I keep wanting to say that I’ve found evidence that the modern graphic novel is not for me, but there’s clear evidence that it is, in the right format. Sci-fi or horror or allegorical fantasy, and I’m basically in there. Plus, of course, the superhero genre, which, y’know: tradition! But at the same time, I’ve read a few lately that seem to be just telling a regular modern fiction story (except with pictures) and I keep failing to wrap my head around them. Unlike Jimmy Corrigan, I can at least say that Black Hole wasn’t a complete slog. But at the same time, it feels like there are strands and aspects I failed to grasp despite my best efforts.

It’s the ’70s, and it’a high school. So everyone is focused on being popular or not, taking drugs, and having sex. The problem being, there’s this STD called simply “the Bug”. It has a 100% transmission rate, and if you get it your body changes somehow. It might be concealable, or it might be completely deforming, or maybe somewhere in between. And we follow the lives of a girl and a guy over the course of several months or a year as they interact with a) the diseased, b) the drugs and alcohol to prevent having to deal with any of it, and c) eventually, perhaps with the disease itself. And from time to time, d) with each other.

As a straight-up story, it’s pretty good. Bleak as all get out, but effectively told. High school interactions are completely magnified by the Bug issue, with outcasts being relegated to a tent city in the woods where nobody has to see them, rather than just one corner of the lunch room. There’s a bit of horror, both the stark version where one mistake can ruin your life (so, okay, that’s magnified high school stuff too, maybe, to an extent) and the more literary version where murder is unleashed into the diseased populace. But it’s the metaphorical layer I can’t get my head around. AIDS fits, albeit imperfectly. The fact that the story was begun in the ’80s despite a 2005 publication date on the collection makes it feel more timely, which helps. But why are some people able to go unnoticed while others are branded? Why isn’t it deadly in itself? Why does nobody outside of the high school population seem to be infected? It’s not about pregnancy, since guys are affected as easily as girls. It’s not about the act of having sex, because clean people have no problems at all, as long as they stay away from the diseased. Like I said, I just can’t nail it down. And it’s all the odder because outside of the disease part, a nearly identical story could have been told with the same plot. So it’s mostly there (I believe) solely to be a metaphor for something. And here I am, with just no idea what’s up. Lame!