Black Hole by Charles Burns Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Black Hole
Book Review: Blackest Despair captured brilliantly in comic form
Summary: 4 Stars
Black Hole is a disturbing story filled with love, loss, transformation and the grotesque, but with a sense of hope as well. The art is stunning and the inking of each panel is particularly well done, giving a sense of darkness to each chapter in accordance with the title. If you haven't read it yet, borrow it, buy it, get your hands on a copy any way you can!Book Review: Brooding, but Enjoyable
Summary: 3 Stars
A twisted, creepy, disturbing, yet enticing graphic novel about a foreign "bug" infecting a city and ruining the lives of the people who receive it. (I interpreted it as a metaphor for AIDS, but every other review seemed to associate it with teenage loneliness, which makes sense as well...) The two main characters are both extremely brooding and angsty (go figure--they're high schoolers), and it's got confusion, murder, sex, and drug-trip-inspired creepiness.
If you're into film noir and dark stories, you will probably love it. If you can't do macabre, steer clear. And if you can't take angst with no true rationale behind it, this story will probably seem over-the-top. But I enjoyed the ride.
Book Review: Cool art, but overall a disappointing story...
Summary: 3 Stars
Like many of the other reviewers here, I too grew up in the Pacific Northwest so I can relate to the general vibe and situations of this moody, angst-filled comic. Burns has captured the mannerisms and dialogue of teenagers from my generation pefectly.
And of course the art is pretty hypnotic, as Burns employs a stark relief-printing illustration technique that makes each panel look like a little linocut. At times he does some amazing things with textures, patterns and stylized portrayals of nature and drug paraphernalia. He's a real master of his craft. However, as others have noted, the overall monotony of the characters and their expressions really started boring me after a while and I found myself asking how interesting it could have been to draw these same characters over and over again.
Aside from these things, Black Hole is a story that features many bizarre little bits about a mysterious STD that has infected a random group of high schoolers, the main plotline following an average suburban teenage girl as she has to deal with the loneliness of becoming an outcast from her infection. Because of the attention to detail it's all pretty fun to read but also very episodic. Beyond the bizarre incidents, the plot meanders quite a bit and one gets the feeling Burns doesn't really know what he wants to say with the material. One example would be the inclusion of an underdeveloped serial killer angle. The anticlimactic ending was a big letdown for me as well. Without the art, this story is really weak.
Book Review: Fantastic art!
Summary: 5 Stars
All I can say is WOW. The art in this is amazing. This guy is gifted. I found myself studying the lines more than than the story. That's not to say that the story isn't great. Set in the 70's, the story follow a group of kids who are striken with "the bug," a mysterious illness that causes deformations and is passed through intercourse. It's written in a way that is so believable yet truly imaginative.Book Review: Good
Summary: 5 Stars
Graphic novel, set in the '70s, with a group of teenagers and the very strange mutating-STD that develops. Primarily a character-driven piece, using the weird disease as both metaphor and the driving plot to character transformation. Also has a somewhat unnecessary horror mystery arc put within the larger narrative. The artwork is beautiful, very distinctively and evocatively drawn. I first saw this book in the gift shop for an art museum, and I can see why. The story is also reasonably effective, if not quite as breathtaking. The use of genre elements is poor (the bug pretty much has to be magical, no explanation for the origin is given and people seem remarkably unconcerned about a disease that causes a second mouth to grow on someone's neck). Still, it's effective for some very creepy moments and some solid character progression.