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Last Look Trilogy #1-3
Sem Volta
A trilogia épica de Charles Burns reunida num só volume. Sem volta é uma jornada delirante pelo território, incerto e sombrio, da memória. Uma história em quadrinhos que nos mantém visualmente eletrizados com sua atmosfera de sonho e realidade distorcida. Enquanto se recupera de um trauma devastador, o jovem Doug tenta juntar as peças do seu passado. Sua paixão por Sarah, uma estudante de artes brilhante e atormentada; a doença do pai. O que de fato aconteceu? Entre homenslagarto, ovos verdes gigantes e a cena punk do final dos anos 1970, a história vai sendo montada e desmontada. Como se Hergé encontrasse Burroughs num pesadelo de David Lynch, Charles Burns funde ação e mistério e mantém o leitor num estado de constante tensão nesta que é a reunião de sua célebre trilogia — X'ed Out, The Hive e Sugar Skull. Em que medida podemos confrontar o passado e conhecer a nossa própria história? É possível voltar atrás? “Burns tem o olhar de um observador alienígena chocado com a monstruosidade humana, mas irremediavelmente simpático ao nosso sofrimento. Ele cria as alucinações que eu escolheria ter.” — Daniel Pellizzari “Uma das representações mais dolorosamente honestas e vividamente desenhadas a respeito da culpa.” — The Guardian.
176 pages, Paperback
First published November 4, 2016
14 people are currently reading
1008 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 157 reviews
February 13, 2018
Hey, pretty girl, time to wake up.
—The Cowboy, Mulholland Drive
This superbly weird and unsettling book will have you convinced you that comics are the perfect medium through which to explore the fractured reality of delusion, fantasy, psychosis and guilt. Burns's clean, woodcut-thick lines make for a shocking contrast with the sense of creeping horror that underlies every panel here: it's David Lynch meets Hergé.
Click to enlarge
Last Look drops you into a nightmarish Upside-Down version of Tintin where the mysteries, instead of getting solved, only become more grotesque and confusing, in a blasted landscape full of sewage and inhabited by foul-mouthed aliens. And yet it's never weirdness for weirdness's sake: these scenes are intercut with a narrative from ‘real life’, where a messed-up boy called Doug is coming out of an opiate-induced stupor and recovering groggily from a head-wound.
It soon becomes clear that ‘Nitnit’ is a kind of alter-ego, whose terrifying adventures are a way for Doug's subconscious to come to terms with something appalling that he has done – or had done to him – and which we as readers only gradually begin to understand.
Again and again the same themes and motifs recur – foetuses, eggs, violence, fatherhood, aliens, regret, sexual perversion, jealousy – above all, perhaps, a particular kind of male guilt. And the artwork plays with these elements in remarkable ways.
The books that make up Last Look (originally published from 2010 to 2014 in three parts) were widely praised and showered with awards, but I still find it, if anything, underrated – everything is so carefully, so deliberately done. Panels call to each other across the three books, a nightmare detail from Nitnit's world finding an echo in the background to a frame from Doug's reality several years and scores of pages later. Colours are endowed with profound, if opaque, meaning. Tiny things like patterns of cigarette ash, or intercom speakers, acquire an extraordinary emotional weight.
It means that by the time the dénouement comes, we have more or less put the pieces together ourselves, and some readers have complained that everything seems a bit banal once you get the answers. It's true that, like Black Hole, the ending can't quite live up to the fantastic oddness of what has come before, but this is always going to be a problem if you succeed in creating a world that is so rich and so potent with symbolic power. I didn't mind too much; I wouldn't have missed the journey for anything.
There's a lot of influences in here – Hergé, of course, gets a sustained hommage in the artwork, and it clearly owes a big debt to David Lynch, especially the multilayered structure of Mulholland Drive. The cut-up technique of William Burroughs is also in the mix, and there are nods to Louise Bourgeois and other surrealists. Some frames involving razor blades could almost be stills from a Buñuel movie.
But for all this, Burns is in his own heady, fucked-up little world, deeply American despite its European influences. It's a horrifying and neurotic place which may well mess you up, and yet spending time there is also a beautiful and enriching experience. Just make sure you have concrete plans for how to get out again.
—The Cowboy, Mulholland Drive
This superbly weird and unsettling book will have you convinced you that comics are the perfect medium through which to explore the fractured reality of delusion, fantasy, psychosis and guilt. Burns's clean, woodcut-thick lines make for a shocking contrast with the sense of creeping horror that underlies every panel here: it's David Lynch meets Hergé.
Click to enlarge
Last Look drops you into a nightmarish Upside-Down version of Tintin where the mysteries, instead of getting solved, only become more grotesque and confusing, in a blasted landscape full of sewage and inhabited by foul-mouthed aliens. And yet it's never weirdness for weirdness's sake: these scenes are intercut with a narrative from ‘real life’, where a messed-up boy called Doug is coming out of an opiate-induced stupor and recovering groggily from a head-wound.
It soon becomes clear that ‘Nitnit’ is a kind of alter-ego, whose terrifying adventures are a way for Doug's subconscious to come to terms with something appalling that he has done – or had done to him – and which we as readers only gradually begin to understand.
Again and again the same themes and motifs recur – foetuses, eggs, violence, fatherhood, aliens, regret, sexual perversion, jealousy – above all, perhaps, a particular kind of male guilt. And the artwork plays with these elements in remarkable ways.
The books that make up Last Look (originally published from 2010 to 2014 in three parts) were widely praised and showered with awards, but I still find it, if anything, underrated – everything is so carefully, so deliberately done. Panels call to each other across the three books, a nightmare detail from Nitnit's world finding an echo in the background to a frame from Doug's reality several years and scores of pages later. Colours are endowed with profound, if opaque, meaning. Tiny things like patterns of cigarette ash, or intercom speakers, acquire an extraordinary emotional weight.
It means that by the time the dénouement comes, we have more or less put the pieces together ourselves, and some readers have complained that everything seems a bit banal once you get the answers. It's true that, like Black Hole, the ending can't quite live up to the fantastic oddness of what has come before, but this is always going to be a problem if you succeed in creating a world that is so rich and so potent with symbolic power. I didn't mind too much; I wouldn't have missed the journey for anything.
There's a lot of influences in here – Hergé, of course, gets a sustained hommage in the artwork, and it clearly owes a big debt to David Lynch, especially the multilayered structure of Mulholland Drive. The cut-up technique of William Burroughs is also in the mix, and there are nods to Louise Bourgeois and other surrealists. Some frames involving razor blades could almost be stills from a Buñuel movie.
But for all this, Burns is in his own heady, fucked-up little world, deeply American despite its European influences. It's a horrifying and neurotic place which may well mess you up, and yet spending time there is also a beautiful and enriching experience. Just make sure you have concrete plans for how to get out again.
October 29, 2016
Last Look is the collected edition of Charles Burns’ X’ed Out Trilogy comprising X’ed Out, The Hive, and Sugar Skull. I really liked the first two books for their disturbing, trippy and utterly weird story which was really imaginative and compelling but the ending was a disappointing let-down. For that finale I’ll drop the trilogy rating to a three-star average but it’s still worth checking out if you’re an indie comics fan, especially those who enjoy the work of David Lynch. Also you don’t need to look for three books anymore, the whole story is conveniently found here. Below are my reviews for each volume - enjoy!
