Black Hole (Pantheon Graphic Library)

Black Hole (Pantheon Graphic Library)

<b>Winner of the Eisner, Harvey, and Ignatz Awards</b><br><br>The setting: suburban Seattle, the mid-1970s. We learn from the outset that a strange plague has descended upon the area€s teenagers, transmitted by sexual contact. The disease is manifested in any number of ways €" from the hideously grotesque to the subtle (and concealable) €" but once you€ve got it, that€s it. There€s no turning back.<br><br>As we inhabit the heads of several key characters €" some kids who have it, some who don€t, some who are about to get it €" what unfolds isn€t the expected battle to fight the plague, or bring heightened awareness to it , or even to treat it. What we become witness to instead is a fascinating and eerie portrait of the nature of high school alienation itself €" the savagery, the cruelty, the relentless anxiety and ennui, the longing for escape.<br><br>And then the murders start.<br><br>As hypnotically beautiful as it is horrifying, <i>Black Hole</i> transcends its genre by deftly exploring a specific American cultural moment in flux and the kids who are caught in it- back when it wasn€t exactly cool to be a hippie anymore, but Bowie was still just a little too weird. <br><br>To say nothing of sprouting horns and molting your skin€¦