Handla nu | Black Hole

De första numren av Burns serie började publiceras kring 1995, avslutades ett årtionde senare och hade vid det laget uppnått samma ryktbara status som exempelvis Ghost World. 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. 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. And then the murders start.