Black Hole

Charles Burns’s Black Hole, published by Pantheon, is a haunting, self-contained graphic novel rather than an ongoing series, with its single 2005 release gathering the twelve issues Burns originally created for Kitchen Sink Press. Known for his meticulous, crosshatched black-and-white art, Burns crafts a surreal and unsettling coming-of-age story set in 1970s Seattle, where a sexually transmitted plague manifests as bizarre physical mutations among teenagers. This work stands as a landmark of alternative comics, celebrated for its atmospheric dread and its unflinching exploration of adolescence, alienation, and bodily transformation.