Review by Booklist Review
Burns delivers a moody, wistful, and creepy homage to artistic expression and unrequited longing. The story opens with an image of a woman with red hair asleep and enveloped in a cocoon as a pink, brain-like glob floats away. The scene then cuts to a party where a disinterested Brian, lost in his sketches of floating alien beings, meets the red-headed Laurie, whom Brian's filmmaking partner, Jimmy, has enlisted for their next project. Brian and Jimmy are childhood friends with an affinity for slasher flicks, and Laurie is their star. The story then alternates between the emotionally dysfunctional Brian and insecure but compassionate Laurie. Brian falls hard for Laurie, but Laurie reciprocates with ambivalence. The two hang out with Jimmy and Jimmy's girlfriend, Tina, as they film, but secrets emerge that threaten to derail the project and their friendship. Fluid sequencing between frames brings a cinematic movement to the story. Burns' characteristic and precise line work infuses the story with atmosphere, tension, and unease as imagination and real life intersect in a mash-up of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Last Picture Show.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
The manias of art-making and adolescent lust are brilliantly rendered by Burns in his first standalone graphic novel since Black Hole. Fans will recognize Burns's lovingly etched backdrops and pulp sensibility as he returns to the subject of confused hormonal youths lost in a netherworld caught between reality and nightmare. The narrative is told mostly from the perspective of Brian, who is so busy drawing his eerie waking dreams (alien brains, his naked floating self) that he's barely conscious of the world around him. Then he meets Laurie, an awkward beauty whose interest in Brian's sketches sparks an obsessive frisson in him. As Brian and his friend Jimmy pursue their yearslong hobby of making B-grade horror flicks, Laurie agrees to be Brian's cinematic muse. It becomes clear her interest in Brian is not only platonic but tempered by concern over his manic fugue states, much like Jimmy takes the filmmaking as more of a lark than Brian will allow. The romantic misunderstandings play out in an atmosphere of lightly thrumming dread. When the trio--along with another young couple and a blonde with an unpredictable streak--march into the woods to stage Brian's homage to Invasion of the Body Snatchers, bloodletting seems sure to follow. But despite Burns's nods to body horror and creature features, his themes are more wistful than terrifying. Rarely has the pursuit of art been more potently characterized as a substitute for love and acceptance. With perfectly attuned emotional and aesthetic details, it's an instant classic from a master of the form. Agent: Nicole Aragi, Aragi, Inc. (Sept.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
Brian and Jimmy have been filming goofy, grisly 8 mm horror films in their backyards for years. Jimmy seems content with the quality of their work, so long as it is gory enough to shock their friends, but Brian aspires to produce a work of art capable of expressing his experience of being alive. To that end, the pair recruit a group of friends and head out to a remote cabin to begin production on a project inspired by two of Brian's favorite films, Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Last Picture Show. Over the course of filming, Brian becomes obsessed with Laurie, the young woman cast in the lead role. When Laurie proves more interested in pursuing a romance with a different crew member, Brian's desire for a happy ending threatens to override his ability to discern fantasy from reality. Fans of Burns's acclaimed Black Hole will find this hotly anticipated release similarly surreal and evocative of existential menace, but far more thematically complex and emotionally resonant. VERDICT A stunningly illustrated exploration of alienation, obsession, and the experience of yearning for connection with another human being, particularly when one feels that they are only capable of expressing themselves through art.
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
The latest graphic novel from Burns follows a group of young white suburban friends, centering on the sputtering relationship between a warm, friendly redhead and the awkward artist making her the focus of his new story. Brian would rather sit in the kitchen and draw tentacled aliens than join the party out in the front room. But when Jimmy, his longtime home-movie collaborator, casts Laurie, a new addition to their friend circle, in their next 8 mm film, Laurie's warmth and beauty tempt Brian to step out of his mind and fully into the present. Brian's art (ranging from the uncanny to the explicit) and the fleeting moments of connection between them keep Laurie in Brian's orbit, and the story alternates between their perspectives, capturing both Laurie's sense of isolation when Brian gets lost in his appreciation for and creation of movies and Brian's bittersweet awareness of his drifting, ever-creating mind. As Brian attempts to translate the strange visions in his head (and sketchbook) into a science fiction film shot with friends at a secluded cabin, he sinks deeper into his cinematic escapism while Laurie engages with more immediate pleasures. An aura of horror infuses the pages, with bulbous aliens floating through blue skies and raining down mysterious capsules, dead-eyed stares and skipped medication setting nerves on edge, and time's unyielding march robbing even pleasant moments of lasting significance. Burns' clean lines, heavy shadows, and rich colors sumptuously convey the pebbled texture of alien flesh and the rolling waves of Laurie's hair, while his dialogue and narration crisply capture everything from flirty, friendly banter to awkward and painful self-analysis. His paneling swiftly moves the story along, through both slice-of-life moments and fantastical worlds, occasionally juxtaposing character moments with shots from the films Brian loses himself in, evoking the massive gap between fixation and passion. A striking celebration of cinema's power and a chilling acknowledgment of its limitations. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
