Charles Burn's Ill Bred from Death Rattle #1 (oct, 1985)

Charles Burn's

ILL BRED

Charles Burns came on the comic scene in the early 80's. His work was so striking with it's retro 50's style. His work appears on the surface to be silly horror stories but often they address real world problems and fears. In this case Burns looks at young love and the way women can consume a young man's life. 

Though, on the surface, Ill Bred looks like a silly monster story with an alien creature enslaving a young man, underneath the silly exterior Burns explores the real fears of how women can sometimes consume a young man's life.

There is a cold perfection to Burns' art with a playful fantasy/horror side to it. Often his work looks like a tribute to the great horror stories of the 50's, artists like Jay Disbrow.

One gets a little confused feeling reading Ill Bred. The fun insect alien gives the comic a dark, whimsical feeling, but the slow consumption of the young man's life is a little too real for comfort. This is not a healthy relationship and if you took out the alien element of the story and just played it as a tragic romance, it would still be as scary or more so. 

So without further adue, he is Ill Bred by Charles Burns, as presented in Death Rattle #1, (Oct 1985).