It took me a long time to become a Charles Burns fan. I don’t know why. Despite me being an indie comics reader since the early 1980s he was off my radar for a long time. It could be because his most famous work, “Black Hole,” took a decade to come out. It took from 1995 to 2005 to publish just 12 issues. I’ve bought other comics that took a long time to come out but missed this one. That’s the way it is with comics sometimes. If I miss the beginning issues I just say, “Oh, well…” and ignore it because I missed out.
By 2005 when they published the collected edition I was well aware of Burns and “Black Hole” so eventually I bought it. I ended up being a little ambivalent about it. I liked it but I didn’t like it as much as other people did. That always makes me feel like I’m missing out on something.
It wasn’t until 2010 and the “X’ed Out” trilogy of graphic novels that I became a real Charles Burns fan. Those things are weird, surrealistic, a bit European in style, and up my alley. It took a few years for him to do all three of them but I got them all and still like them a lot.
That brings us to 2025 and his latest graphic novel, “Final Cut.” It came out in the USA in one volume in 2024. It was first released in France, years earlier, as three volumes. This might be the first time I’ve heard of an American cartoonist having his stuff released in another country in another language first.
I bought “Final Cut” back in the end of July 2025 and gave it a read then but somehow it didn’t stick with me. As I write this it’s December 2025 and I gave it another read and really enjoyed it. Sometimes the second read, for me, really improves things. Often with the first read of something I’m caught up in the plot and what is or isn’t going to happen. That means I can miss some of the subtleties that are going on. I think that’s just human nature and our love of storytelling and wondering what’s coming next.
“Black Hole” (which I also liked better on a second read) is about teenage alienation. Or at least that’s what I’ve always read that it’s about. “Final Cut” is also about teenagers and there is some alienation but I think it’s more about coping with being on the edge of adulthood and trying to figure out who you are, where you fit in, and who you love. Plus “What the heck is love and what does it mean.”
There are two main characters. A boy and a girl. They appear to be high school age so I figure that they are around seventeen. They can drive and go off on their own and don’t appear to have jobs. He’s Brian and she’s Laurie. He is an aspiring filmmaker and appears to be on the spectrum. It’s mentioned that he’s on some sort of medication. She’s beautiful. That means a lot of people like her just for her looks but she’s trying to figure out what’s what just like everyone else.
There are a handful of other characters including the only adult in the story who is Brian’s mother. She has a drinking problem. Another character worth mentioning is Brian’s friend Jimmy. He is another aspiring film maker and works on films with Brian. Jimmy seems a lot more well adjusted than Brian but we never get into Jimmy’s head like we do Brian’s. Tina is a third important character as she becomes a rival for Brian as she becomes romantically interested in Laurie too.
The time period of this book seems to be the 1970s or 1980s. They shoot their movies on film cameras and edit the film by cutting and taping it. When they edit at all. There are no computers in sight.
I find Charles Burns art to be deceptively simple. His style is so clean lined and well defined that I think I know everything as I look at it but as I read his art and his stories have a lot of depth and hidden things in them.
Making movies becomes the thing that the plot revolves around. Brian and Jimmy want to make movies so they gather up their group of friends and it became a social event too. Brian wants Laurie to star in them and that’s okay with Jimmy. Scenes also revolve around them watching some of their old movies.
We also get a look at Brian’s literal dreams as the book goes on. They are related to the movies that he is making and also his interest in Laurie. One of the things that Brian is dealing with is that his vision of the movie is never matched by what they can actually do. His vision of Laurie is the same. She’s this beautiful perfect angel to him but in reality she’s a human being.
The narration in the book switches between Brian and Laurie. Usually when this happens in comics they change the color of the caption box but they don’t do that here. This led me to being confused the first time I read it. It takes a few sentences to realize that the narrator has changed. Sometimes more than a few. The second time through I knew this was coming so there was no confusion. I still think they should have used color in the captions to indicate the change. You don’t want your readers to be confused. Most won’t bother with a second time if they are.
I think Burns really captures something about the teenage state of existence with this book. It’s confusing and paralyzing as a lot of us have no idea what to do with all of our social, creative, and romantic energy. There are no good guys and bad guys in this book. Everyone is just trying to figure it out. That doesn’t make for smooth sailing.
I feel for the teenagers in this story more than I feel for characters in a lot of stories about teenagers. Often such stories are either looked at through nostalgic eyes or looked at through adult eyes with more wisdom than was actually there during teenage years. These teenagers feel more real to me and their discomfort with the way things are as opposed to how they want them to be feels real too.
I really enjoyed this second read. They’ll probably be more reads in the future.