By: Charles Burns Publisher: Pantheon Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Pantheon Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 368 Publication Date: January 08, 2008 Release Date: January 08, 2008
Product Description: Winner of the Eisner, Harvey, and Ignatz Awards
The setting: suburban Seattle, the mid-1970s. We learn from the outset that a strange plague has descended upon the area’s teenagers, transmitted by sexual contact. The disease is manifested in any number of ways — from the hideously grotesque to the subtle (and concealable) — but once you’ve got it, that’s it. There’s no turning back.
As we inhabit the heads of several key characters — some kids who have it, some who don’t, some who are about to get it — what unfolds isn’t the expected battle to fight the plague, or bring heightened awareness to it , or even to treat it. What we become witness to instead is a fascinating and eerie portrait of the nature of high school alienation itself — the savagery, the cruelty, the relentless anxiety and ennui, the longing for escape.
And then the murders start.
As hypnotically beautiful as it is horrifying, Black Hole transcends its genre by deftly exploring a specific American cultural moment in flux and the kids who are caught in it- back when it wasn’t exactly cool to be a hippie anymore, but Bowie was still just a little too weird.
To say nothing of sprouting horns and molting your skin…
Amazon.com: The first issues of Charles Burns's comics series Black Hole began appearing in 1995, and long before it was completed a decade later, readers and fellow artists were speaking of it in tones of awe and comparing it to recent classics of the form like Chris Ware's Jimmy Corrigan and Daniel Clowes's Ghost World. Burns is the sort of meticulous, uncompromising artist whom other artists speak of with envy and reverence, and we asked Ware and Clowes to comment on their admiration for Black Hole:
"I think I probably learned the most about clarity, composition, and efficiency from looking at Charles's pages spread out on my drawing table than from anyone's; his was always at the level of lucidity of Nancy, but with this odd, metallic tinge to it that left you feeling very unsettled, especially if you were an aspiring cartoonist, because it was clear you'd never be half as good as he was. There's an almost metaphysical intensity to his pinprick-like inkline that catches you somewhere in the back of the throat, a paper-thin blade of a fine jeweler's saw tracing the outline of these thick, clay-like human figures that somehow seem to "move," but are also inevitably oddly frozen in eternal, awkward poses ... it's an unlikely combination of feelings, and it all adds up to something unmistakably his own.
"I must have been one of the first customers to arrive at the comic shop when I heard the first issue of Black Hole was out 10 years ago, and my excitement didn't change over the years as he completed it. I don't think I've ever read anything that better captures the details, feelings, anxieties, smells, and cringing horror of my own teenage years better than Black Hole, and I'm 15 years younger than Charles is. Black Hole is so redolently affecting one almost has to put the book down for air every once in a while. By the book's end, one ends up feeling so deeply for the main character it's all one can do not to turn the book over and start reading again." --Chris Ware
"Charles Burns is one of the greats of modern comics. His comics are beautiful on so many levels. Somehow he has managed to capture the essential electricity of comic-book pop-art iconography, dragging it from the clutches of Fine Art back to the service of his perfect, precise-but-elusive narratives in a way that is both universal in its instant appeal and deeply personal." --Dan Clowes
Questions for Charles Burns
Amazon.com: Cartoonists are about the only people today who are working like Dickens did: writing serials that appear piece-by-piece in public before the whole work is done. What's it like to work in public like that, and for as long as a project like this takes? Charles Burns: There were a number of reasons for serializing Black Hole. First of all, I wanted to put out a traditional comic book-- I'd never really worked in that comic pamphlet format before and liked the idea of developing a long story in installments. There's something very satisfying to me about a comic book as an object and I enjoyed using that format to slowly build my story. Serializing the story also allowed me to focus on shorter, more manageable portions; if I had to face creating a 368-page book all in one big lump, I don't know if I’d have the perseverance and energy to pull it off. Amazon.com: One thing that stuns me about this book is how consistent it is from start to finish. From the first frames to the last ones that you drew 10 years later, you held the same tone and style. It feels as though you had a complete vision for the book from the very beginning. Is that so? Or did things develop unexpectedly as you worked on it? Burns: I guess there's a consistency in Black Hole because of the way I work. I write and draw very slowly, always carefully examining every little detail to make sure it all fits together the way I want it to. When I started the story, I had it all charted out as far as the basic structure goes, but what made working on it interesting was finding new ways of telling the story that hadn't occurred to me. Amazon.com: Some of the very best of the recent graphic novels (I'm thinking of Ghost World and Blankets, along with Black Hole) have been about the lives of teenagers. Do you think there's something about the form that helps to tell those stories so well? Burns: That's an interesting question, but I don't know the answer. Perhaps it has more to do with the authors--the kind of people who stay indoors for hours on end in total solitude working away on their heartfelt stories... maybe that kind of reflection lends itself to being able to capture the intensity of adolescence. Amazon.com: In the time you've been working on Black Hole, graphic novels have leapt into the mainstream. (I think--I hope--we're finally seeing the last of those "They're not just for kids anymore!" reviews.) What did you imagine for this project when you started it? What's it been like to see your corner of the world enter the glare of the spotlight? Burns: When I started Black Hole I really just wanted to tell a long, well-written story. The themes and ideas that run throughout the book had been turning around in my head for years and I wanted to finally get them all out--put them down on paper once and for all. I've published a few other books and while they sold reasonably well, they didn't set the publishing world on fire. I was pretty sure I'd have some kind of an audience for Black Hole, but that was never a motivating factor in writing the book. And my corner of the world is still pretty dark. I guess I'll be stepping into the spotlight for a little while when the book comes out, but I imagine I'll slip back into my dark little studio when it all settles down again so I can settle back into work.
