Reviews with content warning for Death - Black Hole

Reviews tagging 'Death'

spotlessminds's review

challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

Bleak and very unflinching in tackling teenage angst and the overhanging dread as you feel in becoming a sexual being, but incredibly honest and,
poignant.

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steveatwaywords's review

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Black Hole has earned its reputation as one of the best (and more disturbing) stories out there. It's not just the unsanitary lives of 1970s teen drug use or nudity common to its pages, not merely the starkness of the black and white illustrations, but the strange normalization of an STD that physically, grotesquely, even cosmically, deforms young people which captures and repels us. It's the complete absence of an adult world which has emotionally and psychically abandoned them all except through pointless media. It's the unreasoning escapism through hallucinogenics which confuses delusion with vision or even visionary awakening.

The allegory to our social and psychological approach to the AIDS epidemic is an obvious reading, but Burns does not allow us to see it merely as this. In brief, in many ways this disease "talks back," suggesting something more cosmic involved. And what is also clear: the disease is psychologically transformative, as well. An over-simplified reading ("This is a story of x") is in many ways a misreading.

That there is something else operating here, some other sense of (dis)order, is clear then, but Burns will never let us know precisely what that is. The naivete of its protagonists, all making fateful choices and fatal miscommunications, must in the end make some sense of themselves and their own desires, which--properly--is at the center of the story.

And this, I think, is where Burns falters at points. Rich in symbolism and foreboding which is never fully explicated or unraveled, distracted by subplots which undermine the larger terrifying themes (did we really need to add a murder mystery to all this?), I found myself leaving the otherwise absorbing story to wonder at how it was crafted, and that's never really a good sign. I wondered if Burns began his series without really having plotted its story arcs, without understanding where and how it might resolve itself. This is easy to understand with multi-volume graphic novels which are published across months or years. But this reality does not absolve the creator from nevertheless telling a satisfying story coherent and tightly focused. The Victorians did it with more ambition and fewer tools at their disposal. What's more, other graphic novelists do it: I'm thinking of Tynion or Gaiman as obvious examples.

Even so, there is nothing I've read quite like Black Hole, and its images and deluded characters will not leave me anytime soon.

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bluebear1's review

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challenging dark sad medium-paced

3.5

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deliviful's review

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challenging dark mysterious medium-paced

Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No

2.0

Giving it some stars because the art was cool. Story went nowhere in particular, characters felt too similar, women were male wish fulfilment

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annchmn's review

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dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

Cool art style, but the plot seemed to go nowhere. Like

Who/what was the voice in Rob that said it failed when he died?? Where was the disease coming from and what did all those dreams mean?

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hermitlyinclined's review

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challenging dark tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

3/5 - GOOD

The story in Black Hole isn't anything special, particularly when read later in life. But with the care and consideration Charles Burns took in writing and illustrating the work, Black Hole becomes a timeless coming of age piece. The story follows a group of teenagers exploring the forays of sex and love for the first time, applying the motif of an STI that inflicts body horrors onto the host. While Burns has stated the mutation reflects an adolescence tranformation into adulthood, I prefer to see it as a reflection of the sense of permanence each of us feel in our youth; every decision, consequence, and state of being will continue on in perpetuity.

My only evidence would be the reveal that the mutations eventually disappear and victims return to (relatively) normal appearance.

The actions of the book reflect how various characters adapt to that illusion permanence. Many hide away in darkness, not wanting to expose their vulnerabilities and finding others like them to empathise with. Some are fully enveloped by that darkness and look to drag as many others down into their misery as possible. Others want to understand what they are going through and find someone to understand both themselves and the world around them. And then there are those who look to redeem themselves, however poorly.

It is a short series, 12 trade-paperbacks worth of content, with a tendency to drag through the middle-third, but it was a warm memory of a time gone by for me. The events readers witness do go to some unnecessary (fantastical) extremes - and there are some loose ends left untied - but the language used doesn't date the contents. Despite being written throughout the 90s and 00s, the setting is a suburban America of the late 70s early 80s. The art further lends itself to it being of a bygone era without feeling out of place - seemingly combining 1950s pop line-art with a wood carving asthetic. The simplicity of some panels allows for the extremes of horror and psychodelia to leap off of the page.

In general, this would be a strong recommendation for late-teenagers (that can stomach gore and violence) to reassure them that they are not alone in some of the struggles they inevitable go through.

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