I’ll say this upfront: it’s pretty difficult to talk about “Sugar Skull.”
It’s not that the book is particularly isolating or unaccessible. It isn’t; in fact, I’d dare say it’s Burns’ most accessible work to date. It’s not that the book isn’t good, either. Wry and sardonic, “Sugar Skull” is an excellent and gripping read, one that moves at a brisk pace once you get into it and ends far before you’re ready to let go.
It’s also not that there isn’t a lot to talk about with the book. Far from it, actually — after one read it was clear that “Sugar Skull” could be Burns’ most divisive work to date, and after a second it was obvious that it could just be the apex of Burns’ career as an illustrator and storyteller. A sad and stunning read, “Sugar Skull” one of the best comics I’ve read this year and I honestly can’t recommend it enough.
So no, there are lots of things to talk about with “Sugar Skull” — but it is difficult to talk about because it’s so specifically a piece of something greater, the last volume in a trilogy. And taking it away from its prequels, putting it on a pedestal by itself, almost feels wrongs.
“Sugar Skull” is something that is meant to pull various threads from other locations together and cap everything off in a way that is enticing and satisfying to the reader. This isn’t an opening salvo or a middle jaunt; the context of the book isn’t as self-contained as it used to be, and instead relies on the past knowledge of previous volumes in order for a grander sense of purpose to be given. Everything we’ve been building up to leads to this: all the coy references, the Tintin analogies, the metaphoric imagery, the eggs, the romance comics, the lizards — all roads lead to this. And if the previous volumes were about dreams and nightmares and shades of reality, “Sugar Skull” is where we wake up. There’s almost no point in talking about what the dreams meant in the light of day without talking about the dreams.
To talk about “Sugar Skull” alone is inherently limiting, and while I can note upfront that I think it’s a contender for graphic novel or even just comic of the year, part of the reason for this is because of its role in completing the larger puzzle that has taken nearly four years to complete. I am aware of the acute irony and hypocrisy in that sentiment on a site that consistently reviews single issues of comics, but while I find it difficult to isolate my experience with “Sugar Skull,” within the context of the trilogy of books it’s very easy to talk about.
In fact, the serialized format of these graphic novels both did and didn’t do Charles Burn favors. Released in three parts over four years allowed each installment to be digested under different circumstances, with different and more secluded experiences that limit our relationship with the overarcing narrative, the reality behind it all. The wild nature of the stories contained in “X’ed Out” and “The Hive” are somewhat better being read and digested alone, as we create our own interpretations of specific imagery and how it relates to the delirium that Doug experiences. Yet, as “Sugar Skull” pulls everything to a close, it’s impossible to want to see the pieces as separate anymore; “Sugar Skull” is a satisfying finale, even if somewhat predictable in its story, and the clarity that it offers for the more esoteric aspects of the book is staggering.
The thing is, the overall Nitnit Trilogy isn’t all that original. It retreads ground plenty of movies and shows and books with the same sense of middle aged malaise hanging over it of which we see a massive abundance of every year; that intense fear of having to face yourself and the life you’ve lived, but done in a specific way that can be explored in an expressive and meaningful way through art. At its conclusion the trilogy is a familiar tale, and while I can imagine certain readers reactions to the ending being so normal is disappointing, it’s the way in which Burns approaches it that makes it unique. Surreal and disconcerting throughout with a loose sense of time and an even more frail sense of reality, these books have been heady trips as much as they have been an outstanding dissertation on the perils of aging — and it’s almost impossible that, to a certain extent, we didn’t come to this conclusion much earlier. That is, after all, life.
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Perhaps that was always obvious. Certainly the ideas have always been in there, whether obvious or not, and the visual metaphors were a-plenty. When we first met Doug back in “X’ed Out,” it was clear that he was having difficultly with the notion of death as represented by his deceased cat appearing to him, which in turn immediately relates back to a fear of how he’d lived his life. That’s where all of the regret comes in from, after all; a life well-lived is supposedly its own reward, but when you’ve mostly fucked everything up on your journey then there’s plenty to be afraid of in the infinite black. And so, as we got to know Doug, we spent so much time reminiscing in his past: his assumed successes and failures, the ways in which he sets himself apart before eventually falling into a mold set for him — whether by his own missteps or the previous generations trappings. Doug was an artist who so badly wanted to stand out, but was there ever any point to try?
Lo and behold, as “Sugar Skull” essentially explains every metaphor in a few significant pages, we see Doug for truly is. Gone is the suave, skinny, attractive, poetic and challenging young boy, now replaced by an older, overweight, confused and broken man. The Doug that has presented himself to us as the anti-explorer is forced to shed the false mask that he hides behind, and it becomes clear that all of the weird dreams and travels we’ve followed him on are more about trying to preserve that youthful expression in amber and hide from the truth; he’s Nitnit, the anti-Tintin, and he doesn’t want to go on any adventures anymore — not with the risk they pose his fragile preconceived notion of what life is.
