Black Hole by Charles Burns
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Forget zombies! They're overdone. It's mutants that will really win the hearts of your loved ones.
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It's the 1970s and we are near Seattle. Teens are having sex and a strange disease is infecting them. They are spreading it by having intercourse. Each one is receiving a "gift" of an individual mutation. Some mutations are more overt than others, while some of the infected are able to pass as "clean" and virginal.
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Black Hole is a book about sex and death, vulnerability and trust, the status quo and rebellion. The illustrations by Charles Burn are exquisite and worth the price of admission alone. His story is well-written, but it is the images that really give this novel life.
The black-and-white illustrations are rich and shiny, filled with the right amount of shadows and light. There is a lot of ink spilled on the page, which changes the way negative space works in the panels and on the pages, and is quite intriguing.
Read the book, then look at the book, then read it again, then look at it again, then...
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The naked bodies that Burns draws are pleasant to look at. Even the mutant bodies are fascinating.
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This book is for everyone who felt awkward in adolescence.
This book is for readers of The Believer magazine. (Charles Burns does all of the front cover art for the magazine.)
This book is for fans of Dog Boy and Big Baby.
This book is for comic book nerds who want some credibility.
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File under:
*Coming-of-age tales
*Graphic novels
*Mutants
*Seattle
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