trauma and in father issues, themes I can only partially identify with and sometimes I had the feeling that one dreamy setting or situation followed the other as if passing in review. A parade of Burns' twisted imagination.
Nonetheless, Burns once more succeeded in dragging me down his wild river again.
In the X'ed Out trilogy, he dissects the teeming, neurotic thoughts in the crypts of our heads.
The sky impossibly bright and blue
Everything bright and clean and new
But my eyes always drift
I always look down.
I love trilogies.
I love Tintin.
I love fragmented storylines.
I love immersive imagery.
I love the eerie and the uncanny.
Then what's not to love about the X'ed Out trilogy?
The beautiful soothing order of the accurate, thought-out lines and the lively colours grasp the chaos of the world around us, making it somehow tolerable or acceptable. Burns created a maelstrom of images, a mosaic of story elements, a nightmare of the unseizable and the grotesque. The shards of his story show various meta-levels of writing and creating, including several references to Tintin. I especially enjoyed the resemblance of the stall vendor.
The horror of this trilogy has roots in the failure to find comfort in love, in birth trauma and in father issues, themes I can only partially identify with and sometimes I had the feeling that one dreamy setting or situation followed the other as if passing in review. A parade of Burns' twisted imagination.
Nonetheless, Burns once more succeeded in dragging me down his wild river again.
In the X'ed Out trilogy, he dissects the teeming, neurotic thoughts in the crypts of our heads.
The sky impossibly bright and blue
Everything bright and clean and new
But my eyes always drift
I always look down.
January 15, 2022
So ends Tintin on acid. I love the art throughout but even as things come together in this final volume I’m still not super sure about all the imagery, but the story makes sense, mostly. I’d say the series is worth reading if you’re into Weird Fiction and graphic novels.
September 28, 2014
I had to go back and up my ratings of the first two books after reading this. Not that they weren't always great on their own, but there was always that lingering fear that perhaps the finish wouldn't be sufficient to the build up. Not that I don't have faith in Burns, but hey, it's always a possibility.
And initially, I kind of felt that way in the smallest, most tiniest amount. Given a thorough re-read, accompanied with reading the series all the way through, really drives the spike home. And the end, without giving anything away, leaves things open in a way much more terrifying than any resolutely final event could ever have been. The cyclical nature of the story, the imagery, of life itself.
And all throughout, there are small, intimate touches that give the story a truly personal feel. A Throbbing Gristle pin here, a Flipper shirt there, a knowing picture of Burroughs. Truly awesome, in the real sense, in that I am in awe of the work of Charles Burns.
And initially, I kind of felt that way in the smallest, most tiniest amount. Given a thorough re-read, accompanied with reading the series all the way through, really drives the spike home. And the end, without giving anything away, leaves things open in a way much more terrifying than any resolutely final event could ever have been. The cyclical nature of the story, the imagery, of life itself.
And all throughout, there are small, intimate touches that give the story a truly personal feel. A Throbbing Gristle pin here, a Flipper shirt there, a knowing picture of Burroughs. Truly awesome, in the real sense, in that I am in awe of the work of Charles Burns.
November 7, 2014
When I was in elementary school there was a girl in my class who, to my juvenile eyes, was the most perfect and beautiful creature I’d ever seen. Therefore, I concluded, she must be a robot. No human being, inherently flawed and full of fluids that often leaked out of porous skin bags, could attend such perfection without there being a catch. The catch, of course, was in my own perceptions. I see Charles Burns as an artist who has attained unattainable standards. His hand is steady as a machine, he inks with greater precision than a printer, and produces pages of beautifully rendered comic art. But he’s more than a craftsman, he’s a weirdo, who also manages to tap into a surreal experience often creepy, funny and oddly relatable at the same time. So it is with his latest magnum opus, a trilogy of literally underground comics, which concludes in SUGAR SKULL. What a sweet treat.
October 5, 2014
The X'ed Out trilogy packs a lot of punch in very small packages. This morning I reread the first two books before reading Sugar Skull and they really are brilliant. They layer story on story in a way that is genius and cinematic. Most people run into something weird and they think of David Lynch, but these books are much more William S. Burroughs, and by extension David Cronenberg. Strange, tragic, disturbing and smart. As you read them it seems almost impossible that they can be so detailed, so complicated and that they can resolve themselves so perfectly without loose ends or cheats. The only complaint I can make is that readers were left hanging so long between books, but that's no longer a problem- now you can read all three in a row, no waiting.
