Sweet Dreams - Charles Burns

Charles Burns has always been drawn to the sugary drama of mid-century romance comics. In Sweet Dreams, he collects fifty previously unpublished illustrations exploring a recurring motif: the image of a young woman lying in bed, emotionally shattered by love.

Burns does more than echo the 1950s aesthetic—he rewires it. Originally crafted for teenage girls (but mostly drawn by anonymous middle-aged men), these images now become surreal battlegrounds where desire and anxiety clash. The innocent heroine turns spectral, and dreams curdle into nightmares.

A dark, ironic, and visually haunting work that pays tribute to and subverts classic American iconography.