There are chapter dividers before each story, and endpapers. We get the indices page, stories, and covers. No table of contents, no interview, no biography, no page numbers and no foreword or afterword explaining why this material was selected.

Here’s the list of stories included and their corresponding issue number:įollowing these stories are six covers. Let’s address the lack of information in the publisher’s blurb: this is a selection of complete stories from the series, but it’s not a consecutive block. There was a name change along the way, from what is currently solicited by Fantagraphics to what you see as this review’s title: always use the indices as the definitive name. As with the others a different editor and designer worked on this volume, Eric Reynolds and Charles Burns himself. Order Online:, Amazon.ca, eBayĪnother high quality Studio Edition from Fantagraphics.Hypnotically beautiful and horrifying, Black Hole is a genuine American classic and this is the closest most of us will ever get to sitting in the author’s studio. It includes several full chapters from the book as well as selected excerpts that showcase Burns’s impeccable sense of design, composition, and execution. While appearing to be in black & white, each page has been scanned in full colour to retain the integrity and fidelity of the actual original art, warts and all. This Fantagraphics Studio Edition showcases Burns’s original art for the book, featuring exact reproductions of over 150 of his original pages, at their actual size. The premise lends itself to metaphorical interpretations as well as functioning as a perfect outlet to mine teen ennui and puberty-induced anxiety. Set in suburban Seattle during the mid-1970s, it’s the story of a strange plague that has descended upon the area’s teenagers, transmitted by sexual contact. Charles Burns’s graphic novel Black Hole is one of the medium’s most iconic works of the 21st century, a towering achievement by a master cartoonist, and perennial classic some 15 years after its initial release.

Charles burns studio edition