Free S**t

by Charles Burns

Since 2000, master cartoonist Charles Burns has been self-publishing a secret, handmade sketchbook zine titled Free S**t, exclusively for friends and VIPs. For the first time, Burns has compiled all twenty-five issues into a single pocket-sized volume for all of his fans to enjoy. Featuring finished drawings, rough sketches, process pieces, and more, the book is a revealing behind-the-scenes look at how characters and motifs in acclaimed works like Black Hole and Last Look have evolved.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Art, Graphic Novels Comics, Graphic Novels Comics Manga

208 pages, Hardcover

First published September 4, 2019

About the author

Charles 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.

Reviews

[Jon Nakapalau · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite artists - fantastic look into his creative process! Met him once at a signing; such a nice guy - gave him some magnets of his art to sign (very small) and he went out of his way to initial them for me! Would love to see his take on Doom Patrol!

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fan came up to Charles Burns at some comics convention and asked him, "Hey, you got any free shit?" and he had to admit he did not. Then he thought, you know, others around her do that, I should do that, and at subsequent conventions he would make stapled copies of artwork that he had done, and gave it out with the title Free Shit. This is his first collection of some of those "issues," which amounts to a combination of quick sketches, drafts, portraits of his creepy pulpy retro cartoons, some of it funny. The feel of it is something like a journal or scrap book. Oh, and it's s small book, which makes it cooler for me.

To give this three stars is not to say I didn't really enjoy looking at it--I did--but to give some sense of where it stands in the Burns universe, which is to say it's not major work, but hey, still pretty good free shit.

Oh, but in hardcover, it's no longer free, sorry, jokes on you (okay, me) for not being the first to pick up the stapled photocopied version from h8m in person at a convention.

[Joe · Rating 2 out of 5]

No stories. Just sketchbook excerpts. Book is small (5.8” tall by 4.6” wide). I love Burns, but his magic is in the combination of story and style. There are a few eye popping drawings here, but ultimately the lack of narrative makes this one a miss.

[Bill Hsu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Burns' technique is impeccable, and it's interesting to see the rough sketches as well. Would be nice to have some story though.

[J.T. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have a feeling anyone who's not already a Charles Burns fan might be disappointed in this, but I always love seeing artist's process and sketchbooks. I would've enjoyed some further explanation or notes from Burns, but I realize this is just a collection of free zines he put together to give away to friends & fans.

I can't deny that the production is nice looking (beautiful drawings on hard covers), but I kind of feel that it goes against the spirit of "free shit" to charge so much for this collection. I would've been just as happy, if not happier, to have a cheapo paperback version for less.

[Peter Landau · Rating 4 out of 5]

Everyone should have a sketchbook and carry it around wherever they go to have handy when an idle moment occurs that can be filled with ink on paper. I don’t know if Charles Burns does this, but I’m certain he has many sketchbooks, that look like the fragments of which got published in the small-run zine he’s been producing in his spare time called FREE SHIT. Well, the collection of the first 25 eight-pagers sure as shit ain’t free, but it’s worth every penny to see this almost inhumanly talented artist get loose in a variety of media. Now, get sketching!

[Mike Kleine · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was excited for this one. I even took my time with it. I posted about it on Twitter and people seemed to get excited. This sort of sealed the deal for me, as-in, surely this won't be a waste of my time. (I was also reading Black Hole concurrently, for the first time, mind you).

So they say this one is/was released for the fans ...I must not be a fan. Sure, it's neat to see some of Burns' unfinished work/sketches. But then, that's all it really is. If you're deep into the lore of Burns' stuff, it might resonate with you, on a deeper level. This just didn't click with me. But I'm also thinking, if an artist I actually admired (say, Yuichi Yokoyama or Patrick Kyle) released a sketchbook of their stuff, would I care?

No.

So I guess I'm just not the intended audience for a collection of unfinished/rough images and ideas. It was like I had found someone's lost sketchbook, in the woods. And some people would have used that previous sentence as a positive, to describe this work. It's not a positive. It's a notebook that should have stayed lost in the woods, or in a closet in an old house, somewhere, in Middle America. There's a reason sketchbooks are sketchbooks, and only those who have made it as artists are able to release sketchbooks as, "legitimate" works for full price.

/hard pass

[Drew Canole · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of 25 8-page zines put out by Charles Burns. Unfortunately, it's not greater than the sum of its parts. For a book called "Free Shit" this seems like quite the cash grab.

Certainly for fans only, it includes a lot of rough sketches but also a few nice finished drawings. You start to see the rough beginnings of ideas that would become part of his X'ed Out Trilogy. But unfortunately no page in here is on par with panels from his major works. He's a slow, methodical creator... reading his books you can feel the effort he puts into his pages. So getting a book full of his sketches kind of misses the point of reading a Burns comic.

[Keen Reader · Rating 1 out of 5]

POINTLESS S**T!

This is really well packaged and very occasionally Burns bothers to show us just how well he can draw - but let's not kid ourselves on, what this does more than anything is show that just because something is free - doesn't mean its any good, and this is real bottom of the barrel stuff, the kind of material left over after the other leftovers have been exhausted, and to try and package it as anything else is shameless. Best avoided.

