Word: hole
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...Black Hole has as much fun defying the teen horror conventions as working within them. Keith and Chris do not fall in love, as you might expect, while battling hordes of monsters. In fact, the first two thirds of the book follows each in parallel but separate stories. A stoned philosopher, Keith goes through his days working hard at doing nothing and just getting a good buzz on. After stumbling upon a colony of infected teens near his favorite woodsy spot for getting stoned, he starts to become aware of their isolated but darkly appealing world. While everyone else spends...
Though Burns has been making comix since the early 80s, Black Hole is his first full-length graphic novel. Given that it took ten years for this book to reach completion, it may also be his only one. (It appeared over time as series of twelve comic books.) But you can't fault Burns for laziness. Once you see one of his illustrations, you see why it took so long. Possessing a graphical style as unique and instantly recognizable as Edward Gorey's, Burns works in meticulous detail using heavy inks that seem to bring out the worst horrors...
...Part of that consistency is in the careful follow-through of visual motifs introduced in the earliest chapters. Black Hole may be the most Freudian graphic novel you will every read. Dreams and symbols play a major role the development of character and theme. Vaginal-like openings appear in such forms as branches being pushed aside or a cut on someone's foot. Guns and serpents make for opposing sexual symbolism. While such imagery has been used before, Burns smartly applies them in ways unique to the medium, integrating them into the very design of the book...
...notice this you soon discover that, even though the layouts remain constantly varied, nearly every page vaguely or explicitly reflects the construction of the page facing opposite. Imagining the amount effort put into this books visuals makes you wonder why it didn't take twenty years to finish. Black Hole is a tour de force of design as message. Semiotics students will pore over it for years to come, but casual readers will simply enjoy it for its dark beauty...
...Black Hole Charles burns has taken the tropes of the teenage horror genre and powerfully brought them back to their roots. Fear of adulthood, fear of sex and fear of ostracization have never been more disturbingly explored in a serio-comic flashback to bellbottoms, big doobies and skinny-dipping in the woods. No Black Hole was ever so scary...