Sweet Dreams

Charles Burns 

Cornelius

Charles Burns has never hidden his interest in old romantic comics and adolescent urges. In "Sweet dreams", the author of "Dédales" offers us a summary of his favorite themes through around fifty unpublished illustrations. This series of drawings is inspired by a recurring motif, omnipresent in romantic comics of the 1950s and 1960s, the image of a young woman in her bed, prey to the torments of love. Burns revisits this kitsch aesthetic by integrating it into his own universe. The dream then becomes the place of all passions. Previously sweet and idyllic, it now welcomes fears, anxieties and fantasies. A massive commercial success in the United States between the 1950s and 1970s, romance comics were produced and distributed in several million copies. Intended for young girls, they were generally written and drawn by middle-aged men, most of the time anonymous. In "Sweet dreams", Charles Burns plays, not without humor, with this male gaze that has shaped the collective imagination for a long time, to better question the representation of women in American comics. The sweetened image of the innocent young girl thus gives way to darker torments, giving back to the unconscious its surrealist letters. Between homage and diversion, this series of illustrations plunges us into disturbing dreams, which exercise all their power of fascination. PRE-ORDER: Pre-orders will be shipped the last week of October so that you receive the book when it is released in bookstores. PRE-ORDER: Pre-orders will be shipped at the end of October. • Charles Burns • Blaise Collection • 104 pages in black and red • 30 x 20 cm • Hardcover with cloth back