The NZA Posted November 21, 2009 Share Posted November 21, 2009 this is one of those books ive seen on shelves numerous times and not know the score, but somewhere around the time i was telling CJ how awesome his Shin Megami tattoo was, he was talking about how i seemed to enjoy dark stories, and this was a good one. I wiki'd it, and although i dont know much Charles Burns, im surprised id not looked into it prior. here's what they got: Black Hole is a limited series written and illustrated by Charles Burns. The story deals with the aftermath of a sexually transmitted disease which causes grotesque mutations in teenagers. It was published as a 12-issue comic book limited series between 1995 and 2005. The first four issues were released by Kitchen Sink Press; after Kitchen Sink went out of business, Fantagraphics republished the first four issues and the remaining eight. A compiled hardcover volume was released by Pantheon Books in 2005. This collected edition, however, lacks many pages that were included in the first publication- the ones that showed some characters' faces. These pages are considered by some critics to be essential. those last 2 sentences are discouraging, gonna look up the issues anyway, though. Anyone else read this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thelogan Posted November 21, 2009 Share Posted November 21, 2009 I think this was one of those I recommended in some thread a while back ("Recommend some shit", I believe?). Indeed, CJ read it at my insistance. I'm a big Charles Burns fan, Skin Deep and Hard Boiled Defective Stories are some of my prides and joys. Black Hole is probably his most epic piece. The whole thing is very haunting and disturbing, he clearly put a lot of work into the art. I have some issues of Raw (or Blab!, I get them confused) from the 80's where he does these short, creepy "teen plague" stories. This is clearly an idea he'd been kicking around for a good, long while and Black Hole is the culmination of that. It's a fine piece of work. Highly recommended. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Special K Posted December 4, 2009 Share Posted December 4, 2009 i remember black hole. I read it when it over candlelight when our power was out for like a week. there's nothing like living out in the woods smoking pot and growing hideous deformities! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keth Posted December 4, 2009 Share Posted December 4, 2009 this book seriously freaked me out o.O cool stuff makes me wanna read some more stuff from this dude Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thelogan Posted December 4, 2009 Share Posted December 4, 2009 BWahaha. I'm like the annoying Jehovah's Witness of comic books, pushing my shit on everyone I know who has a chance in hell of liking it. Very satisfying though. 4 more people know who Charles Burns is (not to be confused with Charles Montgomery Burns), if my master plan works then knowledge of good comic books should spread exponentially. It's also weird that CARLO, Kati, Axel and Mort all read the same physical copy, and yet the pages aren't torn and the semen stains are barely visible. Great job guys. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keth Posted December 4, 2009 Share Posted December 4, 2009 Yea i only used it to clean up what my socks didnt get. i respect other folks' property Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Hakujin Posted December 4, 2009 Share Posted December 4, 2009 I remember reading a review of this a few years back. I'm DL'n a torrent of the single issues now. . . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The NZA Posted December 4, 2009 Author Share Posted December 4, 2009 ...from where? i only found 1-2 so far. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jables Posted December 7, 2009 Share Posted December 7, 2009 Damn Logan & his effective pimpery of indie comics... Some of us aren't ready to have our horizons broadened. If it doesn't feature an issue where two heroes fight over what started out as a misunderstanding but soon evolves into an annual crossover, I'll be pissed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Hakujin Posted December 7, 2009 Share Posted December 7, 2009 ...from where? i only found 1-2 so far. got it off of isohunt.com this link should work: http://isohunt.com/download/89460633/black+hole.torrent only 4 seeders so it took the better part of a day to finish. but it's all 12 individual issues and not the TPB. i meant to read it yesterday, but lost track of time. hopefully i'll be able to get to it this week sometime... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thelogan Posted December 8, 2009 Share Posted December 8, 2009 I knew I'd mentioned Black Hole here somewhere at some point, finally found it here. Black Hole - Charles Burns' teen plague epic. This one really should have been done already, it would make Cabin Fever look like fuckin' ginger beer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thelogan Posted April 28, 2011 Share Posted April 28, 2011 A collaborative series with photographer Max Oppenheim and prosthetic artist Bill Turpin in tribute to Charles Burns for his comic ‘Black Hole’. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iambaytor Posted April 29, 2011 Share Posted April 29, 2011 I just read this, it was horribly mislabeled as horror and Logan's endorsement of "making Cabin Fever look like Ginger beer" was extremely misleading. (I would very much like David Cronenberg to make it into a movie) It's a great story, it's kinda dark I guess but honestly pretty straightforward it just has some really fucked up symbolism. I guess I'm just jaded that I didn't find it that disturbing (at least not the disease part) but I loved the book. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thelogan Posted April 29, 2011 Share Posted April 29, 2011 I found it pretty disturbing, but yeah, not really the disease. More of the overall tone. There's an edge of menace throughout the whole thing. That's the thing about comics though, a lot of that is left up to the reader. That's just how it was interpreted in my head. I didn't mean it was more gory than cabin fever, just that it's 90% less retarded. I'm bothered much more by diseased people holding hostages at gunpoint and infecting them and weird mutilated dolls left laying around for vague reasons than blood. I agree with you that it really isn't horror. I don't know what you'd call it. Dark Drama? That sounds like Twilight or something. Movie wise, it seems like it would lend itself pretty damn well to the format. Much more than anything else Charles Burns has done. Definitely more than Dog Boy, and that somehow managed to get on TV via Liquid Television. Cronenberg is a good call. I can see that being fantastic. What about Richard Linklater? It's basically just about overly hormonal teenagers unable to see past an orgasm. He could just do Dazed and Confused with more prosthetics Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iambaytor Posted April 29, 2011 Share Posted April 29, 2011 The infection at gunpoint was pretty awesome but it was somewhat diminished by the fact that the disease doesn't really have any negative effects other than weird deformities and it all but says it clears up later in life. I wasn't so much expecting gore as I was expecting really fucked up horrible things to happen to good people, instead I got a really heartfelt and honest story about what it felt like to be a teenager in the 70s with an undercurrent of murder and some admittedly pretty uneasy atmosphere that never amounted to much (did the arm ever get explained?) and I did picture some crazy demented shit happening off panel till it more or less showed that there really wasn't much. It was more aking to something like White Noise (the Dan Delilo book, not that retarded movie) which similarly featured a scary disease that didn't have much bearing on things but was brilliant anyway. But yeah, there was just far too much vagina symbolism to for anyone other than Cronenberg to do it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thelogan Posted October 13, 2011 Share Posted October 13, 2011 and it all but says it clears up later in life... I did not get that impression at all. Maybe I missed something. Anyway, re: Black Hole, The Movie THIS SHIT COULD WORK. In the right hands, at least. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keth Posted October 13, 2011 Share Posted October 13, 2011 Awww yeah that was awesome. That would be cool if that director could go on for a full version. I need to re-read this one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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