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Overview
Overview
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...
- Format: TradePaperback
- Author: Burns, Charles
- ISBN: 9780375714726
- Condition: Used
- Dimensions: 9.20 x 1.50
- Number Of Pages: 368
- Publication Year: 2008
Customer Reviews
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Sex, drugs, and the plague
Klarissa B. - 2 years agoSo great. Beautifully drawn, set in the mid 1970s, this graphic novel follows a young man getting through his awkward teenage years in suburbia while his town is hit with a sexually transmitted disease mutating the youth. Classic feel-good adventure. Head's up: not for a weak stomach (a chick peels her skin off but it's kinda cool).
HPB Staff Review -
A charming yet strikingly disturbing coming of age story
Dan F. - 2 years 9 months agoGrowing up is hard enough as it is, but what if those everyday struggles young people face; growing into one's sense of self, volatile feelings and budding sexuality were literal monsters that could kill you? Enter Black Hole the modern day comic book masterpiece by Charles Burns. Burns a figurehead in the underground comics scene has been well respected and lauded for years gaining such comparisons to other cartoonists such as Daniel Clowes (Ghost World) and Peter Bagge. Black Hole was the book to put Burns on the map and rightfully so. Black Hole is a charming yet strikingly disturbing coming of age story that is equal parts fantastic teen melodrama as well as a disturbing cautionary tale. Black Hole takes place in suburban Seattle in the mid 70's where a strange plague has fallen about the town where teenagers in the area have fallen prey to a mysterious disease that is not only infecting these young people at a venerable time in their life but changing these kids themselves into horrific mutations of what they once were. Completely inventive with amazing plot and storytelling and phenomenal art by Burns; if you are a fan of comics Black Hole is a must read.
HPB Staff Review