Punk out of time – review of the comic “The Black Holes”

Time is just a state of mind

At the age of teenagers, or at the beginning of college, you could fall asleep at any time and wake up at even weirder times. Sometimes after twelve hours of sleep, sometimes after four. You could bring art and literature from various eras to your room, watch old movies, listen to music from a completely different time. We loved punk, surrealism, Oscar Wilde and Lobo from the 90s. The reason wasn’t all-night parties at all. As mentioned in one review of The Black Holes on the Zona Negativa – at this age you live a bit out of time. In addition, the world of adolescence is usually collective, but not necessarily co-educational. From this starting point, non-chronological stories such as Paper Girls or the graphic novel by Borja González may arise .

González said in an interview with Zona Negativa that when creating comics he tries to make the reader as confused as the characters (“Intento que el lector se sienta tan perdido como los personajes”). Therefore, when you start The Black Holes, you will only know that it is 1856 and that everything is happening in the woods. In turn, in a moment it will be 2016 in the suburbs or in a small town. There is a meeting of two people who watch the stars together and exchange comments about them, without understanding each other at the same time.

Romanticism and what after it

1856 marks an era in which Mary Shelley and Ada Lovelace are recently gone. Both lived in times of great social changes, fought for their emancipation every day, created, and after their death … their achievements were long lost. Shelley is now recognized as the first science fiction writer, Lovelace, who developed the foundations of programming. None of them appear directly in González’s comic, but its 19th-century heroine would definitely like to follow in their footsteps, write strange poems, and not succumb to the demands of being pretty and kind. She is left with wandering in the woods and telling terrible fairy tales to her younger sister and avoiding the two older ones – mean, but very correct. 21st century girls basically still want the same thing. Play exaggerated punk whose era is over. Going for ice cream at night. Read Carl Sagan and gaze at the stars. The desire for freedom, that is to live according to one’s own needs and ideas, connects the protagonists for centuries.

Among his artistic inspirations, González mentions Moebius, Corben and Mignola, among others, although in his boards you will find mainly the latter. The drawing is based on a strong contour filled with a flat colored spot, it shows a minimum of details. The girls don’t even have faces, although you will recognize them without any problems… this is where the genius of the draftsman and the secrets of the craft are hidden. Perhaps it is about the sequence of characters in the frames, maybe about the way they move. The characters’ poses and gait are another visual element worth careful scrutiny – they are all graceful, girly, fluid. At the same time, González does not over-aestheticize them, sometimes they slouch, “hang” looking into space. The author has a great feel for fabrics and dresses, their arrangement reflects not only the characters’ walk, but also their emotions.

Nostalgeek in a black hole

The Black Holes is a small novel, actually a graphic novel. It’s about a short episode, a meeting in 1856 and 2016, a few rehearsals of a punk band and going to the beach, no big deal, all next door. You have to listen to the comic, the confusion promised by González will surely catch you at the beginning, but the ending will allow you to see the whole thing in a new light and appreciate the structure of this story. Pop culture freaks will appreciate posters and other goods stored in the secret cellar of Black Holes – girls love Body Snatchers from 1956, music on cassettes, video games … Add to that posters of punk stars and you will find yourself somewhere in the crazy 80s. All these goods are probably also in the author’s room, who in his childhood was indoctrinated by his mother with horror films, and by his father – with a Francophone comic and RPG.

Borja González is an interesting artist whose career is just beginning. His first widely known comic was La Reina Orquídea ( Królowa Orchidea, 2016), very similar to The Black Holes visually. From an early age, he published zines, then he switched to official self-publishing, setting up El Verano del Cohete with his friends (this is a reference to one of the stories that make up the Chronicles of Mars, in the Polish version entitled Summer Night). In turn, the comic reviewed here went to a big player – Random House. Non Stop Comics released it very elegant, the soft colors look great and the paint smells nice. Iwona Michałowska-Gabrych, who is responsible for the translation, gave the girls a fluent, spoken language that sounds very realistic, thanks to which the whole thing is easy to read, not just watch. This is a position for lovers of artistic or social comics , mumblecore cinema , nerds who remember fondly or cultivate teenage fascinations, and for readers with a slightly more poetic soul.