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.