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Final Cut

Final Cut

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Summary

‘An instant classic from a master of the form’
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY


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.


Charles Burns, Eisner Award-Winner, 2006

Reviews

  • 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

About the author

Charles Burns

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.
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