03/25/2019
This sharply observed satire stars a monstrous physical manifestation born of the evils of racism, gentrification, and cultural appropriation. When Darla, an unemployed African-American art school student, moves into a windowless former factory in the Bottomyards, a notoriously dangerous section of Chicago’s South Side, she begins to see and hear disquieting things. Her upper-class white pal, Cynthia, and Hadley, a fashion director, are initially afraid to visit (“That part of town is like a war-zone!”) but yet are attracted by the area’s “authenticity,” for which Darla calls Cynthia out: “You’re trying to use me and my scary black neighborhood to look cool.” Meanwhile, the terror lurking within Bottomyards’s secret passages has awakened, and an atmosphere of subtle menace builds into full-out chaos and body horror. Daniels (Upgrade Soul ) manages to locate the humanity in even his least sympathetic characters while peppering the narrative with well-honed jabs at art school jargon and the frequent racial biases of mass media (exemplified here by the local media framing the breaking story as Cynthia’s rather than Darla’s). Passmore (Your Black Friend ), a skilled visual stylist with a particularly fine, bright palette, ably renders the humor in the horror and the horror in the humor (the story’s title has a nasty double meaning). The book pokes fun at the zeitgeist with a sharp stick in a manner reminiscent of Jordan Peele’s film Get Out . (June)
"At turns funny, scary, and thought provoking, BTTM FDRS is a uniquely striking graphic novel that offers a vision of horror that is gross and gory in all the right ways."
"BTTM FDRS drags up our culture's biggest, ugliest globs of unconscious sewage and spreads it across a white page for us to see and acknowledge."
"Daniels and Passmore make horror feel vital again."
"I fell in love with this comic right about page one, and then just kept falling. The story is smart, the characters feel lively and real, and the art is moody and lovely. One hell of a winning recipe. Gentrification horror at its finest."
The Changeling - Victor LaValle
"BTTM FDRS is a horror comic, an amplification of new voices, a meditation on trends in urbanization, a Goonies -type adventure, a look at female and cross-racial friendship, a beautiful visual examination of lumpiness and more, all moderated by a skeptical sense of humor."
"Gentrification horror and sociopolitical satire play out with sharpness in this visually brilliant thriller set in a fictional Chicago South Side community."
"Passmore composes some very striking images, and a high-intensity color palette adds an extra pop to the linework."
"BTTM FDRS is a brilliant meteor of a graphic novel, and I’m pretty sure when it comes into your life, you won’t know what hit you. Vibrantly drawn and perfectly paced, this comic is as compelling to read as the story is necessary to hear. Simultaneously delivering visceral horror, cutting satire, and a nuanced interrogation of urban gentrification."
Eisner Award-Winner, Gaylord Phoenix - Edie Fake
"Brilliant, striking, unique, compelling, and just a damn good read, BTTM FDRS is a triumph."
San Francisco Book Review
"Passmore and Claytan Daniels teaming up is a dream combination."
"Daniels and Passmore have created a funny, creepy, acid-toned satire about the horrors of gentrification."
"Creepy and charming, BTTM FDRS mashes up oozy, sick horror and dark, politically barbed comedy. It does all this with a cast of distinctive characters, funny, stinging dialogue, and moments of queasiness built around a body horror conceit: that of a building that literally gets inside your guts. It’s one of a kind."
Eisner-winning comics scholar - Charles Hatfield
"The brightly hued, visually compelling panels provide an electrifying feel to each page."
"A coy, gruesome satire of gentrification."
"Daniels and Passmore bring their satirical acumen and sense of the macabre aspects of society to their first collaboration. The medium is the monster and the mastery of its use are utterly apparent in this powerful sequential manifesto."
NYT best-selling author and Eisner-winning scholar/artist - John Jennings
★ 11/01/2019
Escaping her upwardly mobile parents, Darla moves back to their old neighborhood in Chicago's Bottomyards to find bare-bones housing where she can grow her design business on the cheap. Paradoxically, the area's "authentic" ambiance has begun attracting the trendy-chic media and business interests. But her huge, windowless building hides a secret legacy from a biotech invention twisted by would-be exploiters. A savage Afrofuturistic horror comedy about gentrification, racial invisibility, and cultural appropriation in knock-your-eyes-out, "non-literal" coloring. (SLJ 6/14/19)
06/14/2019
Gr 9 Up -In this book by Daniels (Upgrade Soul) and Passmore (Your Black Friend), college graduate Darla returns to her childhood Chicago neighborhood in search of cheap rent but slowly discovers a horror lurking within her building's urban gentrification. Loaded with commentary about racial and socioeconomic appropriation, this slow burn escalates into a bizarrely horrifying conclusion. Daniels's bold palette indicates changing locations, but the cartoon art is sometimes imprecise and visually boring as an entire page is washed in the same color. There is some sexual content and swearing. VERDICT While some readers won't like the art style, overall this title would be a strong addition to a library's collection of horror graphic novels. Fans of tentacle or organic horror such as Swamp Thing and "The Neonomicon" will enjoy this read, as will those who love social commentary horror including Get Out.-Tammy Ivins, Univ. of North Carolina at Wilmington