*
X’ed Out - 4 Stars
Before the story even begins, Charles Burns invites comparisons to Kubrick’s 2001 and Kafka’s Metamorphosis with a page of black and red panels followed by a picture of our protagonist, Doug, looking through a window at a vegetable monster lying in bed. This will be an unusual book.
And, with the beginning of the story where a Tintin-lookalike character (the cover’s homage to The Shooting Star is an indicator of one of this book’s key references) with a bandage on his head, waking up in bed, it’s clear Burns is aiming to place the reader on the same uncertain footing as Doug with his deliberately choppy narrative style. Is this a dream? A hallucination? What's real and what isn't?
Like Alice in Wonderland, Doug starts off following an animal into a hole that leads into a fantasy land. Rivers of green water, ruined houses, talking lizardmen, noseless monsters and strange red and white eggs, populate the eerie landscape as Doug tries to figure out what’s happening through a fugue state brought on by drug abuse and/or head trauma.
The story then switches to our world and Doug’s appearance changes from the cartoony look to a more realistic face. We’re presented with fragments of his earlier life as an unsuccessful performance artist called Nitnit (Tintin backwards), who reads Burroughs-esque cut-up poetry (a nod perhaps to the way Burns has written this book?) over discordant music while wearing a Tintin-like mask.
Scenes of his sickly father, his disturbed art photography love interest Sarah, and foetus after foetus - human, pig, alien - pass by. The mood is tragic, doomed, violent and dark, though it’s unclear (so far) what the story is. It’s possible that this is how Doug is dealing with heartbreak from losing Sarah, and maybe the miscarriage of their baby is responsible, especially as a Sarah lookalike enters the fantasy land at the end and is introduced as a “breeder”, a new Queen for the Hive.
And, though the story is as mysterious and unsettling as a David Lynch film, X’ed Out is so well-written, presented, and drawn that not knowing exactly what’s happening doesn’t matter because it’s so enjoyable. The swiftly moving story sweeps you up and you want to know more, you want to find out what’s happening and how it’ll end, and that’s the mark of a great story.
X’ed Out’s short episodic nature is what keeps it from being a masterpiece - maybe after Black Hole Burns didn’t want to make something quite so lengthy? - especially as it seems like it will read much better as a whole rather than individually. But it’s still a brilliant comic that’s ambitious, thoughtful, creative and compelling, and definitely worth reading.
*
The Hive - 5 Stars
Re-reading series books in an actual series rather than as they come out over the years is worth it - at least for the good ones, which happily includes this title. I never noticed before but the cover shows Doug older and fatter, looking like he’s got some kind of office job, in contrast to the Doug that we left in the last book where he was wandering about as a younger man in his dad’s dressing gown in a haze with a bandaged head.
Well, shall we? Deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole we go…
Doug is still deeply troubled that the love of his life Sarah is no longer with him, though we still don’t know what happened to her. Time has moved on and his life has changed but he’s been unable to move on. He talks to a new woman - a therapist, a friend? - about Sarah and his dying father, and it looks like he’s become dependent upon booze and pills to cope. Elsewhere in the fantasy world, he’s still the young Tintin lookalike Nitnit but he’s now working in the Hive alongside the lizardmen to supply the breeders with romance comics.
Images, scenes, phrases noticeably begin repeating immediately. The Japanese romance comic that opens the book re-tells the story of how Doug met Sarah in the first book, and then later we discover Sarah loved to read old romance comics that Doug bought her at a flea market. In each version of the stories Doug is telling, romance comics play a part, and, mirroring this series and his own life, there are issues missing in between the comics Sarah is reading so she’s not getting the whole story. The comics seem to be the key to Doug’s story AND comics are how we’ll find out Doug’s full story. Layer upon layer of meta detail!
The pig foetus reappears though this time it’s coming out of Sarah’s stomach in a self-inflicted C-section, and the Tintin-esque eggs make another appearance. Small clues like the disembodied voice of Sarah’s psychotic ex threatening to murder them both and the buzzer through which he’s speaking gushing blood hints that perhaps Sarah was killed by him. Or maybe he killed Doug and all of this is purgatory where Doug’s soul is trying to come to peace with his strange life before moving on - is that what this fantasy world is? Charles Burns refuses to give us solid answers and keeps us guessing.
For the most part this book is a bit more straightforward than the first though an uneasy sense of despair continues to hang over proceedings. We see the highs of Doug and Sarah’s relationship and his performance art as his stage persona Nitnit is becoming well-received. Burns spends more time with Doug and his dying father, exploring his father’s past and how he became such a beaten man. It’s odd how we haven’t seen Doug’s mother yet and that Burns seems to be moulding Doug into his father’s image ever so slowly.
The Hive itself has biological-looking walls, fleshy sides that produce eggs, so maybe this is Doug’s subconscious hinting still further at the mystery at the centre of this all: Sarah and a baby they were going to have? There’s a scene earlier when Sarah took some photos of Doug that he hated because he wasn’t wearing his Nitnit mask (his protection or real self?) - will we finally understand what’s happening to Doug when he discards the Nitnit persona that “he created” in order to hide from reality?
This really is a very rewarding comic to revisit now that it’s complete. With the way so much of the story repeats on itself throughout The Hive, it feels like it’s building up momentum and the truth is about to come out. It’s an entrancing mystery told expertly by Burns and drawn in an utterly beautiful way - a masterclass in experimental fiction, challenging comics, and imaginative storytelling. Will Doug find the missing issues he needs to make sense of it all - and what part does the Sugar Skull play? Enough questions - onto the final book and (hopefully) the answers!
*
Sugar Skull - 2 Stars
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!
*
X’ed Out - 4 Stars
Before the story even begins, Charles Burns invites comparisons to Kubrick’s 2001 and Kafka’s Metamorphosis with a page of black and red panels followed by a picture of our protagonist, Doug, looking through a window at a vegetable monster lying in bed. This will be an unusual book.
And, with the beginning of the story where a Tintin-lookalike character (the cover’s homage to The Shooting Star is an indicator of one of this book’s key references) with a bandage on his head, waking up in bed, it’s clear Burns is aiming to place the reader on the same uncertain footing as Doug with his deliberately choppy narrative style. Is this a dream? A hallucination? What's real and what isn't?
Like Alice in Wonderland, Doug starts off following an animal into a hole that leads into a fantasy land. Rivers of green water, ruined houses, talking lizardmen, noseless monsters and strange red and white eggs, populate the eerie landscape as Doug tries to figure out what’s happening through a fugue state brought on by drug abuse and/or head trauma.
The story then switches to our world and Doug’s appearance changes from the cartoony look to a more realistic face. We’re presented with fragments of his earlier life as an unsuccessful performance artist called Nitnit (Tintin backwards), who reads Burroughs-esque cut-up poetry (a nod perhaps to the way Burns has written this book?) over discordant music while wearing a Tintin-like mask.
