The beloved and award-winning author of BLACK HOLE's haunting and visually arresting story of an artist's obsessions, and the value and cost of pushing the boundaries of creativity
As a child, Brian and his friend Jimmy would make sci-fi films in their yards, convincing their friends to star as victims of grisly murders, smearing lipstick on the "bodies" to simulate blood. Now a talented artist and aspiring filmmaker, Brian, along with Jimmy, Jimmy's friend Tina, and Laurie—his reluctant muse—sets off to a remote cabin in the woods with an old 8 millimeter camera to make a true sci-fi horror movie, an homage to Brian's favorite movie: 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, his damsel in distress, and his savior wrapped into one. Rife with references to classic sci-fi and horror movies and filled with panels of stunning depictions of nature, film and the surreal, Burns blurs the line between Brian's dreams and reality, imagination and perception. A master of the form at his finest, Final Cut is an astonishing look at what it means to truly express oneself through art.
One of the Best Books Coming in September from New York Times Book Review
One of the Best Books of the Year from Publishers Weekly and The New Yorker
One of the Best Graphic Novels of the Year from The Washington Post
Most Anticipated from Lit Hub, Chicago Tribune, Library Journal, The Herald, The Minnesota Starr, Publisher's Weekly, Parade, Broken Frontier, Engadget, Criterion, BookRiot
Excerpted in The New Yorker
“Burns tells this latest story using a visual style that he has honed over decades of comics, designs and album covers…It’s a tragic self-portrait, drawn with the kind of ironic hindsight that a Warhol or a Lichtenstein would envy.”
—The New York Times
“Final Cut blends dreams, visions, and movies in function of a timeless story of awkward first love…exploring how we use narrative and culture to try to make sense of it all, especially during those teenage years when films and comics can be so important to us.”
—Los Angeles Review of Books
“Final Cut is among Burns’s best work, its huge full-page drawings pushing your buttons in the moonlit American outdoors.”
—The Guardian
“Burns has a penchant for crafting images and stories that are both stylish and repulsive.”
—The New Yorker
“Charles Burns draws disquieting, darkly surreal comic books with a line so precise, so razor-edged, it looks as if it’s been cut with an X-acto knife…Burns’s virtuosity is on full display…‘Final Cut’ is the book Charles Burns was born to write.”
—The Washington Post
“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.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review
“A striking celebration of cinema’s power and a chilling acknowledgement of its limitations.”
—Kirkus, Starred Review
“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.”
—Library Journal
“Working in vivid colors...with every panel filled to the absolute edges, Burns memorably produces sweeping cinema on the page.”
—Shelf Awareness, starred review
“Burns delivers a moody, wistful, and creepy homage to artistic expression and unrequited longing... 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.”
—Booklist
“Charles Burns delivers his much-anticipated new graphic novel Final Cut. You don’t need to have seen The Blair Witch Project to know that when some aspiring filmmakers head into the woods to film their creepy homage to Invasion of the Body Snatchers that things might not go as planned. Toss in unrequited love and a hodgepodge of references to classic sci-fi and horror movie tropes and you’ve got the ingredients for a disturbing spin on artistic control and a demand for final cut.”
—Parade
“I love everything about this book: the story, the drawings, its way with all things extraterrestrial (the alien pod inside which Laurie must lie on a mountainside as the camera rolls – and rolls – is fashioned by Brian from muslin and ). It’s wraparound wonderful, as close to immersive as any comic could be.”
—Rachel Cooke at The Guardian
“The line between his dreams and reality becomes blurred in classic Burns style, summoning a wave of surreal imagery blending the strangeness of the natural world with the cinematic imagery of his beloved genre films.”
—AV Club
“Final Cut is an eerie and powerful graphic novel…Burns imbues the story with a potent sense of disquiet and illustrates the similarities between romantic and creative obsession. The backdrop is simultaneously beautiful and threatening.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Burns is an artist whose body of work has a gravitational pull… Final Cut is a textural gem that urges gentle page-turning and washed hands to avoid greasing the pages. But beyond being a handsomely bound volume, it's a vividly conceived wonder of visual wit and artistic restraint.”
—Comic Book Resources
“A bewitching, entertaining journey full of introspection and masterful images, from a comic legend at the top of his game. No cell phone in sight, just alien visions, a classic 8mm, and powerful, early adulthood longing.”
—Book Browse
“What makes the book exceptional is the combination of Burns’s extraordinary draughtsmanship, particularly the quality of his inking, and his narrative instinct.”
—The Baffler
“Final Cut is an interesting interplay of expectation and reality.”
—The Comics Journal
“Burns’ themes of alienation and artistic ambition may be familiar, but Final Cut feels fresh and vibrant, the culmination of the artist’s own entanglements with the irreality of reality. Highly recommended.”
—Biblioklept
“As is characteristic for Burns, Final Cut is surreal and unsettling, made all the more impactful by his crisp illustrations.”
—Engadget
“The atmosphere he creates in this meticulously crafted successor to “Black Hole,” his majestic, disturbing graphic novel of 2008, is unsettling and absorbing…Burns is a master of shadow, deploying his brush strokes with such skill the reader can easily mistake dreams for wakefulness.”
—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
“Honestly, Final Cut is the only graphic novel that matters right now… a very satisfying read from a master storyteller.”
—Comics Grinder
“There are full-page panels so intricate that they deserve to be framed…Every page of Final Cut is testament to his enduring love for the surreal, or just plain weird.”
—Broken Frontier
“Final Cut is another character-driven triumph from Charles Burns that’s a dark allegory about addiction, denial, and mental health that’s far scarier than any pod person or alien invasion…There’s a powerful story that unfolds in Final Cut, but Burns’ artwork – which is in vibrant color – is just as precise as his storytelling.”
—Bloody Disgusting
“An eclectic array covering numerous horror genres and styles.”
—ICv2
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 since then he has worked on a wide range of projects including album covers, ad campaigns, and set design. He has illustrated covers for Time, The New Yorker, andThe New York Times Sunday Magazine, and is the cover artist for The Believer. His full-length graphic novel, Black Hole received Eisner, Harvey, and Ignatz awards. He lives in Philadelphia.
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