X'ed Out

If William Burroughs wrote a graphic novel, it might look something like this. There's a young artist who once went out with an unlikely girl. Something ended their relationship and we glimpse flashbacks of their courtship. Meanwhile, there's a massive gash on his head, and he cant sleep and then his dead cat Inky appears and leads him through a rabbit-hole in his apartment into a world of... well, let's just call them abrasive aliens.
Do go into X'ed Out knowing it's a serialisation of a strip and there is a planned trilogy. As, when I finished, I was more than perplexed. I re-read it, and slowly the twisted Tin-Tin-esque adventure playing out in front of me started to make a lot more sense.
I won't say more as too much spoils this trippy book's coarse humour and inventive reality-bending. That's not to say that it's a good laugh. Most arty graphic novels these days tell us twee hipster-ish tales of loveable weirdoes. X'ed Out returns us to that feeling of paranoia, apocalypse and alternative realities, the twisted play on what we know that got us excited in the first place, but, you know, with a loveable weirdo at its helm. I look forward to the rest of the trilogy.