Scenes of his sickly father, his disturbed art photography love interest Sarah, and foetus after foetus - human, pig, alien - pass by. The mood is tragic, doomed, violent and dark, though it’s unclear (so far) what the story is. It’s possible that this is how Doug is dealing with heartbreak from losing Sarah, and maybe the miscarriage of their baby is responsible, especially as a Sarah lookalike enters the fantasy land at the end and is introduced as a “breeder”, a new Queen for the Hive.
And, though the story is as mysterious and unsettling as a David Lynch film, X’ed Out is so well-written, presented, and drawn that not knowing exactly what’s happening doesn’t matter because it’s so enjoyable. The swiftly moving story sweeps you up and you want to know more, you want to find out what’s happening and how it’ll end, and that’s the mark of a great story.
X’ed Out’s short episodic nature is what keeps it from being a masterpiece - maybe after Black Hole Burns didn’t want to make something quite so lengthy? - especially as it seems like it will read much better as a whole rather than individually. But it’s still a brilliant comic that’s ambitious, thoughtful, creative and compelling, and definitely worth reading.
*
The Hive - 5 Stars
Re-reading series books in an actual series rather than as they come out over the years is worth it - at least for the good ones, which happily includes this title. I never noticed before but the cover shows Doug older and fatter, looking like he’s got some kind of office job, in contrast to the Doug that we left in the last book where he was wandering about as a younger man in his dad’s dressing gown in a haze with a bandaged head.
Well, shall we? Deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole we go…
Doug is still deeply troubled that the love of his life Sarah is no longer with him, though we still don’t know what happened to her. Time has moved on and his life has changed but he’s been unable to move on. He talks to a new woman - a therapist, a friend? - about Sarah and his dying father, and it looks like he’s become dependent upon booze and pills to cope. Elsewhere in the fantasy world, he’s still the young Tintin lookalike Nitnit but he’s now working in the Hive alongside the lizardmen to supply the breeders with romance comics.
Images, scenes, phrases noticeably begin repeating immediately. The Japanese romance comic that opens the book re-tells the story of how Doug met Sarah in the first book, and then later we discover Sarah loved to read old romance comics that Doug bought her at a flea market. In each version of the stories Doug is telling, romance comics play a part, and, mirroring this series and his own life, there are issues missing in between the comics Sarah is reading so she’s not getting the whole story. The comics seem to be the key to Doug’s story AND comics are how we’ll find out Doug’s full story. Layer upon layer of meta detail!
The pig foetus reappears though this time it’s coming out of Sarah’s stomach in a self-inflicted C-section, and the Tintin-esque eggs make another appearance. Small clues like the disembodied voice of Sarah’s psychotic ex threatening to murder them both and the buzzer through which he’s speaking gushing blood hints that perhaps Sarah was killed by him. Or maybe he killed Doug and all of this is purgatory where Doug’s soul is trying to come to peace with his strange life before moving on - is that what this fantasy world is? Charles Burns refuses to give us solid answers and keeps us guessing.
For the most part this book is a bit more straightforward than the first though an uneasy sense of despair continues to hang over proceedings. We see the highs of Doug and Sarah’s relationship and his performance art as his stage persona Nitnit is becoming well-received. Burns spends more time with Doug and his dying father, exploring his father’s past and how he became such a beaten man. It’s odd how we haven’t seen Doug’s mother yet and that Burns seems to be moulding Doug into his father’s image ever so slowly.
The Hive itself has biological-looking walls, fleshy sides that produce eggs, so maybe this is Doug’s subconscious hinting still further at the mystery at the centre of this all: Sarah and a baby they were going to have? There’s a scene earlier when Sarah took some photos of Doug that he hated because he wasn’t wearing his Nitnit mask (his protection or real self?) - will we finally understand what’s happening to Doug when he discards the Nitnit persona that “he created” in order to hide from reality?
This really is a very rewarding comic to revisit now that it’s complete. With the way so much of the story repeats on itself throughout The Hive, it feels like it’s building up momentum and the truth is about to come out. It’s an entrancing mystery told expertly by Burns and drawn in an utterly beautiful way - a masterclass in experimental fiction, challenging comics, and imaginative storytelling. Will Doug find the missing issues he needs to make sense of it all - and what part does the Sugar Skull play? Enough questions - onto the final book and (hopefully) the answers!
*
Sugar Skull - 2 Stars
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!
August 17, 2025
The past will mess you up. Some things must be faced, others are dead and must be let go of. Usually the things that you should let go of are the ones that you should have faced at the time and now will haunt you forever, which is your own damn fault. You can't go back, so choose carefully.
Others have commented on how the all the disorientation and creeping horror of this story collapses into a disappointing banality by the end, but I think that the horror IS the banality. It's there waiting. We become our parents, with the same failures and regrets. But it's not inevitable. Every generation has a chance to do something differently. Try to be up to it. (You probably won't be.) Though note to my own parents: I think you actually did quite well as far as this goes. But as far as society as a whole goes, you know what I mean.
So this sort of works for me in its bleak trajectory. While I agree that the loss of ambiguity here gives up some of what makes the process so haunting, I appreciate that Burns forces an accounting of responsibility. All the sexual anxiety, fear, and denial is dumped on the correct doorstep. Chickens / roost. Is that too easy? No, avoiding it is easier, that's what this is about.
Others have commented on how the all the disorientation and creeping horror of this story collapses into a disappointing banality by the end, but I think that the horror IS the banality. It's there waiting. We become our parents, with the same failures and regrets. But it's not inevitable. Every generation has a chance to do something differently. Try to be up to it. (You probably won't be.) Though note to my own parents: I think you actually did quite well as far as this goes. But as far as society as a whole goes, you know what I mean.
So this sort of works for me in its bleak trajectory. While I agree that the loss of ambiguity here gives up some of what makes the process so haunting, I appreciate that Burns forces an accounting of responsibility. All the sexual anxiety, fear, and denial is dumped on the correct doorstep. Chickens / roost. Is that too easy? No, avoiding it is easier, that's what this is about.
November 22, 2019
A screw up named Doug deals with his feelings toward Sarah, the girl who got away, and periodically slips into a TinTin-esque fantasy world.
So I loved Big Baby and Black Hole and can't get enough of Charles Burns' art so I eventually snapped this up.
First of all, Charles Burns' art is spectacular, both his usual pop art style and the Herge-esque style of Doug's fantasies. There are lots of panels suitable for framing, in fact.
Doug's story unfolds in a circuitous way, punctuated by the TinTin interludes. Just what the hell happened between Doug and Sarah all those years ago and can Doug escape the rut his father trod through his own life?
I'm not precisely sure how to rate this. The art was gorgeous but the story wasn't anything spectacular. Three and a half maybe? I liked it but I didn't LIKE IT like it.
Last Look is another fantastic showing for Charles Burns art-wise. I wasn't enamored with the story, though. 3.5 out of 5 sugar skulls.
So I loved Big Baby and Black Hole and can't get enough of Charles Burns' art so I eventually snapped this up.
First of all, Charles Burns' art is spectacular, both his usual pop art style and the Herge-esque style of Doug's fantasies. There are lots of panels suitable for framing, in fact.
Doug's story unfolds in a circuitous way, punctuated by the TinTin interludes. Just what the hell happened between Doug and Sarah all those years ago and can Doug escape the rut his father trod through his own life?
