Charles Burns

Seattle teenagers of the 1970s are suddenly faced with a devastating, disfiguring, and incurable plague that spreads only through sexual contact.

Black Hole

Set in the 70s, but with a very 90s grunge feel, the artwork in this black and white comic is dreamlike and beautiful, even though it deals in the grotesque. Told in a non-linear fashion, it's not your average coming of age tale, but it can be described that way. Black Hole focuses on a group of teens who have caught "the bug." It's a sexually transmitted disease with side effects that mutate those unlucky enough to be infected. Some can hide their deformities, others sprout tails and horns and melted faces. As the disease spreads, some teens, dealing with their angst and isolation and confusion venture out into the woods and form their own community called "the pit." Soon people start disappearing until a final tragedy ensues. The characters are compelling and the story is told from multiple points of view. My favorite protagonist is Chris, a beautiful and popular teen grappling with her first love, and the loss of her life as she knew it. Beautifully illustrated and written. A must read. 

Ella Ella Ellael

maitha mana

The story started out great, but it started getting too gross too soon. Didn't do much for me.

D D D 

adolescent psychedelia … it was okay. if there’s a greater metaphor it was lost on me

dmitria guimarães

Gavin

Great but impossible to enjoy. It’s horror - and there is a terrible plague - but the real horror is your unforced bad decisions, heinous misspeaking, thoughtless cruelty. The presentation is a sick dream. People do irreversible things all the time, but a nicer world would save people who didn’t know what they were doing (any of us).

oberon vortigern

So I usually like weird stuff. This was certainly weird and definitely not my thing. 

If you like feeling you're on an acid trip and body horror, go ahead and read this. However, I think Junji Ito would be better for acid trips and body horror, and not a waste of my time.

Ryan LaFerney

Teenage angst/lust as body horror set against the doped up 1970s. Black Hole centers on a group of teens in the suburbs of ‘70s Seattle whose community is plagued by a sexually transmitted disease that shows up as various mutations in the afflicted. The story felt a bit long and meandering but I loved Charles Burns' black and white illustrations. And there are definitively a few disturbing scenes of body horror. Read this as a companion to the film It Follows.

Nikka Lowe

A darkly beautiful exploration of the horrors and isolation of adolescence. It feels quite Lynchian and meditative in movement, never needing to get behind the mystery of the sexually transmitted disease that affects the youth in the story. They feel the effects of isolation by society, their peers and especially those close to them however at the same time they are brought together in this shared experience.

Faith

This book was just fine. The artwork was pretty sometimes, but I wish we had gone a little more in depth about not just the characters but also this STD-mutation thing. Instead, most of this book is just three dudes getting high and feeling sorry for themselves lol.

Stephanie Cox

This was beautiful and haunting and created a really vividly creepy atmosphere, but also maybe sexist? Definitely sexist; there was vagina-as-infectious-wound imagery. But I can't get it out of my head.

Black Hole

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