{"id":29647,"date":"2024-04-10T08:00:54","date_gmt":"2024-04-10T08:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=29647"},"modified":"2024-04-09T16:30:33","modified_gmt":"2024-04-09T16:30:33","slug":"black-hole-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2024\/04\/10\/black-hole-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Black Hole"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
\nBy Charles Burns<\/strong> (Jonathan Cape)
\nISBN: 978-0-37542-380-2 (HB) 978-0-22407-778-1 (TPB)<\/p>\n

On this day in 2019, those happy Big Science people at the Event Horizon Telescope Project released the first picture of a black hole as located at the centre of galaxy M87. No one’s done a graphic novel of that yet but there\u2019s this superb tome that seems to have slipped from common consciousness\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

One of the most impressive and justifiably lauded graphic novels ever, Black Hole<\/strong> is a powerfully evocative allegorical horror story about sex, youth and transformation, but don\u2019t let that deter you from reading it. It\u2019s also a clever, moving, chilling and somehow uplifting tale displaying the bravura mastery of one of the greatest exponents of sequential narrative the English language has ever produced – even if he has found his spiritual and commercial home producing comics in Europe.<\/p>\n

Originally released as a 12-issue limited series under the aegis of Kitchen Sink Press, the tale was rescued and completed through Fantagraphics when the pioneering Underground publisher folded in 1999. On completion, Black Hole<\/strong> was promptly released in book form by Pantheon Press in 2005, although many fans and critics despaired at the abridged version which left out many of Burns\u2019 most potent full-page character studies of the deeply troubled cast \u201can error of economy\u201d corrected in subsequent editions. It won eleven of the comic world\u2019s most prestigious awards and I\u2019m revisiting my battered Jonathan Cape UK edition because it\u2019s still not available digitally<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the 1970s in Seattle, and there\u2019s something very peculiar happening amongst local teens out in the safe secure suburbs. In \u2018Biology 101\u2019<\/em>, Keith Pearson<\/em> can\u2019t concentrate on properly dissecting his frog because his lab partner is Chris Rhodes<\/em>, the veritable and literal girl of his dreams.<\/p>\n

Trying to keep cool only makes things worse and when he suddenly slips into a fantastic psychedelic daydream, the swirling images resolve into a horrific miasma of sex, torn flesh and a sucking void. Suddenly he\u2019s regaining consciousness on the floor with the entire class standing over him. They\u2019re all laughing at him\u2026 all except Chris.<\/p>\n

\u2018Planet Xeno\u2019<\/em> is a quiet patch of woodland adults don\u2019t know about, where kids can kick back, drink, smoke, get stoned and just talk. The big topic among the guys is \u201cthe bug\u201d: a sexually transmitted disease that causes bizarre, unpredictable mutations like uncontrolled growths, extra digits, pigmentation changes, and new orifices that don\u2019t bleed\u2026<\/p>\n

As Keith and best buds Dee<\/em> and Todd<\/em> shoot the breeze and goof off, they discover an odd encampment, strewn with old toys and bottles and junk. Some of the sufferers of the \u201cTeen Plague\u201d have relocated here to the forest, founding a makeshift camp away from prying eyes and wagging tongues. When Keith finds a girl\u2019s shed skin hanging from a bush, he fears creepy mutants are closing in and suffers a crazy disorienting premonition\u2026<\/p>\n

In \u2018SSSSSSSSSS\u2019<\/em> Chris is dreaming: a ghastly phantasmagoria involving naked swimming in pollution, a bunch of strange guys, monsters and that fainting kid Keith turning into a serpent. It all ends with her examining the new holes in her body before ripping off her old skin and leaving it hanging on a bush\u2026<\/p>\n

She\u2019s drinking illicit beer by the lake in \u2018Racing Towards Something\u2019<\/em>, remembering that wild party a week ago and what she did with the cool guy Rob Facincanni<\/em>. As she came on to him he kept trying to tell her something but she was in no mood to listen. She just didn\u2019t want to be the good girl anymore\u2026<\/p>\n