[Matt Graupman · Rating 4 out of 5]

There’s only a handful of artists whose work is so immediately identifiable that it becomes a sort of visual shorthand. There’s H.R. Giger’s biomechanical sex aliens, Moebius’ fluid fantasy heroes, Chris Ware’s crisply dispassionate suburbanites, and add to that list Charles Burns’ stark angular nightmares. Best known for his surreal, gruesome “Black Hole,” Burns’ influences run the gamut from fashion magazines to biology textbooks to romance comics and wherever else his muse takes him; he’s the David Lynch of comics. “Free Shit,” a collection of his secret eight-page sketchbook zines, is probably the most unfiltered he’d ever allow himself to be with his audience. Sure, he curated the images that went into each of the 25 issues, but there’s a spontaneity - almost a maniacal glee - to these private drawings having been made public. It’s fascinating to see how his ideas and designs develop over time. With very little explanation and virtually no context, the images in “Free Shit” float by like disturbing dreams; this is pure, unadulterated, unmistakable Charles Burns.

[Shazia · Rating 4 out of 5]

charles burns' artwork is something else man. so good.

[Matt · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not even recommended for Burns completists, just a random, chaotic, hard to read sketchbook thing.

[Bill Wallace · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ephemeral but engaging. A little like seeing the artist’s subconscious.

[Grg · Rating 2 out of 5]

It is fun to hold the small, thick hardback book in your hands and imagine how cool it'd be if there was an actual comic inside and not just a random collection of sketches.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a handsome package and Burns can draw damn near anything, but it's also fairly disposable unless you're a hardcore Burns fan.

[Blue · Rating 5 out of 5]

A vibrant collection of sketches in a small, chunky volume that's satisfying to hold and browse. Charles Burns has a very distinct style and a peculiar taste in art, visuals, and story. This collection is a good sampling of his art and aesthetic. As Free Shit issues progress, it's not hard to see patterns emerge. Recommended for those who like the mundane, bizarre and horrifying all in one place.

[Daniel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was excited to get this from the library today because of how much I loved Black Hole. Sadly, this didn't live up to my expectations. Don't get me wrong, there are many great illustrations in this book but a fair amount of not so great illustrations as well. In the end, it's just a compilation of Burns' zines which are themselves loose collections of his art.

[Steph · Rating 4 out of 5]

First book of the year — read this because we were weeding our library collection and I wanted to flip through before it went away. I read my first Charles Burns last year (Black Hole) and I recognized a lot of the sketches in this. The art is awesome and gross and kind of evil, could definitely be good material for punk flyers. Glad I took a minute to check this one out.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

From sketchbook drawings to polished ephemera, this volume collects the first 25 zines called Free Shit that Burns gave to friends and fans, in editions of 50. Burns, Clowes, and Panter share enough aesthetic similarities that it's sometimes easy to forget whose book you're looking at.

[Ricardo Mena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una pequeña delicatessen, una gozada, una joyita para los amantes del arte de Charles Burns.

[Magnus Frederiksen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jag ska vara ärlig. Det här är inte en bok som går under kategorin läsning. Det är bara bilder. Och det är inte för vem som helst. Jag skulle säga att du behöver ha din historia inom Charles Burns värld för att den här boken ska ha något större värde. Men för den inbitne är det här en resa in i mr Burns galna sinne. Jag kan inte sätta fingret på varför just den här boken skulle vara mer ”galen” än något annat han gjort, det är nog den personliga känslan med skisser och random shit man får ta del av. Flera bilder lever kvar inom mig långt efter.

[Tom · Rating 2 out of 5]

How much you enjoy this type of sketchbook release is going to vary widely from reader to reader. As a big graphic novel fan who hasn't yet spent much time with Burns's work, this was interesting, but doesn't make me feel like I need to run out and consume more of his stuff right away. Probably some interesting tidbits for someone with a fuller idea of the arc of his career, but if you're looking for a quick inculcation, this didn't do it for me.

[Lily · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sickening, bizarre, wild, weird, these are strange and wonderful as Burns always is. I like the idea of this zine, as just something to give to people who wanted "Free Shit." Some of his obsessions and fixations are on show, some beautiful, some rough drafts. A weird little document of freaky ephemera.

[Acton Northrop · Rating 2 out of 5]

*looks at $20 pricetag*

*looks at title*

“Well, it’s half true.”

(It’s fine, it’s collected ephemera, which I am in favour of in theory, there just isn’t a ton of interest to a casual Burns fan like me. Although right in the middle of all the Gen-X kitsch and Freudian monsters is the single most John Byrne thing I have ever witnessed. You’ll know it when you see it.)

[Jami · Rating 2 out of 5]

While I don't like or enjoy many of the works in this book I love an artist creating a regular practice to share with friends.

[YYdong · Rating 3 out of 5]

sketch

[Adrienne · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great little book for when you're tripping balls.

[Karena Bakas · Rating 2 out of 5]

Weird. Only gave it 2 instead of 1 because I like the idea behind it. The actual content itself wasn't great.

[Stefan]

Tough to rate since it’s just a collection of his drawings. Super cool to see his creative process/sketches though!

[Nick Nguyen · Rating 3 out of 5]

For the Charles Burns completists, who will easily dole out money for a collection of sketches that he gives away for free!