X'ed Out by Charles Burns

 

The first thing you notice about Charles Burns’ latest comic, X’ed Out, is that the art is clearly influenced by Herge. It’s right there on the cover, not only in style but down to the egg that the main character (he’s called Doug) is staring at having the same colour scheme as the giant mushroom on the cover of Tintin adventure The Shooting Star. The plot, however, is very different. Doug wakes up, in a bizarre alien world – or is it a dreamscape? But things in the dreamscape/other world trigger memories – or are they just making him experience the real world? His real world is some sort of arty seventies culture, where he goes to basement parties and performs William Burroughs-influenced performance art. Meanwhile, in the alien place, he looks different, and although he has a streetwise kid sidekick helping him (or so we are led to think – honestly, nothing seems simple in this book) he keeps finding strange looking eggs, like the one on the cover. This is the first part of a series, so don’t expect too many answers, but it’s intriguing to say the least – down to a brilliantly ominous final panel. [Nat Smith]