She recalls the moment of explosive climax and horror when she discovered a hideous second mouth in his neck\u2026 and the noises. It seemed to be speaking\u2026<\/p>\n

In the sordid guilty aftermath she felt awful but had no idea what that furtive, disappointing assignation had done to her.<\/p>\n

Rob is still sleeping with Lisa<\/em>. She\u2019s accepted the cost of the curse and the ghastly changes in her body, but what she won\u2019t take is him screwing around. She has heard Rob\u2019s second mouth talking as they lay together and needs to know \u2018Who\u2019s Chris?\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

Keith and his bros are getting stoned again when he hears some guys have just watched the so-virginal Chris skinny-dipping and seen her sex-caused mutation. The virgin queen isn\u2019t any more\u2026<\/p>\n

In \u2018Cut\u2019<\/em> their teasing proves too much and he storms off into the scrub, accidentally spotting the object of his desire as she gets dressed again. Guiltily voyeuristic, he\u2019s prompted to action when she steps on broken glass and cries out. Dashing to her rescue he bandages her foot, too ashamed to admit just how much of her he\u2019s really seen. All Keith knows is that someday he will be with her. Fate was obviously on his side\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2018Bag Action\u2019<\/em> finds him and Dee trying to buy weed from some skeevy college guys, but our frustrated romantic is utterly unable to get lascivious, furtive, distracting naked images of Chris out of his mind.<\/p>\n

However, after sampling some of the dope in the Frat boys\u2019 dilapidated house, he meets their housemate Eliza<\/em>: an eccentric artist extremely high, nearly naked and very hungry. Just as baked, achingly horny and fascinated by her cute tail (not a euphemism), Keith almost has sex with her but is interrupted by his idiot pal at just the wrong moment\u2026<\/p>\n

Many of those infected by The Bug are camped out in the woods now and \u2018Cook Out\u2019<\/em> finds them having a desperate party around a roaring fire. Rob is there, bemoaning the fact Lisa has kicked him out, but he\u2019s also acutely aware that the sex-warped kids are getting oddly wild, manic, even dangerous\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2018Seeing Double\u2019<\/em> finds downcast, devastated Chris talking things over with Rob at the outcast encampment. The naive fool has just discovered what\u2019s she got and what it means. Lost and disgusted, convinced she\u2019s a dirty monster with a biological Scarlet Letter as part of her flesh, Chris drinks and talks and, eventually, finds comfort in her bad boy\u2019s arms\u2026<\/p>\n

In \u2018Windowpane\u2019<\/em> Pearson, Dee and Todd drop their first tabs of acid and head for a party at Jill<\/em>\u2019s house. Increasingly morose and troubled Keith is feeling ever-more isolated and alienated and the LSD coursing through his system isn\u2019t helping, When Dee and Jill start to make out, he leaves and finds her big sister crying outside. After she shouts at him he turns and, still tripping off his nut, heads into the woods.<\/p>\n

Lost and confused, he sees horrific and bizarre things in the trees and bushes before stumbling into some of the infected kids around their fire. In a wave of expiation he begins to talk and keeps on going, slowly coming down amongst temporary friends. Keith has no suspicion that some of the things he saw were not imaginary at all\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2018Under Open Skies\u2019 <\/em>sees Chris and Rob playing hooky. Fully committed to each other now, they head to the coast and a perfect solitary day of love at the beach. They think it\u2019s all going to be okay but the voice from Rob\u2019s other mouth says otherwise\u2026<\/p>\n

Back home again, Chris\u2019 recent good times are ruined by her parents\u2019 reaction. Grounded, the former good girl makes up her mind and, gathering a few possessions, elopes with her lover to a new life in \u2018The Woods\u2019<\/em> where grotesquely bestial but kindly Dave Barnes<\/em> takes them under his wing.<\/p>\n

Although they have bonded, Rob cannot stay with Chris and returns to his home and High School. Although he spends as much time as possible at the encampment, Chris is too often alone and on one of her excursions into the wilds finds a bizarre and frightening shrine. Little does she know it\u2019s one of the things the tripping Keith thought he\u2019d hallucinated\u2026<\/p>\n

