Final Cut
Published on 26. September 2024
Book
Hardback
224 pages
978-1-78733-521-9 (ISBN)
Description
'An instant classic from a master of the form'
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
'Unsettling and beautifully executed'
GUARDIAN
An arresting story of an artist's obsessions, from the beloved and award-winning author of Black Hole.
As a child, Brian and his friend Jimmy would make home movies in their yards, coaxing their friends into starring as victims of grisly murders and smearing lipstick on them to simulate blood. Now an aspiring filmmaker, he, Jimmy and new girl in town Laurie - his reluctant muse - set off to a remote cabin in the woods.
Armed with an old camera, they film a true sci-fi horror movie where humans are born of disembodied alien wombs, in homage to The Invasion of the Body Snatchers. But as Brian's affections for Laurie go seemingly unreciprocated, Brian writes and draws himself into a fantasy where she is the girl of his dreams - both his damsel in distress and his saviour.
Final Cut blurs the line between dreams and reality, imagination and perception in this astonishing look at what it truly means to express oneself through art.
**A GUARDIAN, OBSERVER, THE NEW YORKER AND THE WASHINGTON POST BOOK OF THE YEAR**
Charles Burns, Eisner Award-Winner, 2006
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
'Unsettling and beautifully executed'
GUARDIAN
An arresting story of an artist's obsessions, from the beloved and award-winning author of Black Hole.
As a child, Brian and his friend Jimmy would make home movies in their yards, coaxing their friends into starring as victims of grisly murders and smearing lipstick on them to simulate blood. Now an aspiring filmmaker, he, Jimmy and new girl in town Laurie - his reluctant muse - set off to a remote cabin in the woods.
Armed with an old camera, they film a true sci-fi horror movie where humans are born of disembodied alien wombs, in homage to The Invasion of the Body Snatchers. But as Brian's affections for Laurie go seemingly unreciprocated, Brian writes and draws himself into a fantasy where she is the girl of his dreams - both his damsel in distress and his saviour.
Final Cut blurs the line between dreams and reality, imagination and perception in this astonishing look at what it truly means to express oneself through art.
**A GUARDIAN, OBSERVER, THE NEW YORKER AND THE WASHINGTON POST BOOK OF THE YEAR**
Charles Burns, Eisner Award-Winner, 2006
Reviews / Votes
Beautifully disturbing...A masterpiece of mood. This book is still haunting me! -- George Kay, writer of TV-series Lupin and Hijack Art, dreams and reality form a near-seamless mesh... unsettling and beautifully executed * Guardian, *Books of the Year* * How thrilling to see the return of celebrated American creator Charles Burns on such uncompromisingly fierce form... Suffused with apprehension, this is a powerfully allegorical comic' -- Rachel Cooke * Observer, *Books of the Year* * Burns' new book is a joy to read and a welcome return to his long form storytelling that he's been sorely absent from for years. The central plot is beautifully told with subtle meanderings from a bygone age of youth, but accompanied with the strange and often disturbing imagery we're so used to seeing from a creator at the top of his game. A great melding of both style and substance. -- Charlie Adlard, author of The Walking Dead I love everything about this book: the story, the drawings, its way with all things extraterrestrial... It's wraparound wonderful, as close to immersive as any comic could be... a book to be read and reread * Observer * Charles Burns' comics are fluid, smooth and as solidly built as a vintage TV set, but they shudder with the chill of the uncanny * New York Times * The confidence with which Burns positions himself within the larger map of other writing and art is entirely earned * New Statesman * Final Cut is among Burns's best work, its huge full-page drawings pushing your buttons in the moonlit American outdoors * Guardian * A striking celebration of cinema's power and a chilling acknowledgement of its limitations. * Kirkus Reviews * Sugar Skull is one of the most vividly drawn and painfully and honest expositions of male guilt I've ever read * Observer *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Vintage Publishing
Dimensions
Height: 289 mm
Width: 216 mm
Thickness: 25 mm
Weight
1240 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-78733-521-9 (9781787335219)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
09/2024
Vintage Digital
€16.99
Available for download
Person
Charles Burns grew up in Seattle in the 1970s. His work rose to prominence in Art Spiegelman's Raw magazine in the mid-1980s and took off from there, for an extraordinary range of comics and projects, from Iggy Pop album covers to the latest ad campaign for Altoids. In 1992 he designed the sets for Mark Morris's delightful restaging of The Nutcracker. He's illustrated covers for Time, the New Yorker and the New York Times Sunday Magazine. He is the official cover artist for The Believer magazine. Black Hole received Eisner, Harvey and Ignatz awards in 2005. Burns lives in Philadelphia with his wife and two daughters.