Black Hole, son

Just finished the graphic novel that you see above. Basically read it within a two-hour clip, and this bitch is 368 pages, so you know it was a damn good read. I'm slowly but surely becoming a total geek for these graphic novels, which---for those not in the know---are comic books but extended into novel length, more often than not a compilation of a long-running comic strip series packed into one extensive solid read. It's like reading books, but not really. You're reading a full-on story, but it's constantly illustrated and typically of the fantasy nature. Whatever. Explanations are meaningless here. I'm loving them and I'll be buying some more tomorrow on my lunch break.

But this particular one, Black Hole, is quite heavy, though. Super existential. Trippy as a mug. But fucking brilliant and one that I'll surely re-read for some time to come. I'd compare its lasting effects to movies like Memento or Mulholland Drive; not in the "what the fuck was that all about?" of Mulholland necessarily, but more so in the way it doesn't leave your thoughts. I'm still analyzing certain moments and working the whole story out in my head, and I finished the thing like five hours ago.

Plot wise, think the 70s stoner classic Dazed & Confused, only done by David Cronenberg and drained of nearly all humor, with laughs replaced by extreme melancholy, macabre, and horror, but rather than a masked murderer, the horror of this teenage nightmare is angst, alienation, and feeling like an outcast in high school's social order. It takes place in the '70s, in Seattle. There's a mysterious sexually-transmitted disease known as "the bug" that is spreading throughout this particular teenage circle. Rather than depleted health and a flu-like symtpoms, though, the effects are physical deformities, such as a tail or a mini-mouth found on a dude's neck that utters his inner-most thoughts (yeah, sick shit is afoot). But for those unlikely to hide their changes, too deformed and grotesque to blend in, they've all congregrated to "The Pit," a secluded area deep in the woods where they've formed their own leper-ish society. But then some of the truly-hideous sick start succumbing to murder at the hands of an unknown assailant, and this is where shit really hits the fan and crosses over into this insane dreamland-meets-reality world.

It's told through the perspective of two protagonists, one guy and one girl. Both storylines are well-plotted. But I'll stop rambling about the plot, because odds are that most of those who actually read this won't ever read it, which would be a shame, because it's unlike anything else you'll ever immerse yourself in. Charles Burns, both its author and illustrator, is somebody I need to do my homework on now. His artwork here is so detailed, so intricate, and so great at exuding dread and sadness that there were times when I'd stop reading the actual story and get lost in the illos. It took Burns over 10 years to create this, and after reading, I'm surprised it didn't take him 20. It's no joke.

[some examples of the artwork and storyboard....]


[this is how all of the chapters are introduced, with a left black page and right illoed one; notice the similarities in the structures of both. That's how it is for every chapter breaker]





There's been talk for years about a movie adaptation, and honestly, its news that makes me super-nervous. This is some truly unique shit, and I'm not sure if anybody other than Burns can properly execute it again. But on the other hand, the almighty David Fincher (Seven, Fight Club, Zodiac....all great pieces of cinema) is attached, so all hope isn't lost. And if Zack Snyder seems to be able to actually translate Watchmen into a convincing motion picture (jury's still out until March 09, of course, but all the pics and that trailer are doing a great job thus far of proving haters wrong), then the impossible would become possible.

Now, on to Wanted, the graph novel that the Angie Jolie flick was based on. Much diff than the movie, I hear, so I'm pretty stoked. Or, I could just start reading Black Hole over again. Ahhh, decisions, decisions....