Charles Burns has never hidden his interest in old, romantic comics and adolescent impulses.

In Sweet Dreams, the author of Dédales offers us a distillation of his favorite themes through some fifty previously unpublished illustrations.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. Dreams then become the place of all passions. Previously sweet and idyllic, they now welcome fears, anxieties, and fantasies.

A massive commercial success in the United States between the 1950s and 1970s, romance comics were produced and distributed in the millions. Aimed at 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 the male gaze that has long shaped the collective imagination, to better question the representation of women in American comics. The sweetened image of the innocent young girl thus gives way to darker torments, restoring the unconscious to its surrealist meaning.

Between homage and diversion, this series of illustrations plunges us into disturbing dreams, which exert their full power of fascination.

Author/Artist: Charles Burns
Publisher: Cornelius Publishing 
Page Count: 104pp
Size: 11.75 x 8
Notes: hardcover, b/w, French edition
Date of Publication: November 7, 2024
ISBN: 978-23608122331