First published as a comic book series by Fantagraphics, Black Hole's strange, trippy tales of adolescent sex gone wrong were released together as one book by Pantheon in 2005. Charles Burns worked on Black Hole for over a decade, and his slow, methodical approach results in a complex storyline which closely follows multiple characters and inky, deliberate drawings. Paramount bought the film rights to the book this past year.
The 1970s
Mutton chops, long shaggy hair, and partying in the woods: it's the '70s, an awkward, post-hippie era of malaise. The teens are hanging out, but they're not relaxing. Emotions bounce from awkward to spooked to terrified. It's like a bad acid trip. Even though they know that "the bug," a mysterious, disfiguring disease, is spread via sexual relations, they still end up having sex with each other. That's when things get weird.
A Disturbing Tale About Teen Sex
Black Hole is an illustrated horror story and a mystery in which the reader simultaneously senses a moral and gets the joke made at the moral's expense. The truth about "the bug" is wilder than any character's imagination. In their world of hard lighting and pitch-black backgrounds, the teens' lives will be changed forever: this is the bitter truth of their sexual liberation.
The West Coast
Black Hole takes place in Washington state, where Burns grew up, and the landscape of the West Coast figures into his story. The woods are a place of refuge for teens afflicted with the disease that's spreading. But this second home is also rife with danger. The ocean is the ultimate refuge, the only place where a moment of peace can be found. Main character Chris Rhodes, who is "a total fox," comes here to escape the madness.
Charles Burns as a Teenager
In an interview with Los Angeles CityBeat in 2006, Burns says that he drew from his own adolescence to write Black Hole. "For me it was just a matter of wanting to explore that period of my life," he explains. The seemingly perpetual adolescent uneasiness he depicts during a time of hedonism and disillusionment becomes a universal tale of teen angst that people can easily relate to.
Booklist named Black Hole one of the top ten graphic novels of 2005-2006. The dense, woodcut-like illustrations and the twisted and twisting story of the novel make the book hard to put down. In addition to his comics, Charles Burns does all the cover illustrations for The Believer magazine. His work has appeared on the covers of many other publications such as Time and New Yorker.
Charles Burns' Black Hole was published in 2005 with Pantheon. ISBN-10: 037542380X
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