January 4, 2015
A surprisingly touching ending of this mind-blowing story. Brilliant!!!!
September 21, 2016
Dreams into which we escape, dreams even more sordid and distasteful than the maudlin realities we live, our fear, our constant retreat. This is the anti-love comic.
January 23, 2016
As a reader who doesn't necessarily figure out what it is I want until after I've already got it or not, this was a good ending for me even if I leave it feeling somewhat unsatisfied. (Thinking critically about trades of comics is a weird process.)
I believe there needed to be a strong, concrete event/series of events that held this story together. That decision on Burns's part I'll stand by. It's just unfortunate that it means we've been handed something borderline mundane as that pivot point, despite its being there doing some necessary spelling-out.
And some not-so-necessary spelling-out. It's pretty clear that the overall theme was a mash of relationship woes: youth and identity as they relate to love, weighing jealousy and desire in equal portions, not becoming the worst part of our personal history, etc. To put so much of a bigger-yet-dryer version of that in this last installment doesn't necessarily give us anything new or develop what we already have. It feels like surface detail at its worst, though, to be fair, it's very rarely at its worst except when a breeder is pushing giant eggs out of herself and our protagonist drops one.
This ending moves along at a nice pace as things are explained, but by the time it goes too far, a sizable chunk of the established ambiguity is lost and, with it, perhaps the heart of the book.
I know that throughout reading this trilogy I complained about the ambiguity I'm now quasi-lamenting over losing, but there's a middle path here that's bounded over back and forth, again and again. Whereas Black Hole felt like it didn't add up in the end, the X'ed Out Trilogy almost added up too well. Still, there are moments throughout this narrative that put artistic uncertainty on one side of the scale and scenic exposition on the other in equal amounts, and for those moments and the art itself, this series is worth reading.
I believe there needed to be a strong, concrete event/series of events that held this story together. That decision on Burns's part I'll stand by. It's just unfortunate that it means we've been handed something borderline mundane as that pivot point, despite its being there doing some necessary spelling-out.
And some not-so-necessary spelling-out. It's pretty clear that the overall theme was a mash of relationship woes: youth and identity as they relate to love, weighing jealousy and desire in equal portions, not becoming the worst part of our personal history, etc. To put so much of a bigger-yet-dryer version of that in this last installment doesn't necessarily give us anything new or develop what we already have. It feels like surface detail at its worst, though, to be fair, it's very rarely at its worst except when a breeder is pushing giant eggs out of herself and our protagonist drops one.
This ending moves along at a nice pace as things are explained, but by the time it goes too far, a sizable chunk of the established ambiguity is lost and, with it, perhaps the heart of the book.
I know that throughout reading this trilogy I complained about the ambiguity I'm now quasi-lamenting over losing, but there's a middle path here that's bounded over back and forth, again and again. Whereas Black Hole felt like it didn't add up in the end, the X'ed Out Trilogy almost added up too well. Still, there are moments throughout this narrative that put artistic uncertainty on one side of the scale and scenic exposition on the other in equal amounts, and for those moments and the art itself, this series is worth reading.
August 18, 2016
Sometimes there are books that I just never want to end, though I feel sure I would be disappointed if they kept going. This latest trilogy from dark-comics master Charles Burns (preceding this volume were X'ed Out and The Hive) is a classic example of this. Though none of the worlds he's created herein are particularly pleasant ones, he has crafted them so perfectly and filled them with such involving (if usually repellent) characters that it was painful to see the end coming. Fortunately, the end -- when it comes -- encourages rereading the entire set.
Everything that's been set up in the previous two books comes to a head in this final one, and most of our questions are answered. In typical Burns fashion, though, every one answered brings up at least one question more. We see what happened to Johnny 23, his true identity Doug, and even the hapless Hive worker Nitnit, but none of them gets a happy ending.
Burns strove for something different in this series, and he succeeded admirably. He managed to play with time and place deftly, in a way that kept the reader engaged and enthralled. He created and evolved characters that, though they are rarely pleasant, keep us interested in their eventual outcomes. This was quite a ride. I suspect there are many who will hold up Black Hole as Burns' masterwork, but for me, this is the greatest he's been. So far.
