Description
Book SynopsisAnd you thought your adolescence was scary.
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 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 of 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 (and, believe it or not, autobiographical), Black Hole transcends it
Trade Review
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 *
