Let's Peel
Black Hole
Created by
PERFECT if
Perfect if you want to feel youth rot beautifully — a coming-of-age where every transformation leaves a scar.
Style / Atmosphere
Heavy ink. Fevered stillness. Burns draws adolescence as infection: his panels are too clean, his shadows too deep. Every contour glows with sickness and desire.
Synopsis
“You could feel it in the air. Everyone was coming down with something.”
Set in 1970s Seattle, Black Hole follows a group of teenagers infected by a sexually transmitted mutation known only as “the Bug.” Some grow tails, others shed skin — all lose innocence. Burns turns horror into metaphor: alienation, lust, shame, and the grotesque intimacy of growing up. The story crawls, hypnotic and precise, like a nightmare that refuses to end.
Line Work
Fine ink outlines, cross-hatched restraint, and a cool blue wash give each frame the stillness of archival memory. The geometry comforts and confines — a hand trying to stay steady while remembering trembles.
The pacing
Carefully measured. Each panel holds its breath. Page turns feel like walking through long hallways: you sense the echo before the sound. Time folds in on itself — moments revisited from multiple angles until they align.
The Voice
Bechdel’s narration overlays the images like transparent vellum — analytical, ironic, tender. Text and image never mirror; they negotiate. Where her voice retreats, her drawings lean closer.
From Page
to Screen
Fun Home: A New Broadway Musical (2013, dir. Sam Gold) — a stage adaptation that turns Bechdel’s visual silence into song.
The comic’s symmetrical structure and literary layering influenced how Call Me by Your Name (2017, dir. Luca Guadagnino) and The Father (2020, dir. Florian Zeller) visualise memory as architecture — intimate rooms echoing with withheld truths.
Peel me a Book
Let's Peel
Black Hole
Created by
Style / Atmosphere
Heavy ink. Fevered stillness. Burns draws adolescence as infection: his panels are too clean, his shadows too deep. Every contour glows with sickness and desire.
Perfect if
Perfect if you want to feel youth rot beautifully — a coming-of-age where every transformation leaves a scar.
Synopsis
“You could feel it in the air. Everyone was coming down with something.”
Set in 1970s Seattle, Black Hole follows a group of teenagers infected by a sexually transmitted mutation known only as “the Bug.” Some grow tails, others shed skin — all lose innocence. Burns turns horror into metaphor: alienation, lust, shame, and the grotesque intimacy of growing up. The story crawls, hypnotic and precise, like a nightmare that refuses to end.
Line Work
Ultra-high contrast black and white. No grey, no mercy. The clarity is oppressive: every hair, pore, and bruise rendered like a forensic photograph. The clean style amplifies the filth — horror drawn in perfect order.
The pacing
Slow and suffocating. Long sequences of silence, dream loops, faces half-lit by cigarette glow. Burns controls rhythm through claustrophobia — each page a still pulse that never resolves.
The Voice
Detached narration, adolescent monotone. The dialogue floats, disconnected from expression — like hearing thoughts through static. Burns writes as if every memory is already decomposing.
From Page
to Screen
Black Hole has long been in development for film; past versions involved directors like David Fincher and Rick Famuyiwa, though no production has materialised.
Its mix of erotic dread and suburban decay finds cinematic kinship in Donnie Darko (2001, dir. Richard Kelly) and Under the Skin (2013, dir. Jonathan Glazer) — works that turn alienation into body horror and beauty.