Everything that's been set up in the previous two books comes to a head in this final one, and most of our questions are answered. In typical Burns fashion, though, every one answered brings up at least one question more. We see what happened to Johnny 23, his true identity Doug, and even the hapless Hive worker Nitnit, but none of them gets a happy ending.
Burns strove for something different in this series, and he succeeded admirably. He managed to play with time and place deftly, in a way that kept the reader engaged and enthralled. He created and evolved characters that, though they are rarely pleasant, keep us interested in their eventual outcomes. This was quite a ride. I suspect there are many who will hold up Black Hole as Burns' masterwork, but for me, this is the greatest he's been. So far.
January 30, 2016
I gave the first two in the trilogy a 4-star rating and this a 5, and I don't think that's quite fair, because the three books really have to be read altogether and shouldn't be rated individually. Anyway this got a 5 simply because it's the conclusion to a satisfying story. The artwork is stellar, the story beautiful, and Charles Burns makes an impression once more (I read his Black Hole). Being a fan of surreal art and story, I naturally gravitated towards this, and it's usually a hit or miss when it comes to surreal works of art. Fortunately Burns knows how to handle his work well. This trilogy left me with the right amount of dread and moroseness, plus a dash of nostalgia. Excellent set of graphic novels.
March 18, 2016
It ends really suddenly... It really gives you the feeling it will not end like this but there is no chapter after this one -_-*
I liked when you start understanding what this parallel universe is about. It is actually his life story but in an alternative universe or in a metaphorical way. I still freaking love his graphics, are one of the best ever.
I liked when you start understanding what this parallel universe is about. It is actually his life story but in an alternative universe or in a metaphorical way. I still freaking love his graphics, are one of the best ever.
November 25, 2014
freaky and beautiful. really freaky and really beautiful. narrative not that awesome characters are bizarre but not all that interesting. something wonderful to look at, but story is weak. four star review is testament to how beautiful I found it.
February 13, 2015
Werd alles duidelijk... mmmm, niet alles maar toch veel. En dit laatste deel doet je teruggrijpen naar het eerste om de touwtjes alsnog aan elkaar te knopen. Knap dus in al zijn facetten. Boeiende leeservaring deze trilogie, maar zeker niet voor iedereen.
May 17, 2019
ANY indication - ANYWHERE on the book itself - that this was the third in a series would have prevented me from wasting time on a volume that on its surface seemed interesting before quickly drowning unsuspecting readers in easily avoidable confusion.
June 5, 2019
I read X’ed Out and The Hive years ago and was blown away by the artwork, as I always am with Charles Burns, but didn’t have the sense of closure I needed to fully decide how I felt about the story, although I was mesmerized by it to that point. A while back I found used copies of both, plus Sugar Skull and finally got around to rereading the first two and reading Sugar Skull for the first time last night. I think all three are collected in one volume now. So now that I’ve read the full arc I feel like I can definitively say how much I loved this story.
The books are marked by all those things Burns has become known for at this point – surrealism, an affinity for the grotesque, a highly stylized, personalized, and extensive symbolic system, the same beautiful, pristine, heavy linework that brought him comics stardom with Black Hole. And as with Black Hole, again that dark concern for adolescent angst, now alongside a bright color palette that still manages to accentuate the shadows. Change, growing up, loss (of innocence, of those watermark relationships that come to sum up evolving chapters of life) – all of these themes come together to make for a logical emotional step beyond Black Hole into adulthood. Burns also explores the masks we wear and the ways we seek ourselves out like rabid acolytes while hiding from ourselves just as fervently.
The main character is Doug (sometimes Dougy, sometimes Johnny 23). The reader plays uncomfortable voyeur to Doug’s quest – a quest that is never fully defined but revealed in stages, a quest at the intersection of the sacred and the profane. His daily activity is easy enough, if painful, to follow. We see the women he dates and the relationships that bloom and wilt. We see his attempts to be an artist in a world of hollow fakes that inevitably “make it” (or at least are accepted by the crowds, but that doesn’t denote substance), while he goes misunderstood both by others and by himself as he comes to terms with his ambitions, failings, and the potential hollowness of his own efforts. We see the ways he grapples with the loss of his father, as well as the ways he avoids dealing with it. Through his father he reveals parallel preoccupations with “the one who got away”, the ultimate significance of which the reader is left to interpret herself.
