Nicely drawn, but where is the story?
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I have just finished this book and have to admit I am quite a newcomer to the graphic book scene.
I enjoyed reading the book because I felt as though we were going somewhere and was waiting for the big reveal. Unfortunately there wasn't one! It ended up not going anywhere at all, and left me more than a little disappointed in the end.
Nice idea, but needs more work in the plot department.
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A compelling and horrific graphic novel about urban alienation
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Set amongst high school students in a fictional mid-70s Seattle, this is a compelling and horrific graphic novel about urban alienation, teenage despair and the ways in which fear can spread through a community.
Charles Burns uses the metaphor of plague - a mysterious, AIDS-like illness which spreads through sexual contact, with horrifying results. The changes contagion brings are individual - often seeming to echo the carrier's own fears or hidden traits. One boy develops a second mouth which always tells the truth; an infected girl learns to shed her skin like a snake.
As with the shapeshifting feats of traditional comicbook superheroes, it's unclear whether catching the bug is a curse or a blessing in disguise. New powers accompany the loss of normality, although the consequences vary according to the character's moral integrity. There's a Freudian dimension to all this, too; sometimes the transformations of the disease are nightmare echoes of the physical changes of adolescence, the fears of infection a kind of amplified sexual neurosis.
Against the weight of all this metaphor, the sub-plot involving a series of murders almost seems extraneous. Nevertheless, this is a good buy: originally serialised in twelve parts and appearing over the course of a decade, this new edition brings the entire story together along with Burns' darkly beautiful black-and-white illustrations.
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An intriguing, clever work
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Black Hole is a book about adolescents in an American town, who suffer from a strange disease which causes mutations in their appearance. Instead of just making this a trite metaphor for puberty, Burns runs with the concept and makes it an important part of the world he creates where the characters run from home and go to live with hippies and drug dealers or camp out in the woods, afraid of the world they have run from.
I read Black Hole over two Spring evenings at the park. After the first half of the book I felt disappointed because it seemed like nothing especially interesting had happened and what had happened was too slow and unclear (several of the characters look similar). However, beyond the half way point, everything falls into place and the character focus becomes a bit sharper with you caring about the fates of certain people in the book and feeling angry about how they are treated. It may spend a while setting the scene, but when the plot gets going and the character relationships develop, it becomes a fascinating work and impossible to put down. I particularly like the way that violence is for a long time absent from the story then strikes suddenly and shockingly.
I do feel that the book could have been edited down and better presented. Although the art style is nice-looking and Burns is highly skilled at facial expressions and body language, I did feel at times it was generic and inarticulate - there were only very few points in the book where I felt compelled to stop my flow and step back to admire the composition of a scene. The overall atmosphere that the style creates is powerful though, with a concentration of black which makes you feel at times that it's not black ink on a white page, but white struggling to partition the depth of darkness - particularly menacing and effective in the scenes that take place in the woods.
Black Hole is a thrilling and intelligent work which may be a one-shot read but is a great read, nonetheless.
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Spellbinding
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This has to be one of the greatest graphic novels of the past few years. If David Lynch did teen-drama this would be it. The alienation of teenage life taken to the max. Beautifully drawn, visually like nothing else around. Story of subtlety and eery atmosphere. This is a work of depth and sublime power. Totally recommended.
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Where's the story?
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A disease is spreading throughout teenland and...nothing. That's the story. No beginning, no middle and no perceivable ending. Zero suspense. 2 stars for a good cover and nice binding.
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