I'm not precisely sure how to rate this. The art was gorgeous but the story wasn't anything spectacular. Three and a half maybe? I liked it but I didn't LIKE IT like it.
Last Look is another fantastic showing for Charles Burns art-wise. I wasn't enamored with the story, though. 3.5 out of 5 sugar skulls.
April 17, 2021
This is a puzzling one because the protagonist has so many traits that are unlikeable... for instance he's quite selfish, needy, cowardly, pretentious, stalkerish, he makes derivative, shallow art and he doesn't take criticism well... but at the same time he's also incredibly sympathetic because he's just an ordinary young guy who doesn't know much better and hasn't had the opportunity to emotionally develop, and has had years of his life taken away from him because of circumstances that aren't actually his fault at all.
It's pretty amazing really that this book has made me feel more empathy towards those kinds of people. As I've had instances in my life when people like this have become an impediment. Maybe it's important to see how lost and in pain some people are when they behave this way. When they become that insular that on the surface they seem like a total dickhead.... but what's actually going on inside them?
On the flipside the women in this book are mostly written badly. But this is likely deliberate because the protagonist doesn't really understand women, and the whole thing is filtered entirely through his perception.
It's a weird one. I don't think I'm able to convey in a review the sort of psychological depth that's probably in this. So much of it is intangible and deals in metaphors, symbolism and his subconscious. I don't think I enjoyed it that much but I don't think you're supposed to enjoy it... and the more I read of it the more important it felt.... and unlike it's obvious influences (William Burroughs and probably David Lynch) at the end of it all I felt like I'd actually learnt something. I'll have to get back to you on exactly what that might be.
It's pretty amazing really that this book has made me feel more empathy towards those kinds of people. As I've had instances in my life when people like this have become an impediment. Maybe it's important to see how lost and in pain some people are when they behave this way. When they become that insular that on the surface they seem like a total dickhead.... but what's actually going on inside them?
On the flipside the women in this book are mostly written badly. But this is likely deliberate because the protagonist doesn't really understand women, and the whole thing is filtered entirely through his perception.
It's a weird one. I don't think I'm able to convey in a review the sort of psychological depth that's probably in this. So much of it is intangible and deals in metaphors, symbolism and his subconscious. I don't think I enjoyed it that much but I don't think you're supposed to enjoy it... and the more I read of it the more important it felt.... and unlike it's obvious influences (William Burroughs and probably David Lynch) at the end of it all I felt like I'd actually learnt something. I'll have to get back to you on exactly what that might be.
November 18, 2017
This is a tale of self discovery destruction and selfishness. This is the story of a damaged mind dealing with truth, this is about running away from your problems. It’s about not knowing who you are. It’s about thinking you’re the hero, when in reality you aren’t really doing anything then stroking your own ego. It feels like a story of mid twenties self-crisis.
As Black Hole was about teen dread, this feels like it’s about twenties self-crisis and not knowing your way in the world or knowing how you fit in the adult world, possibly fear of responsibility.
This trilogy is about birth, life, death(just look at the covers). Doug wakes knowing he’ll never remember what was about to happen… A juxtaposition of strange dreamscapes & mundane reality. This is symbolism galore, but not in a bad way. Just in a heavy handed way, much like Black Hole. The “dream world” oddly feels more real, and the “real world” feels like an anxiety dream. It’s a good story, I do feel like there is something missing storywise, but I can’t tell you what it is. It all makes glad I am no longer in my twenties and dealing with self-obsessed art art school types. The folk in the “real world” remind me of the parts of me I despise from my youth and the people I avoid in my older years, plus the head injury parts hits a little too close to home.
I really enjoy Charles Burns’ illustration style, it always reminds me of Shin-hanaga(新版画) woodcuts and photos of the Pacific Northwest in the late 70s-early eighties. The color and type in this series are great, and really do a great job of informing the tone and assisting the narrative of the story. If you like this type of comic book, you’ll like this comic book. If you have to hunt down a good bookstore to find a comic book you like, this is a comic for you. If you listen to my recommendations, then I recommend this.
I give it 5 K large spotted eggs out of 5K large spotted eggs. I really enjoyed it, but I feel it was lacking enough weirdness for me. I highly recommend it.
As Black Hole was about teen dread, this feels like it’s about twenties self-crisis and not knowing your way in the world or knowing how you fit in the adult world, possibly fear of responsibility.
This trilogy is about birth, life, death(just look at the covers). Doug wakes knowing he’ll never remember what was about to happen… A juxtaposition of strange dreamscapes & mundane reality. This is symbolism galore, but not in a bad way. Just in a heavy handed way, much like Black Hole. The “dream world” oddly feels more real, and the “real world” feels like an anxiety dream. It’s a good story, I do feel like there is something missing storywise, but I can’t tell you what it is. It all makes glad I am no longer in my twenties and dealing with self-obsessed art art school types. The folk in the “real world” remind me of the parts of me I despise from my youth and the people I avoid in my older years, plus the head injury parts hits a little too close to home.
I really enjoy Charles Burns’ illustration style, it always reminds me of Shin-hanaga(新版画) woodcuts and photos of the Pacific Northwest in the late 70s-early eighties. The color and type in this series are great, and really do a great job of informing the tone and assisting the narrative of the story. If you like this type of comic book, you’ll like this comic book. If you have to hunt down a good bookstore to find a comic book you like, this is a comic for you. If you listen to my recommendations, then I recommend this.
I give it 5 K large spotted eggs out of 5K large spotted eggs. I really enjoyed it, but I feel it was lacking enough weirdness for me. I highly recommend it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 11, 2018
It's difficult to know where to start writing about this trilogy, as my thoughts are almost as jumbled as the narrative. That's not to say it's badly written - but I did need to read it twice. Last Look or the X'ed Out
The most impressive thing about the book, in my opinion, is the incredible use of symbolism throughout. It's more profound upon second reading, and who knows, even more, and Burns has a talent in taking mundane objects like a purple dressing gown, an apartment buzzer, or a glass of water, and soaking them with meaning and emotional weight. These are the main things that link Doug and Nitnit, other than their vague resemblance.
The dream sequences as well - if that's what they are - are great. I've seen many reviews comparing the trilogy to the work of David Lynch, which is indeed high praise. Yet Lynch's influence does remain firmly in the real world, and I was impressed by how uniquely Burns' dreams were depicted. They're set apart from works such as Mulholland Drive or Neil Gaiman's Sandman series. They're not too obscure and are possible to decipher - a sort of inversion of the real world story. This is of course helped by the narrative which smartly weaves between Nitnit, and then Doug of both the past and present. I can't imagine how much of a headache structuring that would have been.
I would warn however of the dark themes in this. Despite the artistic inspiration from Hergé's Tintin series, it is much much heavier, and it can be a depressing read pretty much throughout. Generally there is a sense of dread when reading it which I experienced, so well done to Charles Burns for using foreshadowing and flashbacks so effectively.
Aside from that there are flecks of humour, notably the weird characters in the dream world, and Doug's avant-garde musical performances. It's small, but it certainly helps for a respite. I do think it would be a much more difficult read if the narrative wasn't so expertly divided, with these colourful dream sequences coming at just the right moments.
Overall it's one of the most intriguing and original depictions of dreams I've experienced. And even just in its use of narrative and symbolism, it's a masterclass.