Straightforward enough, and relatable, but things are complicated by jumps in time and weird dream sequences. The difficulty is not so much knowing what period of his life we’re in, but being patient with a fragmented understanding of the plot. Each time period builds on events from those preceding, and all of them inform each other symbolically, so there are no moorings at times, especially early in the books. The dream sequences highlight the events in Doug’s life as well, but in typical dream fashion (as distilled by Charles Burns), condensing events and themes and expressing them through a twisted constellation of symbol.
I was left with two questions at the end of Sugar Skull: (1) Is Doug likeable? (2) Am I likeable?
These questions themselves are simple, but beyond the vapid-vain outer shell, I think they open onto every other question worth asking about a life the further they are traced.
The books are marked by all those things Burns has become known for at this point – surrealism, an affinity for the grotesque, a highly stylized, personalized, and extensive symbolic system, the same beautiful, pristine, heavy linework that brought him comics stardom with Black Hole. And as with Black Hole, again that dark concern for adolescent angst, now alongside a bright color palette that still manages to accentuate the shadows. Change, growing up, loss (of innocence, of those watermark relationships that come to sum up evolving chapters of life) – all of these themes come together to make for a logical emotional step beyond Black Hole into adulthood. Burns also explores the masks we wear and the ways we seek ourselves out like rabid acolytes while hiding from ourselves just as fervently.
The main character is Doug (sometimes Dougy, sometimes Johnny 23). The reader plays uncomfortable voyeur to Doug’s quest – a quest that is never fully defined but revealed in stages, a quest at the intersection of the sacred and the profane. His daily activity is easy enough, if painful, to follow. We see the women he dates and the relationships that bloom and wilt. We see his attempts to be an artist in a world of hollow fakes that inevitably “make it” (or at least are accepted by the crowds, but that doesn’t denote substance), while he goes misunderstood both by others and by himself as he comes to terms with his ambitions, failings, and the potential hollowness of his own efforts. We see the ways he grapples with the loss of his father, as well as the ways he avoids dealing with it. Through his father he reveals parallel preoccupations with “the one who got away”, the ultimate significance of which the reader is left to interpret herself.
Straightforward enough, and relatable, but things are complicated by jumps in time and weird dream sequences. The difficulty is not so much knowing what period of his life we’re in, but being patient with a fragmented understanding of the plot. Each time period builds on events from those preceding, and all of them inform each other symbolically, so there are no moorings at times, especially early in the books. The dream sequences highlight the events in Doug’s life as well, but in typical dream fashion (as distilled by Charles Burns), condensing events and themes and expressing them through a twisted constellation of symbol.
I was left with two questions at the end of Sugar Skull: (1) Is Doug likeable? (2) Am I likeable?
These questions themselves are simple, but beyond the vapid-vain outer shell, I think they open onto every other question worth asking about a life the further they are traced.
February 17, 2018
Now that I have finished, it makes a lot of sense. The writing is superb. I don't know if i'd recommend the quick series to someone, since it drove me crazy there for a second. But I can say now that it was good.
February 16, 2018
A sad ending, but yet it looks like the beginning of something else.
Charles Burns has a very interesting style.
I dig!
Charles Burns has a very interesting style.
I dig!
September 7, 2025
There is no satisfying resolution to the story, because Doug still hasn’t come to terms with his behaviour. Burns’ portrayal of a relationship in decline was realistic and sad. There was less time spent in dreams in this volume, with the horror of everyday life taking the center stage.
May 9, 2018
Finally it all comes together. Burns makes some sense out of the weirdness established in the first two volumes. I can appreciate that some elements will make more sense on a second reading. But not everything makes perfect sense and that's OK. For the author to spell it all out would take some of the magic away. Some of the metaphors are probably open to interpretation. Would have enjoyed it a bit more if the story came together a little earlier in the third chapter to allow it to sink in and play itself out while the characters were still doing their thing.
December 16, 2014
Feh. Burns set up a really great other-world and real world story, and then this comes along and kind of throws away the dream world and wraps up the real world story in the most obvious way possible. Suspense fizzled. Lame.
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