Funestes Amours

Charles Burns

Cornelius Editions (This is the French Edition of Unwholesome Love)

Have you ever wondered what stories might lie behind the fake comic book covers designed by Charles Burns? That's precisely what Funestes amours sets out to explore. Two years after the publication of Caprice, which featured some thirty fictional comic book covers, Charles Burns makes his grand return to the Kim collection with a new graphic novel conceived as a mirror to that first volume. In Funestes amours, the author of Dédales delivers three interwoven stories that could very well be the imagined tales behind his fake covers. Playing with the aesthetics of the 1950s, Burns crafts plots imbued with mystery, drama, and unbridled passion. Inspired by the chiaroscuro that leaves room for the unspoken, he weaves a captivating narrative, where recurring motifs intertwine from one story to the next. Manipulating characters, panels, and situations at will, the author constructs a new narrative each time, tinged with echoes of the previous one. Thus, Funestes amours stands out as a true exercise in style, as unsettling as it is captivating.