The hive

Charles Burns, 1955-

Book - 2012

Confessing his past to an unidentified woman, Doug struggles to recall the mysterious incident that left his life shattered, an incident that may have involved his disturbed and now-absent girlfriend, Sarah, and her menacing ex-boyfriend.

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GRAPHIC NOVEL/Burns
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Subjects
Genres
Graphic novels
Published
New York : Pantheon Books c2012.
Language
English
Main Author
Charles Burns, 1955- (-)
Edition
1st ed
Item Description
Part 2 of Charles Burns's X'ed out trilogy.
Physical Description
1 v. (unpaged) : chiefly col. ill. ; 31 cm
ISBN
9780307907882
Contents unavailable.
Review by Booklist Review

Burns continues the story begun in X'ed Out (2010) of Doug, the victim of a mysterious head injury who vacillates between a dreamed existence, in which he's toiling as a delivery boy in a hivelike netherworld populated by grotesque figures, and his memories of his doomed relationship with the troubled Sarah and her violent ex-boyfriend. The two realities begin to overlap. In the hive, Doug delivers old-fashioned romance comics to Lily, one of the young breeders enslaved to produce workers as the waking Doug reminisces about Sarah's fondness for the kitschy comics. While the hive sequences have the nightmarish logic of a fever dream, Sarah's disturbing behavior and Doug's discoveries about his emotionally inaccessible father make his waking life seem somehow even more unsettling. Burns' straightforward, hard-edged artwork, with its sensuous brushwork and dramatic shadows, makes both realities creepily convincing. Doug's fate and the significance of the eerie hive will presumably be resolved in the third volume of this trilogy. Until then, Burns' fans can luxuriate in the pair of bizarre worlds that he's created.--Flagg, Gordon Copyright 2010 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Burns's oeuvre is frequently cited as "strange," but that's perhaps oversimplifying a world more thought-provokingly described as recognizably like our own, except for when it's not--and it's the difference between the two where Burns's power to shine a light on the darker side of human nature lies. This is the second volume of a trilogy begun in X'ed Out, and as such has an unfinished feeling. We return to Doug, the protagonist, whose recounting of his relationship with a young woman shifts back and forth between the less surreal of the book's two environments and another where his apparent alter ego works in a dreary factory/hospital providing books to its monster patients. Both scenarios occur in an eerie alternate reality whose visuals exude a sense of uncomfortable, riveting silence that fixes the reader's attention to the tale's odd events. Burns's stark work operates on its own nightmare logic and as a result, flesh-crawling events spew forth in the most mundane of settings. Romance comics, misshapen mutants, reptile men, a nightmare of disembowelment that yields a fetal pig, photographic obsessions and more stake out their territory--the result will stick with readers long after being absorbed. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review

The second volume of a trilogy in which the acclaimed graphic novelist returns to comic-book format while exploring the darkest recesses of the subconscious. As if the introduction to this series (X'ed Out, 2010) wasn't hallucinatory enough, this second installment will leave initiates feeling significantly disoriented. And perhaps that's part of the point, as Burns blurs the distinctions within this anti-narrative among comic books, reality, drugs, masks, nightmare and identity. We're back in the mind (or life or memory or dream) of protagonist Doug, who pays a visit to the convalescing Lily, hidden in a secret room, where they discuss events or dreams that the other doesn't remember, and Doug promises to bring Lily romantic comics (with cover typeface in a foreign language) in the Throbbing Heart series. Yet, she (like the reader?) lacks some crucial information, leaving her confused. "It's so frustrating," she tells the masked, bandaged Doug. "I'm missing the last two issues and now I can't figure out why Danny had to leave town!...It drives me crazy 'cause there's all this new, exciting stuff going on that I can't figure out." The craziness extends beyond missing comics issues, as the reader must also contend with gaps, leaps and somersaults in narrative continuity, in a way that subverts the pleasure of reading comics while reveling in the imaginative possibilities. Only nonlinear masochists would want to start with the series here, and only the seriously deluded would anticipate that everything will make sense when the trilogy concludes with its final volume. A very creative artist lets his imagination loose in the middle of somewhere, where only the most adventurous lovers of graphic narrative might dare to tread.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.