The most impressive thing about the book, in my opinion, is the incredible use of symbolism throughout. It's more profound upon second reading, and who knows, even more, and Burns has a talent in taking mundane objects like a purple dressing gown, an apartment buzzer, or a glass of water, and soaking them with meaning and emotional weight. These are the main things that link Doug and Nitnit, other than their vague resemblance.
The dream sequences as well - if that's what they are - are great. I've seen many reviews comparing the trilogy to the work of David Lynch, which is indeed high praise. Yet Lynch's influence does remain firmly in the real world, and I was impressed by how uniquely Burns' dreams were depicted. They're set apart from works such as Mulholland Drive or Neil Gaiman's Sandman series. They're not too obscure and are possible to decipher - a sort of inversion of the real world story. This is of course helped by the narrative which smartly weaves between Nitnit, and then Doug of both the past and present. I can't imagine how much of a headache structuring that would have been.
I would warn however of the dark themes in this. Despite the artistic inspiration from Hergé's Tintin series, it is much much heavier, and it can be a depressing read pretty much throughout. Generally there is a sense of dread when reading it which I experienced, so well done to Charles Burns for using foreshadowing and flashbacks so effectively.
Aside from that there are flecks of humour, notably the weird characters in the dream world, and Doug's avant-garde musical performances. It's small, but it certainly helps for a respite. I do think it would be a much more difficult read if the narrative wasn't so expertly divided, with these colourful dream sequences coming at just the right moments.
Overall it's one of the most intriguing and original depictions of dreams I've experienced. And even just in its use of narrative and symbolism, it's a masterclass.
January 31, 2020
Maestralan primjer naracije koja prepliće stvarne događaje i snove što su ih pratili, kako bi kroz filter podsvijesti i slikovite košmare dao precizan uvid u dubinu traume koju je glavni lik proživio na javi.
January 4, 2023
Komiks Charlesa Burnsa to pożywka dla negatywnych myśli. Zawód sobą oraz innymi staje się uczuciem dominującym i może zgnieść wnętrzności lub zabrać oddech, ale właśnie to jest najlepsze w tym tytule. Te niewygodne stany, które zabierają poczucie komfortu. Jakby coś wysysało szczęście z powietrza.
April 23, 2019
Když jsem na o narazil kdysi prvně, těšil jsem se na to, až se do toho pustím. Pak to nějak zapadlo v mysli a já se k tomu "namanul". A je to super. Jako první věc musím vyzdvihnout překlad Martina Svobody, který celou tu hovorovou řeč, narážky, vtípky a vulgarismy přeložil opravdu velmi přirozeně. Ten překlad mě hrozně bavil a samozřejmě poklona za obsah patří originálnímu autorovi, ale i ten překlad se dá příšerně nasekat ve snaze být cool (koukám se směrem na Crew...). Takže díky. Graficky nic překvapivého, Burnsova klasická čistota linek a barev krásně kontrastuje s hnusem, depresí a úzkostí zobrazovaného a takhle to funguje skvěle. Je fajn, že tenhle příběh má halvu a patu, i když konec abstraktní linky není dvakrát doslovný, pořád je to celkem uspokojivě složený příběh. Slupl jsem to jako malinu, na jeden zátah - ono se to poměrně dost těžko dostává a díky výpravnosti vizuálu a jen nezbytnému textu to šlape hodně rychle. Za mě hodně velká paráda. Tohle byl fakt zajímavý, bizarní a skvělý zážitek.
November 13, 2022
Znepokojivý komiksový příběh, který se noří do velmi komplexních a těžkých témat. U některých pasáží jsem měla pocit, jako by mi někdo zmrazil orgány tekutým dusíkem. Hrozně zvláštní působení obrazů.
Celkový dojem je ale hodně nevyvážený a vlastně nevím, jestli jsem knížku dokázala plně pojmout. Surreálné obrazy se střídaly se syrovým popisem běžného života a vzájemně vytvořili symbolickou výpoveď, ve které jsem se možná v průběhu prostě ztratila.
Témata jako sobeckost, smrt a narození nebo to, jaká břemena si vytváříme v síti vzájemných vztahů, jsou silná i nosná. Přesto mi občas přišlo, že je všechny ty obrazy, sny a pokřivené reality halí do nepropustného závoje. To, co v narativu syrovosti každodenního života působí jako sůl do rozšklebené rány je v surreálném světě obrazů ve výsledku spíš jen bezzubá alegorie. Nevím.
Doporučuju zkusit. Já to rozhodně hodlám číst znovu, třeba se k jádru příběhu dostanu blíž.
Celkový dojem je ale hodně nevyvážený a vlastně nevím, jestli jsem knížku dokázala plně pojmout. Surreálné obrazy se střídaly se syrovým popisem běžného života a vzájemně vytvořili symbolickou výpoveď, ve které jsem se možná v průběhu prostě ztratila.
Témata jako sobeckost, smrt a narození nebo to, jaká břemena si vytváříme v síti vzájemných vztahů, jsou silná i nosná. Přesto mi občas přišlo, že je všechny ty obrazy, sny a pokřivené reality halí do nepropustného závoje. To, co v narativu syrovosti každodenního života působí jako sůl do rozšklebené rány je v surreálném světě obrazů ve výsledku spíš jen bezzubá alegorie. Nevím.
Doporučuju zkusit. Já to rozhodně hodlám číst znovu, třeba se k jádru příběhu dostanu blíž.
November 20, 2019
I read this whole thing in three bus rides today!! Very proud of me. Nothing will ever top Black Hole (my fave graphic novel by Charles Burns) but I did really love a lot about this. Very surreal and dreamy and mysterious until a big ol emotional gut punch of an ending. This got stolen off my back doorstep after my parents mailed it to me for my birthday and I’m glad I went out and bought it again, I really love Charles Burns’ whole thing of really devastating, simple stories filtered through a sort of fucked up ‘50s sci-fi/horror nightmare.
December 14, 2022
Nieprzypadkowo w samym komiksie jak i licznych tekstach na jego temat, często pada nazwisko guru hippisów i beatników - Williama Burroughsa. „Ostatnie spojrzenie” to poszatkowana fabuła, która w nowych kontekstach zyskuje nowe znaczenia. Dzieją się tu rzeczy niesamowite, choć tak naprawdę, gdy dotarłem do ostatniej strony, historia wydała się domknięta. Burns nie tylko miesza porządki czasowe, ale nadaje również wydarzeniom bardzo różne formy. Raz jesteśmy świadkami historii związanej z Sarą – byłą dziewczyną Douga, by za chwilę śledzić relacje bohatera z ojcem i w końcu przeżywać niesamowite przygody w komiksowym świecie Tintina. Na to wszystko autor nałożył psychodeliczną warstwę, mnóstwo niesamowitości, niepokoju i horroru w klimacie „Black Holes”. Całość ma wyraźnie narkotyczny posmak, a na szczególną uwagę zasługuje chowanie się za maską i przybieranie wyglądu postaci przypominającej bohatera komiksów Hergego. Ta ucieczka przed światem, a także motywy określające relacje z ojcem czy błądzenie w snach nago, kierują czytelnika wprost do rozkmin z dziedziny psychoanalizy... Trudno w krótkiej notce zawrzeć wszystkie aspekty tak złożonego dzieła, bo to rzecz raczej na długie i elokwentne rozprawy. Kolejny klasyk Burnsa to prawdziwe wyzwanie i jeden z najlepszych komiksów jakie czytałem do tej pory
May 22, 2018
Gosto da arte do Burns, também gosto da forma que ele conta suas histórias. Acho até que ele conseguiu passar muito bem todo o sentimento, conflito, ansiedade dos 20 e poucos. Mas pra mim o maior mérito na obra é a linha temporal. O drama não me convenceu muito e me parece até um pouco óbvio. Não há nada demais na forma que o protagonista resolve seus problemas, não os resolvendo. E nesse ponto temos um adolescente que se acha melhor do que realmente é, perdido em seus devaneios, injustiçado e incompreendido. Quem nunca viu um andolescente simplesmente fugindo de qualquer responsabilidade? Doug não é um cara legal, ele é aquele vacilão que todos nós já fomos. Alguns conseguem ser piores que os outros e nunca crescem. Talvez seja esse o merito do quadrinho, te lembrar que você poedria ter sido um ser humano mais babaca e ainda bem que não é.
