Black Hole

And today's pick is Black Hole by Charles Burns. Originally published in twelve issues between 1995 and 2004. Initially by Kitchen Sink and subsequently by Fantagraphic books. This bind up edition that I will be flipping through is a somewhat worse for wear collected version published by Pantheon in 2008.

While not explicitly rated I would start off by flagging that this is by most estimations a fairly mature comic in the rating scale type of way. Content notes for sex, age gap, nudity, dissecting animals, swearing, smoking, body horror, violence and death.

The reason I initially picked this particular volume up was two fold. The first is because it's mentioned literally everywhere, so it's kind of hard to escape. Although I feel like I didn't really note what the book was actually supposed to be about, so I did still manage to go in largely ignorant. The second is because I've started tracking the original publication date of books I review and I wanted to fill out the 90s more.

While I don't always go this in depth about any particular volume - although I guess I always wish I did and feel like I could have gone yet further with this one. since this is such a widely discussed volume, I did end up consuming a lot of other people's reviews of Black Hole. Unlike some people who say they want to keep their opinion pure, I actually find this sort of post reading consumption can help bring more clarity to my own thoughts. Pulling out things from the depths of my brain through agreeing or disagreeing with others. I also happened to read this over a longish period of time (side note: I was surprised by the how many people said this was a fast read for them) when my life was even more topsy turvy then usual. Where did I hide my notes? I don't know... lol. That said, this strategy did kind of bite me in the butt because of the number of adult men who can't discuss sex and sexuality in any sort of reasonable way. So woo boy, would not necessarily recommend that anyone else emulate me in this matter.

Keywords that came to mind: white on black, coming of age, runaways, disease, and contrast.

Looking at the creative behind this work. This is the first title I've read by Charles Burns so let's get familiar.

Born in Washington D.C. in 1955, his family settled in Seattle in 1965. Notoriously influenced by Tintin from an early age (Sidenote: If you want to see my 2018 opinion of Herge watch my review of Peppy in The West by Herge one of these days I'll revisit that) in contrast Lambiek lists Japanese woodblock as Burns' most unusual influence.

Moving along to their adult student years, Burns worked on a campus magazine with both Lynda Barry and Matt Groening. The latter apparently named a character in the Simpsons after him? Charles' cartooning rose in notoriety when he was picked up by Art Spiegelman (of Mause fame) in RAW magazine. Since then, Burns' work has also been featured by MTV, Altoids and Coke among many many others.

Looking at the other books Burns has worked on. I was a bit surprised that he was the dude behind many covers I feel like I see everywhere... After finishing Black Hole I wasn't initially going to rush out and pick up another book of his to consume, but in writing out this review I wonder if I might try to read Final Cut (published in 2024) to get a better sense of his treatment of gender and sexuality both across his career and what he's up to in a modern context.

Looking at the art side of things, as is generally the case most people who don't like the writing tend to add the caveat that the art is very impressive. Sometimes this comes off as pretty cliche but it does ring pretty true in this case. A bit of a connoisseur of black and white comics books myself the dynamic and high contrasting pages did indeed tickle my brain. And might have inspired me to make a collage of some kind of all the different black and white styles that I've enjoyed over the years.

The largely white line on black background really emphasizes the other worldly nature, even as the character designs really felt incredibly grounded in an almost generic way. Practically speaking it was somewhat comforting that I was not the only person who had a difficult time telling some of these characters apart.

The page layouts were cut up into solid easy to tell units. The quality of frames shifting with the story as we moved forwards, backwards and every so often interdimensionally as it were. There's also a sense of shifting depth as things you feel should maybe be lighter are darker and vice versa.

Writing wise it definitely felt a bit all over the place. Riding by the seat of your pants over a decade sort of thing, Burns does not appear to be a carefully plotting sort of creator. And that's alright. Although as we delve a bit deeper I do feel like this sort of style is part of the reason it's so easy to rub off the sheen? But perhaps I am giving away my opinion too soon.

