Promotional Information

It's here- Charles Burns' epic story of existential horror, over ten years in the making. Yet another Cape graphic novel milestone.

About the Author

Charles Burns grew up in Seattle in the 1970s. His work rose to prominence in Art Spiegelman's Raw magazine in the mid-1980s and took off from there, for an extraordinary range of comics and projects, from Iggy Pop album covers to the latest ad campaign for Altoids. In 1992 he designed the sets for Mark Morris's delightful restaging of The Nutcracker. He's illustrated covers for Time, the New Yorker and the New York Times Sunday Magazine. He is the official cover artist for The Believer magazine. Black Hole received Eisner, Harvey and Ignatz awards in 2005. Burns lives in Philadelphia with his wife and two daughters.

Reviews

Many regard Black Hole as one of the greatest graphic novels, and it's not hard to see why. Burns's black-and-white strips are so cool, and his story - sex, drugs and teenage mutants - grips like a vice.
*Observer*

Drawn in [Burns’] signature woodblock style, and [is] visually memorising
*Stong Word*

A bleak but brilliant tale of suburban alienation
*ShortList*

Black Hole just might be the most perfect book going, if not the sexiest... As startling and evocative a work as the medium has ever produced.
*Art Bomb*

Make no mistake: this is a bleak book that tries desperately in its final frames to introduce a note of optimism in resignation. It's also brilliant.
*The Times*

Many regard Black Hole as one of the greatest graphic novels, and it's not hard to see why. Burns's black-and-white strips are so cool, and his story - sex, drugs and teenage mutants - grips like a vice. -- Rachel Cooke * Observer *
Drawn in [Burns'] signature woodblock style, and [is] visually memorising * Stong Word *
A bleak but brilliant tale of suburban alienation -- Marc Chacksfield * ShortList *
Black Hole just might be the most perfect book going, if not the sexiest... As startling and evocative a work as the medium has ever produced. -- Matt Fraction * Art Bomb *
Make no mistake: this is a bleak book that tries desperately in its final frames to introduce a note of optimism in resignation. It's also brilliant. -- Peter Millar * The Times *

The prodigiously talented Burns hit the comics scene in the '80s via Raw magazine, wielding razor-sharp, ironic-retro graphics. Over the years his work has developed a horrific subtext perpetually lurking beneath the mundane suburban surface. In the dense, unnerving Black Hole, Burns combines realism-never a concern for him before-and an almost convulsive surrealism. The setting is Seattle during the early '70s. A sexually transmitted disease, the "bug," is spreading among teenagers. Those who get it develop bizarre mutations-sometimes subtle, like a tiny mouth at the base of one boy's neck, and sometimes obvious and grotesque. The most visibly deformed victims end up living as homeless campers in the woods, venturing into the streets only when they have to, shunned by normal society. The story follows two teens, Keith and Chris, as they get the bug. Their dreams and hallucinations-made of deeply disturbing symbolism merging sexuality and sickness-are a key part of the tale. The AIDS metaphor is obvious, but the bug also amplifies already existing teen emotions and the wrenching changes of puberty. Burns's art is inhumanly precise, and he makes ordinary scenes as creepy as his nightmare visions of a world where intimacy means a life worse than death. (Oct.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.