Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | X’ed Out | 2010 | Charles Burns | Buy |
| 2 | The Hive | 2012 | Charles Burns | Buy |
| 3 | Sugar Skull | 2014 | Charles Burns | Buy |
| 4 | Last Look | 2016 | Charles Burns | Buy |
The Last Look Trilogy is Charles Burns’s follow-up to Black Hole, published as three volumes between 2010 and 2014. The story follows Doug, a young man drifting through memories of a failed romance and a surreal alternate world that resembles a warped version of Hergé’s Tintin comics.
Burns uses a non-linear structure, cutting between Doug’s waking life, his past with a photographer named Sarah, and dream sequences set in a bizarre landscape populated by strange creatures. The art retains Burns’s signature high-contrast black-and-white style from Black Hole but adds color for the first time, using a muted palette to distinguish between the story’s different layers of reality.
All three volumes were collected into a single edition called Last Look in 2016, which is the most convenient way to read the complete story.