3.5 estrelas.
3.5 estrelas.
July 23, 2017
I would've lost interest had I waited a year for each issue of this trilogy, so I feel lucky to have waited to read them all in one sitting. This is excellent, a surreal and sad haze of a story. Even closer to oneiric Lynchian imagery than David Boring by Daniel Clowes. It makes me think that I underappreciated my first reading of Black Hole. However, I think I prefer this story in the character and plot focus seems stronger and more realistic (which is surprising given that much of it occurs in the form of a drug-induced reverie). I don't think the story will have much lasting impact for me, and wasn't so sure on the ending, but this deserves a solid rating for daring to show that even drug experiences cannot escape illustration.
June 9, 2024
I don't read comic books very often and I am thinking that maybe I ought to read more of them. This one is excellent. I especially liked the references to Tintin and how the story was constantly veering between nightmare and idyll. Very good indeed.
June 22, 2025
This is a surreal and engrossing tale that at first is disorienting and nightmarish. It deals with a traumatic event (of which we are uncertain) that impacts the lives of several young people (the relationships among whom we're initially unsure).
The story unfolds like a bad dream, in fragmentary monstrous vignettes intermingled with actual memories or current day activity, and slowly pieces together a description of the age old story of women: they are looking for love and romance, but unfortunately they seek to find it in the company of immature and oafish men. These men of course, have their own agenda -- they seek to avoid commitment and personal responsibility, while trying to fulfill their unrestrained sexual desires).
The result is exceedingly predictable . . .
5 Stars for creative story telling, exceptional artwork, and clever authorship!
The story unfolds like a bad dream, in fragmentary monstrous vignettes intermingled with actual memories or current day activity, and slowly pieces together a description of the age old story of women: they are looking for love and romance, but unfortunately they seek to find it in the company of immature and oafish men. These men of course, have their own agenda -- they seek to avoid commitment and personal responsibility, while trying to fulfill their unrestrained sexual desires).
The result is exceedingly predictable . . .
5 Stars for creative story telling, exceptional artwork, and clever authorship!
August 28, 2025
Trippy, surreal and unpredictable, but also a bit grody for my taste - and the ending is a bit of a letdown. Still for the hour it takes to read, not bad - and hey, the protagonist's name is Doug, so that's good for something right there!
January 7, 2017
Gleich zu Beginn schon stürzt Burns den Leser in ein grotesk-surreal anmutendes Szenario, bei dem mir Jeffrey Beaumonts zutreffend lakonischer Satz in Lynchs BLUE VELVET in den Sinn kommt:
It's a strange world!
Zunächst mag man gar nicht glauben, dass die Story sich am Ende klären, "dechiffrierbar" werden wird.
Überhaupt gibt es Parallelen zwischen den beiden Liebesgeschichten, die so sonderbare Wege gehen, dazu kommt eine Prise GEFÄHRLICHE FREUNDIN. Vor allem aber ist LAST LOOK die Geschichte einer Schuld, eines Versagens.
LAST LOOK ist verstörend, sehr, düster, sehr, nicht gewillt, sich beim Leser einzuschmeicheln; und wie bei BLUE VELVET kontrastieren idyllische Bilder mit brutalen, wird ein naiver Held durch Abgründe geprügelt, die fremd und doch furchtbar real sind.
Ich mag es gelegentlich gern düster und Black Hole ist für mich eine der besten Graphic Novels, aber LAST LOOK hat mich beim Lesen in punkto Unbehagen schon sehr gefordert. Ich tue mich schwer zu sagen, ob es über BLACK HOLE hinaus geht, "besser" oder "verstörender" ist, aber fest steht, dass Burns, inzwischen jenseits der 60, kein bißchen altersmilde geworden ist und immer noch die Hölle des Heranwachsens kartografiert.
Und wenn sich schließlich gegen Ende herausstellt, dass LAST LOOK nicht nur ein Kaleidoskop des Schreckens ist, sondern eine sehr menschliche, sehr berührende Geschichte erzählt, dann steht für mich fest:
Charles Burns hat einmal mehr eine Ausnahme-Graphic Novel vorgelegt, die das Potenzial der Gattung zeigt, es qualitativ mit großen Romane aufnehmen zu können.
Volle Punktzahl, besser geht es nicht!
It's a strange world!
Zunächst mag man gar nicht glauben, dass die Story sich am Ende klären, "dechiffrierbar" werden wird.
Überhaupt gibt es Parallelen zwischen den beiden Liebesgeschichten, die so sonderbare Wege gehen, dazu kommt eine Prise GEFÄHRLICHE FREUNDIN. Vor allem aber ist LAST LOOK die Geschichte einer Schuld, eines Versagens.
LAST LOOK ist verstörend, sehr, düster, sehr, nicht gewillt, sich beim Leser einzuschmeicheln; und wie bei BLUE VELVET kontrastieren idyllische Bilder mit brutalen, wird ein naiver Held durch Abgründe geprügelt, die fremd und doch furchtbar real sind.
Ich mag es gelegentlich gern düster und Black Hole ist für mich eine der besten Graphic Novels, aber LAST LOOK hat mich beim Lesen in punkto Unbehagen schon sehr gefordert. Ich tue mich schwer zu sagen, ob es über BLACK HOLE hinaus geht, "besser" oder "verstörender" ist, aber fest steht, dass Burns, inzwischen jenseits der 60, kein bißchen altersmilde geworden ist und immer noch die Hölle des Heranwachsens kartografiert.
Und wenn sich schließlich gegen Ende herausstellt, dass LAST LOOK nicht nur ein Kaleidoskop des Schreckens ist, sondern eine sehr menschliche, sehr berührende Geschichte erzählt, dann steht für mich fest:
Charles Burns hat einmal mehr eine Ausnahme-Graphic Novel vorgelegt, die das Potenzial der Gattung zeigt, es qualitativ mit großen Romane aufnehmen zu können.
Volle Punktzahl, besser geht es nicht!
