Born in Washington D.C., raised in Seattle, and now a resident of Philadelphia, Charles Burns studied Fine Arts and explored disciplines such as painting, sculpture, and photography before discovering that his calling was to tell stories through comics. After some initial professional work in alternative circuits, in the eighties he earned recognition through his involvement with RAW, the historic avant-garde magazine directed by Françoise Mouly and Art Spiegelman. In 2005, he became famous with Black Hole (Pantheon Books, 2005), a dark fable about a group of teenagers who contract a sexually transmitted illness that causes physical and psychological mutations. The result of 10 years of dedication, it won the most prestigious awards for comics.   

His work, which explores the boundaries between intimacy and monstrosity, where terror, desire, and peculiarity blend together, has influenced generations of readers and crossed borders, expanding the boundaries of the genre. His notable recent publications include Final Cut (Pantheon, 2024), a trilogy that combines cinema and real life in a story about the relationship between the unconscious and its representation. Burns has also created illustrations for album covers, advertising campaigns, and magazines such as The New Yorker, Time and The Believer, and he has exhibited in prestigious galleries like Adam Baumgold (New York) and Martel (Paris).