 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
Charles Burns (1955- ) portrays a disturbed world of dark horror and kinky science in his comic strips, the product, he admits, of over-exposure to American pop culture in his youth. "My father's a scientist who once wanted to be a cartoonist. So I was able to read comics without being told they were going to rot my mind. As a result my brain rotted..." Underneath his distinctive ice-cold, hard-edged, black and white art work are dark and disturbing stories that deal with childhood traumas, loss and alienation. A common theme in his work is physical transformation and invasion, "... it's this fascination I have with the separation of the mind and the body. And how the body can manifest a psychological state." With his teen-plague stories, which culminate in Black Hole, Charles Burns deals with sexual anxiety. "Obviously, the direct AIDS metaphor is there - there have always been sexual diseases floating around, but now there's a killer. I was just thinking about sex being this dangerous and frightening thing rather than what it's supposed to be, which is just the opposite. I think when you're an adolescent, that's what's affecting you the most, the kind of anxiety about who you are and what sex is." Burns was an early and regular contributor to Art Spiegelman's RAW magazine and his provocative work has also appeared in publications such as Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, and The New York Times Magazine. He lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA with his wife, painter Susan Moore, and their two daughters. Interviews: Resources: Reviews: |
 |
ESSENTIAL READING: |
|
"Burns is a masterful cartoonist, and Black
Hole demonstrates interesting art actually can be made
about teenage mutants." "Raging hormones and a contagious plague are mutating a group
of high-school students: Keith sheds his skin like a snake; Rob
has a second mouth under his throat; Chris has grown a tail.
How do you catch it? How long can you keep it a secret? How will
it affect your first experiences of sex, drugs and maybe love?
How long do you have left to live? Spanning twelve 32 page issues,
Burns is taking his time here to unravel the anxieties and alienation
of being a teenager. He does much of this through a trance-like
slowness, acutely observed internal monologues, and by revealing
encounters from more than one point of view. An
escalating sadness and dread pervade every page of what promises
to be his master piece." |
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
| SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY: | ||
Books: Periodicals: CD Covers: |
