X'ed Out Signed Editions Reference

X’ed Out (Pantheon, 2010) is the first volume of Burns’s trilogy (followed by The Hive and Sugar Skull) that explicitly engages with Hergé’s Tintin — the protagonist navigates a surreal landscape that resembles a corrupted version of Tintin’s world, while waking-life sequences depict a young performance artist dealing with romantic obsession and creative anxiety.

Signed Copy Market Values

• Signed first edition: $30–$75
• Unsigned first edition: $10–$25

The trilogy represents Burns’s most sustained engagement with the European cartooning tradition that has always influenced his work. The Hergé homage is both affectionate and disturbing — Burns’s clear-line precision applied to content Hergé would never have imagined.