January 31, 2019
Foi uma obra de Charles Burns, Black Hole, que me fez sair da mesmice das leituras de quadrinhos. Até ela, eu basicamente só lia quadrinhos de super-heróis. Burns faz quadrinhos pesados, porque até o seu traço não é nada leve, é encorpado, é possante. Mas também seus quadrinhos são lisérgicos e oníricos porque a realidade é como o seu traço: é pesada e difícil de suportar. Por isso essa fuga para outras materialidades da percepção, outras portas que abrimos e passamos, através de nossos sentidos e sentimentos quando o que está colocado para nós é impossível de ser transposto. E isso é um pouco do que se trata esse quadrinhos, que mistura personagens e realidades de sonho com acontecimentos e pessoas de uma trama que, em tese, se passaria no nosso mundo. Muitas pessoas desistem da vida real para viver vidas à parte, que são, muitas vezes tão terríveis quanto aquelas que elas viviam. Só que não percebem isso. É uma forma da mente compensar algumas faltas e algumas tramas que ficaram sem serem resolvidas no passado. Em meio a homens-lagarto, homens-feto, mulheres que botam ovo, como pode resisti um cara que teve de enfrentar a violência domestica e a terrível notícia de que sua namorada teria um filho seu? Cada um se esconde na realidade que escolheu para enfrentar os desafios que a vida coloca, dia a dia, na nossa frente. A vida, assim como a morte, é uma estrada SEM VOLTA.
June 19, 2022
Potaknut ovom odličnom recenzijom, odlučio sam se ponoviti Posljednji pogled. Iako je prošlo skoro tri godine od prvog čitanja, sjećao sam se više-manje svega pa sam se ovaj put mogao prepustiti polaganom, detaljnom čitanju i proučavanju. Nakon što sam ga po drugi put zaklopio, postalo mi je jasno da je u pitanju strip koji neizbježno ostavlja udarac, bez obzira na protok vremena i ponovljena čitanja.
Priča je zanimljiva, iako bismo mogli reći da je nekako "obična". No adut ovog stripa ipak nije priča (iako je i ona važna, naravno) već način na koji je ispričana, a on je itekako neobičan. Na prvu je možda i nejasno što se tu točno događa, no uz pažljivo čitanje postaje očigledno da Burns itekako zna što radi i vrlo sigurno gradi priču kombinirajući realno i nadrealno. Za konačan dojam je, očekivano, uvelike zaslužan i Burnsov specifičan vizualni izričaj koji je u savršenoj sinergiji sa scenarijem.
Posljednji pogled je bezvremensko remek-djelo koje govori o mnogo toga: o površnosti i dubini u umjetnosti i izvan nje, o međuljudskim odnosima i njihovoj istovremenoj jednostavnosti i kompleksnosti, o našim nesigurnostima, pogreškama i traumama i, možda najvažnije, o tome da moramo naučiti živjeti s njima. Strip kojem ću se sigurno još puno puta vraćati.
Priča je zanimljiva, iako bismo mogli reći da je nekako "obična". No adut ovog stripa ipak nije priča (iako je i ona važna, naravno) već način na koji je ispričana, a on je itekako neobičan. Na prvu je možda i nejasno što se tu točno događa, no uz pažljivo čitanje postaje očigledno da Burns itekako zna što radi i vrlo sigurno gradi priču kombinirajući realno i nadrealno. Za konačan dojam je, očekivano, uvelike zaslužan i Burnsov specifičan vizualni izričaj koji je u savršenoj sinergiji sa scenarijem.
Posljednji pogled je bezvremensko remek-djelo koje govori o mnogo toga: o površnosti i dubini u umjetnosti i izvan nje, o međuljudskim odnosima i njihovoj istovremenoj jednostavnosti i kompleksnosti, o našim nesigurnostima, pogreškama i traumama i, možda najvažnije, o tome da moramo naučiti živjeti s njima. Strip kojem ću se sigurno još puno puta vraćati.
January 18, 2018
Naposled je příběhem o selhání mladého umělce, pokřivenou reminiscencí na legendárního Tintina i výpravou do děsivého fantaskního světa. To vše se míchá dohromady zprvu zdánlivě nesourodě, avšak čím více se příběh chýlí ke konci, tím více do sebe jednotlivé linky začínají zapadat. Naposled určitě není komiksem na první přečtení, protože se v něm skrývá celá řada odkazů, vizuálních nápadů i sdělení, která nejsou zprvu ihned zřejmé. Hlavní hrdina Doug se snaží dát psychiky dohromady po rozpadu vztahu s dívkou Sárou, která je pronásledována násilným ex-přítelem. Doug musí čelit nejen fyzickému napadení, ale i osobnímu selhání, které se v děsivé podobě odráží ve snových pasážích. V nich se Doug objevuje jako jakýsi Tintin ve světě podivně připomínajícím tento slavný komiks. Akorát s tím rozdílem, že se nevydává za lákavými dobrodružstvími, ale ocitá se tváří v tvář svým nejděsivějším nočním můrám. Surreálné výjevy, situace i postavy vzbuzují až fyzický odpor a hnus. Burns se zřejmě v této poněkud nevšední poetice cítí jako doma. Právě v tomto světě upside-down se Doughovi promítají v jakési instantní až brutální podobě důsledky jeho činů, vzpomínky, neschopnost se vzepřít a nést odpovědnost.
February 7, 2017
I read the whole thing in one sitting. It was captivating and haunting and strange. Burns takes readers on a stomach churning ride through one man's justification for past behavior. There is a plot twist dangled in front of you face throughout parts 1 & 2 that isn't as well resolved in part 3 as it could be but the journey to that ending is still so beautiful and disorienting that passing on this book is doing yourself a disservice.
The plot is a temporal and otherworldly fever dream as our reality and the book's surreal, alien world match and predict each other's outcome with sickly foreshadowing throughout. Burns leaves a lot for the reader to infer and doesn't spell out every single story beat and that makes Last Look a joy to return to. After finishing the book in one fevered rush I returned to it the next night and reread certain scenes picking up on hints and things that seemed obvious now knowing what happens in the end.
Charles Burns Last Look trilogy is a truly mind-bending and challenging work of fiction and a masterpiece of the graphic novel form on par with the work of Chris Ware and Daniel Clowes. Do yourself a favor and check it out.
The plot is a temporal and otherworldly fever dream as our reality and the book's surreal, alien world match and predict each other's outcome with sickly foreshadowing throughout. Burns leaves a lot for the reader to infer and doesn't spell out every single story beat and that makes Last Look a joy to return to. After finishing the book in one fevered rush I returned to it the next night and reread certain scenes picking up on hints and things that seemed obvious now knowing what happens in the end.
Charles Burns Last Look trilogy is a truly mind-bending and challenging work of fiction and a masterpiece of the graphic novel form on par with the work of Chris Ware and Daniel Clowes. Do yourself a favor and check it out.