absolutely fantastic I very much like reading graphic novels and I came by this one by accident. I had never heard of Charles Burns before. When I looked through it at first, I was immediately drawn to the great artwork and bought it straightaway. The story is just plain great, no other words to describe it. Dark, intense, scary and fascinating. I would highly, highly recommend this novel to anyone who likes the genre. If you, for instance, enjoy the books by Daniel Clowes (like a velvet glove cast in iron), this will not disappoint you! In fact, it is even better! Great, great book!
Spellbinding This is a real triumph of story telling and art. It held me spellbound in the two days it took for me to read it while on vacation.
Caution: This work does contain nudity.
Amazing, Transformative This is the first graphic novel I have read. Charles Burns uses this medium to it's utmost. The story is extremely compelling and as you go through the book you feel imersed in the atmosphere of the characters.
The art work is outstanding. At many times in the book I just stared at some of the panels just admiring the fluidity and craft of the illustration.
I think the greatest compliment for a book is when the reader feels transformed and different after having finished it. This is exactly how I feel. I look at life just a little bit different after having read this book.
Very Satisfying Touted as `one of the most stunning graphic novels yet published' by Time magazine, Charles Burns's Black Hole had a lot to deliver just to be deemed adequate. A bit to my surprise, I found it an excellent and haunting story, with several stylistic choices that really enhanced Burns's narrative.
Set in mid 1970s Seattle, the narrative focuses on a group of teens who are infected with a mysterious, sexually transmitted disease that causes all manner of mutations and leaves them outcasts from society. One boys face turns feline, another girl sheds her skin, while yet another grows a second mouth on his lower neck. Though many of these teens are involved in the drug culture, Burns avoids a judgmental stance by presenting several people who are users and having sex yet do not contact the `bug.'
It is refreshing to see teenagers written in a believable way. Too often I have read books or seen movies, most recently Juno, where it is impossible to believe that a person that age would say those things or have those thoughts. Yet throughout the novel, I felt my own teen years conjured up, and seeing how Keith pines for Chris only to have his love unrequited, I remembered how I felt the same way in high school. And while I wasn't around in the mid-1970s, the elements of the drug culture seemed to be accurate to me as well.
Instead of exploring the origin of the disease, Burns is more interested in how its presence affects those who are infected. Their relationships with each other and the outside world are altered, often tragically, yet a chord is struck between the alienation these teens feel and the alienation we all felt as we were growing up. Perhaps we didn't have strange growths coming off of our bodies, but in a sense we were all infected.
Burns uses varying perspectives, often of the same material, in order to tell his story. The inner monologues of Chris, Rob, and Keith are poignant, and it is interesting to note that the fourth major character, Eliza (the sexy woman with the tail), never serves as the point of view in the narrative. Wavy lines are used to border panels that show the past or contain dreams, blurring the line between memory and fantasy.
There is no gray in this comic: only black and white. Mostly black. In the world of Black Hole, there are only two ways to end, happily or horribly. And the dominance of black is reflected by the ending, with the majority of characters meeting not so happy fates.
Burns also shifts visual perspectives from panel to panel is striking ways, often blending faces together. In one instance, he splits the faces of Rob and Chris and sets them side-by-side, so that a reader must rely on the boxed text and dialogue to grasp that the face, which merges from the two panels, is actually two distinct faces. In another, the adjacent panels are aligned so that it appears the back of one character's head is spread between the two, yet Burns actually has this over the shoulder perspective flip from character to character, causing temporary confusion until one realizes that we are over Rob's shoulder in one perspective, and Chris's in the other. I know that images would help convey this better than I can with mere words, but I am unable to locate appropriate ones online.
My experience and knowledge aren't broad enough to judge whether Time's assertion is true, but I can say that Black Hole is an engaging and satisfying read. The narrative is compelling, but you would be doing yourself an injustice to not slow down and take in the artwork as well. A haunting read that will likely evoke your own feelings of adolescent alienation.
Nice, but... It took me a while to figure out what is missing or wrong with this book. I thought about it while and after reading it. I'll make it short: 1. The drawings are so dead(as not vivid). Not even slight human gestures is shown, even in dramatic scenes. All characters looks so Indifferent, no matter what situation they are in. 2. The Sex scenes - ohh man...Get a girl soon. 3. Most of the characters are very much look alike, adding to that the fact that the story takes place in the 70's or so, and everybody has long hair - all looks the same and it was pretty confusing along with changes in the story time line now and than. 4. The story - well, it was nice. No meaning full ending. It just ends. 5. buying time - another box, another slide, another page, drawing people thoughts out, so slowly, copy paste pictures just to make the book thicker.
Anything Goes Trivia
Trevor
Megaton Man
Amazon.com: Cartoonists are about the only people today who are working like Dickens did: writing serials that appear piece-by-piece in public before the whole work is done. What's it like to work in public like that, and for as long as a project like this takes?