Apparently for Black Hole Burns was heavily influenced by romance comics. A type of comic that someone of Burns' gender was not really supposed to involve himself in and not a particularly popular or referenced type of comic at the time overall. So apparently another reason, alongside the art, that it stands apart for many people.

Sex and sexuality is obviously one of the central themes of Black Hole. Overall very heterosexual, although fairly balanced nudity between the two socially constructed cis binaries, which is a sadly an unusually high standard to hit. Burns' style seems to be about half way between hyper sexualized and completely de-sexualized and besides the body horror of it all felt fairly average and plausible. But of course there are some reviewers who found this mix of body horror and sexuality pretty gross, so your milage may vary.

Interestingly, despite the plot revolving around a sexually acquired infection, Black Hole is generally received as not being a moralizing story or parable. I would agree that this is the case and it mostly felt like a strength. This is not to say that characters have no emotions and don't express how things impact them in a positive or negative way. Just that the overarching perspective of the graphic novel is not taking sides and the shifting point of view creates a pretty wide perspective on the premise.

I would flag that besides some discussion of sexual violence, there is a scene where a teenage boy is seduced by an adult woman. In general my perception is that the heterosexual culture of so called north America generally still thinks this sort of thing is good and congratulates young men for being the victim of this sort of sexual violation. If you can't tell, I think this is a bad thing and part of a larger problem of toxic masculine bravado that tries to pretend guys are always tough and never hurt or vulnerable, etc. etc. Presented in Black Hole... while I can appreciate that it didn't feel particularly glorified, I wonder if there should have been more exploration of the toxicity of this sort of thing. Mulling over what my 2025 adult brain thinks might be a solution... Obviously I don't need a blinking florescent light shouting WRONG at the top of the page is necessary or ideal, but a bit more counter cultural nudging would go a long way I think.

In contrast, disability and chronic illness is interestingly both central and not at the same time. Obviously a std is what Black Hole is about. On the pros side I felt like Black Holes is much more deeply sympathetic and interested in people with non normative bodies. Although there still is a bit of hierarchy going on. That said, in many ways it also felt like a bit of a surface accessory metaphor. To be clear, a metaphor for teenage alienation not HIV. Burns has tried to make that abundantly clear. So the con to me was that it didn't feel like the creator had engaged with or reflected on the disabled experience for any great length of time or with any great effort. Something people still don't like to do very much, let alone in the 90s.

Looking at the teen alienation of it all overall I felt like it was successful and a more interesting take for something so well trodden. Because as someone who didn't have this kind of teenage experience this kind of thing is tempting to see as just a series of tired tropes.

The body horror and surrealist parts were probably among my favorite.

Looking at the gender of it all. In most ways it is pretty social construct cookie cutter. I mean we do start out with a teenage boy with a talking vagina in his neck, which seemed like something interesting might happen. But ultimately another bit of a surface thing that Burns doesn't really go anywhere with. Compared to other stuff I've read it felt like the female characters were a bit more fleshed out then I would have anticipated and from a modern perspective it did feel like these teenage boys were allowed to be a bit more vulnerable then I would have expected.

Place also played a decently important role to the overall vibe of Black Hole. It plays into people's ideas of the suburbs, and much like the characters, twists and shifts it.

Class felt minimized compared to other points of identity.

And as far as I could tell the race of our characters was all pretty lily white.

Wrapping things up. What can I say? It was very interesting to dig into Black Hole and I can appreciate how it stood apart for many readers. It was not a new personal favourite for me, which is also fair.

As I try to point out periodically there is no such thing as a must read and it's impossible for anything to be perfect. So if this doesn't sound like your cup of tea and you haven't already, feel free to move on. Or read it anyway and complain.

Time moves on and it's helpful to think of things in their historical context. But also hopefully when it comes to media things grow and progress. It would be really sad if the landmark works of yore aren't eventually surpassed honestly.