December 22, 2016
Burns's art is top notch, and I really liked how he played with styles here—a little tin Tin here, a little 60s romance comics there—but the book falls short in the story department. There's lots of potential. Burns created some interesting characters doing artsy things, and a bizarre dreamworld that perversely mirrors the actions of the protagonists. Those are just window dressing to the main story, which is presented as a mystery; some unspoken, horrible memory is trying to force its way back into the main character's mind. The big reveal at the end, though, lacks oomph. Yes, the situation presented totally sucks—but not enough to carry all the great and interesting things that happened before it. It makes the book feel a bit self-indulgent, like one of the "Oh, my life!" indie comics so popular in the early 2000s—the ones where a writer/artist described some personal experiences, ones that felt emotionally rich to them, but just seemed tedious to me. The whole book left me disappointed (aside from the art).
June 1, 2018
A elegia psicoafetiva de um jovem artista, cujo início dá-se em meio à cena punk dos anos 70: assim podemos apresentar - pelo menos de início - a HQ Sem volta (2018), de Charles Burns. Esta edição da Quadrinhos na Cia. reúne em volume único a obra, originalmente uma trilogia, publicada entre 2010 e 2014.
O enredo trata de Doug, um torturado rapaz americano com pretensões à poesia que vê sua vida transfigurada na arte e no amor ao relacionar-se com Sarah. Burns nos conduz por uma biografia não-linear do protagonista, com foco em mirabolantes delírios de um alterego que fundam um universo aventuresco à parte na história. Dá-se, assim, o tom de assinatura especial ao trabalho, com uma clara homenagem ao clássico Tintin.
A narrativa se utiliza de traços precisos e consistentes e de cores lindamente gritantes para construir um honesto panorama sobre alguém que sente, por meio da culpa e da memória, todo o peso das decisões do passado tomadas em nome de uma suposta liberdade.
https://www.instagram.com/asombradasl...
O enredo trata de Doug, um torturado rapaz americano com pretensões à poesia que vê sua vida transfigurada na arte e no amor ao relacionar-se com Sarah. Burns nos conduz por uma biografia não-linear do protagonista, com foco em mirabolantes delírios de um alterego que fundam um universo aventuresco à parte na história. Dá-se, assim, o tom de assinatura especial ao trabalho, com uma clara homenagem ao clássico Tintin.
A narrativa se utiliza de traços precisos e consistentes e de cores lindamente gritantes para construir um honesto panorama sobre alguém que sente, por meio da culpa e da memória, todo o peso das decisões do passado tomadas em nome de uma suposta liberdade.
https://www.instagram.com/asombradasl...
March 25, 2019
Ya me había encandilado Charles Burns con agujero negro, superior a esta obra a mi juicio. Y ahora lo vuelve a hacer, esta vez a color.
Había leído tóxico por separado. A mi entender no tienen sentido las tres partes de la historia y parece que han sido simplemente divididas como mero pretexto, no se si con fines prácticos, de tiempo de producción o económicos.
Ahora leyendo Vista Final de una sola vez se entiende mucho mejor, y no se notan apenas las pausas intermedias.
No sé que decir del color, yo creo que Burns gana mucho más en blanco y negro. Sin embargo conjunta bien con la línea clara que necesariamente tiene en su lápiz.
La historia es de esas que da para leerlas una y otra vez. Es acojonante las metáforas que representa, el mundo real y el mundo de los sueños, para describir el estado anímico del protagonista, toda una nebulosa chunga que da bastante yuyu.
El mundo de fuera es el de siempre, el de dentro, seguro, el que puede tener cualquiera que esté a nuestro lado, sin nosotros saberlo.
Mucha calidad en comic.
Había leído tóxico por separado. A mi entender no tienen sentido las tres partes de la historia y parece que han sido simplemente divididas como mero pretexto, no se si con fines prácticos, de tiempo de producción o económicos.
Ahora leyendo Vista Final de una sola vez se entiende mucho mejor, y no se notan apenas las pausas intermedias.
No sé que decir del color, yo creo que Burns gana mucho más en blanco y negro. Sin embargo conjunta bien con la línea clara que necesariamente tiene en su lápiz.
La historia es de esas que da para leerlas una y otra vez. Es acojonante las metáforas que representa, el mundo real y el mundo de los sueños, para describir el estado anímico del protagonista, toda una nebulosa chunga que da bastante yuyu.
El mundo de fuera es el de siempre, el de dentro, seguro, el que puede tener cualquiera que esté a nuestro lado, sin nosotros saberlo.
Mucha calidad en comic.
July 8, 2017
I'm a longtime fan of Charles Burns. His artwork can veer from highly-realistic to simple-yet-expressive in a single frame. He's the creepy David Lynch of graphic novels, incorporating fifties iconography to ironic effect while dropping in elements of the sci-fi grotesque. Last Look has a bit in common with some of Daniel Clowes' closely observed studies of characters in their subculture. Its main character is a fringe wannabe-artist character and the plot of "Last Look," to the extent that it has one, is a sad love story between him and a lovely, troubled artist named Sarah who's a bit of a cipher. The narrative is fractured between the protagonist's memories of his relationship with Sarah and a head-injury-induced alternate reality that's part Herge, part Cronenberg. I didn't like this as much as some of Burns's other work but it's good reading nonetheless. If you are the kind of weirdo who likes Charles Burns, you will dig on this one.
July 9, 2017
I think I'm outside the target audience of this book. I remember many of the emotions and experiences that happen to Doug, but those feelings don't age well. This story is several intertwined timelines (and a dream line) about Doug as he falls in and out of love, preforms, watches bands, deals with father issues, depression, dependency issues, and failed expectations. In other words, pretty much the same topics most coming of age/20-something rediscovery stories deal with. The art is distinctive and effective. And Burns does manage to portray the traumas (more so than the highs) of a turbulent time in Doug's life. Doug is not a hero; he may not even be the hero in his own personal story (as his dream world attests), but through his poor choices and bad decisions he does highlight the trials of the suburban white slacker male. Burns captures it well, but I'm not sure what he's captured is a topic a large number of people have an interest in seeing at this level of detail.
January 6, 2019
I loved Black Hole for the most part and felt that it fell apart quite badly at the end. Glancing at the reviews here, it seems that a lot of people felt the same way about Last Look. And while the ending perhaps did not live up to the weight of utter dread that the preceding 75% inspired, it worked for me in a way that the ending of Black Hole did not. And as a whole, it's a wonderfully creepy, unnerving, and well-told work.
I dislike horror films (almost universally) but worship David Lynch. My partner has always been a bit confused by this. I typically find horror films to rely on cheap, easy scares, which I don't find enjoyable at all. What I do appreciate is an artist who can create a sense of the unearthly and unknowable. This is very difficult to pull off. At his best, Charles Burns can do this.
I dislike horror films (almost universally) but worship David Lynch. My partner has always been a bit confused by this. I typically find horror films to rely on cheap, easy scares, which I don't find enjoyable at all. What I do appreciate is an artist who can create a sense of the unearthly and unknowable. This is very difficult to pull off. At his best, Charles Burns can do this.
February 9, 2025
This is certainly not a book I would have picked up on my own, but it was required reading for a class so here we are. This graphic novel was weird, but I liked the way the mystery unfolded. The big reveal of the mystery, however, was disappointing. I liked the main character all right at the beginning, but as the story progressed and we learned more about him, I began to dislike him more and more. I don't know what the complete opposite of character growth is called. Character deterioration, perhaps? But that's Doug. Overall, I would have to say that this book was not my cup of tea, but I could appreciate the effort.
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