Black Hole

Many regard Black Hole as one of the greatest graphic novels, and it’s not hard to see why. Burns’s black-and-white strips are so cool, and his story - sex, drugs and teenage mutants - grips like a vice. – Rachel Cooke * Observer *Drawn in [Burns’] signature woodblock style, and [is] visually memorising * Stong Word *A bleak but brilliant tale of suburban alienation – Marc Chacksfield * ShortList *Black Hole just might be the most perfect book going, if not the sexiest… As startling and evocative a work as the medium has ever produced. – Matt Fraction * Art Bomb *Make no mistake: this is a bleak book that tries desperately in its final frames to introduce a note of optimism in resignation. It’s also brilliant. – Peter Millar * The Times *

Charles Burns grew up in Seattle in the 1970s. His work rose to prominence in Art Spiegelman’s Raw magazine in the mid-1980s and took off from there, for an extraordinary range of comics and projects, from Iggy Pop album covers to the latest ad campaign for Altoids. In 1992 he designed the sets for Mark Morris’s delightful restaging of The Nutcracker. He’s illustrated covers for Time, the New Yorker and the New York Times Sunday Magazine. He is the official cover artist for The Believer magazine. Black Hole received Eisner, Harvey and Ignatz awards in 2005. Burns lives in Philadelphia with his wife and two daughters.