Summer grinds on and Pearson plucks up nerve to go back to the college guys\u2019 house. \u2018Lizard Queen\u2019 <\/em>Eliza is on the porch, drawing but obviously upset by something. Confused, scared and without knowing what they\u2019re doing. they end up in bed consummating that long-postponed act of drug-fuelled passion\u2026<\/p>\n

Chris\u2019 days of innocent passion end suddenly when Rob is brutally attacked by a lurking intruder in \u2018I\u2019m Sorry\u2019<\/em>. She descends into a stupor for days until spotting nice safe Keith at one of the camp\u2019s evening bonfire parties. Soon, he\u2019s arranged for her to move into an empty property he\u2019s housesitting over \u2018Summer Vacation\u2019<\/em> but even though he\u2019s attentive, kind, solicitous and so clearly wants to be with her, he\u2019s just not Rob.<\/p>\n

Chris has been going slowly crazy since her beloved boy vanished: reliving memories good and bad, feeling scared and abandoned, playing dangerously with the gun he left her \u201cfor protection\u201d. Keith is still plagued by nightmares and X-rated thoughts of Eliza in \u2018A Dream Girl\u2019<\/em>, but hopeful he now has a chance with Chris. That swiftly changes when he checks on her and discovers the house he\u2019s supposed to be guarding has been trashed. There\u2019s garbage everywhere, a bunch of her fellow outcasts have moved in and she\u2019s clearly avoiding him, locked in a room, constantly \u201csleeping\u201d\u2026<\/p>\n

Despondent, confused Pearson doesn\u2019t know what to do. Chris is having some kind of breakdown and the house – his responsibility – is a wreck. The lovesick fool is trapped and crumbling when Eliza breezes back into his life. If only his own bug mutation wasn\u2019t so hideous\u2026<\/p>\n

Heading back to the home once more he finds Chris has gone and the pigsty has become a charnel house. All summer there has been a frightening, oppressive presence in the woods and with the Fall coming the mood is beginning to darken. When Dave is barracked and abused whilst trying to buy takeout food, he snaps and pulls out Chris\u2019 gun. Calmly taking his fried chicken from the crime-scene he walks back to the woods and the troubled soul known as \u2018Rick the Dick\u2019<\/em>. It\u2019s going to be their last meal\u2026<\/p>\n

Keith meanwhile has found his own happy ending, \u2018Driving South\u2019<\/em> with gloriously free spirited, undemanding Eliza, but is still gripped by what he found at the house. At least he and Eliza helped survivors get away, but now – happily content with his idyllic artist girl and after all the horrible secrets they\u2019ve shared – he can\u2019t help wondering what happened to Chris.<\/p>\n

That mystery and how Dave got the gun are only revealed in the compulsively low key and wildly visual climax \u2018The End\u2019<\/em>\u2026<\/p>\n

Complex, convoluted, utterly compelling, expressive, evocative and deeply, disturbingly phantasmagorical, Black Hole<\/strong> is a comics masterpiece of graphic genius and astoundingly utilised allegory and metaphor merged with the eternal dissatisfaction and alienation of youth. It explores and reexamines evolution and cultural ostracization as well as the verities of love, aspiration, jealousy and death to concoct a tale no other medium could (although perhaps Luis Bu\u00f1uel, David Lynch or David Cronenberg might have made a good go of it in film).<\/p>\n

If you are over 16 and haven\u2019t read it, do – and soon.
\n\u00a9 2005 Charles Burns. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Charles Burns (Jonathan Cape) ISBN: 978-0-37542-380-2 (HB) 978-0-22407-778-1 (TPB) On this day in 2019, those happy Big Science people at the Event Horizon Telescope Project released the first picture of a black hole as located at the centre of galaxy M87. No one’s done a graphic novel of that yet but there\u2019s this superb … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Black Hole”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[102,299,66,105],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fantasy","category-feminism-sexual-politics","category-horror-stories","category-mature-reading"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-7Ib","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29647"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29647\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29649,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29647\/revisions\/29649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}