And good lord, isn’t that a horrifyingly sobering if not frequently recurring thought for most people past their peak, working in a 9 to 5 and living in a routine? This book was mostly Doug’s nightmare, but Burns turned it around to make it a more universal one (albeit one with more lizard people and pig fetuses).
While the story winds up being shockingly familiar, it’s the journey that Burns takes us on to get there that makes it all worthwhile. So much of what we see in the first two books are through a filtered and distorted prism, but the third book clarifies a lot of the weird and dreamlike imagery, essentially setting the house in order in a way that should’ve been obvious and yet wasn’t entirely. Each previous book focused so specifically on certain moments out of Doug’s life that it was easy to not see the forest for the trees, or to allow personal theories to skew the book elsewhere, but what connects the dots here is more frightening than any of the disturbing and graphic imagery that we’ve been given so far. It’s impossible not to look back at the strange road traveled, the people and things we met along the way, and not see those as the more prevalent aspects of the story.
But perhaps I am a bit too close to the source material. While I’m not even half the assumed age of Doug, it’s easy to look at the archetype and find where you fit into the doomed future of it all, especially those who have felt similarly depressed and been told that the way to escape these fears is to dumb your senses down with medication. I mean, it’s probably safe to say that anyone excited to pick up a Burns graphic novel the day it comes out has at least some experience in the counter-culture lifestyle he explores, that wild abandon and the belief that the world owes you everything, only to find it crashing and burning faster than you can stop it, all the while seeing that the escape you dreamed about when you were younger doesn’t work. Doug is in love with a fantasy, a lost memory that is colored by his ego and lack of self-awareness, and that naive wish is possibly one of the most universal aspects in the shared human experience.
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Despite my insistence that it is better viewed with its prior installments, though, “Sugar Skull” is definitely on the shortlist for comics that everyone who claims to love the medium should have read by the end of the year. Above and beyond all the debuts and books that get the typical amount of hype on a regular basis in the medium, “Sugar Skull” is a sneak attack from one of the mediums foremost illustrators and talents. To pass on “Sugar Skull,” to pass on the entire Nitnit Trilogy experience, is to do yourself a disservice. A challenging, adroit display of Burns’ talent, “X’ed Out,” “The Hive” and now “Sugar Skull” prove why this medium matters — how its display of visuals enhance a narrative like no other, and how the passion felt in every pen stroke and every thick, character line expresses more than people ever can.
Burns cuts to the core of it all, and he does it with aplomb. Past the Herge impressions and the Burroughs riffs that Burns is clearly fond of, its Burns’ voice that comes through the most in new and palpable ways. It’s a grim read, but has this slight and biting humor embedded deep within it. The biggest emotion the book expresses is remorse, but it balances that with a whole range of visceral and extremely perceptible affectations. Doug’s confrontation, for example, is a scene that reads with anger, and sadness, and bitterness, and regret, and apathy, and a yearning desire; it’s all of these things together, matching the extended and contradictory metaphor of the Sugar Skull itself — an item that’s supposed to be somewhat comical or droll, but which is inherently viewed through a dark and foreboding lens when taken out of its cultural context; a symbol of the pleasantry of life, and all we see is death.
Burns’ artistic style is certainly familiar and oft imitated, but nobody quite captures denial on paper like he does. We’ve been so used to seeing Doug as a confused and out of his depth figure, but here Burns begins to play with him a bit more. Doug becomes soft, a bit more malleable, and now we see him hurt and abandoned and lonely; we see him put through the ringer, and no one really seems to capture the sense of detachment from reality than Burns does — both in how Doug reacts to people in real life and how he sees the world in his dreams. For all the surreal imagery and clever panel composition, the most striking aspect of Burns’ work remains the way that he draws his characters as actual people, and to punctuate that point I’ll say this: it is absolutely incredible the way that Burns can parallel Doug’s actual face with both the literal mask he wears in reality and the figurative mask he wears in the dream sequences. These blurred lines bring so much unique depth to the story, even in their static and unmoving ways, and it helps make the final depressing two pages hit their punctuation even more.
So it is interesting to me that when “Sugar Skull” is paired with its predecessors as a singular entity, the result creates a nearly flawless comic book. The same goes in reverse as well; while “X’ed Out” and “The Hive” are both great reads, their quality is multiplied tenfold with the release of “Sugar Skull.” About as close to perfect as you can get, Charles Burns’ trilogy is arguably his masterpiece: a clear evolution in sheer talent and capability over his previous notable works, and an incredibly moving (and slightly uncomfortable) look at the death of youthful abandon as old age sets in.
“Sugar Skull” fills me up with a sense of abandonment, dread and loss — and I couldn’t be more thankful for that. If “Black Hole” can even be slightly described as a coming of age tale, then the Nitnit Trilogy (or however you choose to refer to it) is the spiritual follow-up to it — and like the Triforce, when the three pieces are assembled together it creates a haunting message about growing up and growing old.
