Black Hole HC by Charles Burns review, No spoilers.

Okay. I expected this book to be strange and artistic, but no way did I expect it to be like this! I purchased this book on Amazon, along with the aforementioned Girls. I had read a brief review/ spotlight on this book in wizard magazine and I thought the concept of a Venereal Disease that mutates the infected was an intriguing idea. There was NO WAY I expected this book to have any sort of emotional pull to it, but it does.

It has an emotional pull alright, just not in the way that you would normally perceive that sort of thing. This book was written and drawn with such raw emotion that you could feel the atmosphere in which these character were immersed. If they were depressed, you not only knew it from the words, but you also sympathized with them on a visceral level. When they lusted, you understood why, even though their situations were often outrageously grotesque.

Another thing I appreciated about the book was its non-sequitor style of storytelling. You have to be careful reading this book, as I could see it being easy to lose track of the main characters by the nature of the storytelling.

I knew that this book would not be a normal book, and it wasn't. I wanted to feel more comfortable with the material, hoping that eventually, the edge would come off - but it didn't. I didn't want to feel for some of the characters in the book, but I did. I just wanted to read a book that required no thought processing, but I was engrossed from the beginning.

This book was extremely disturbing. I loved it.