Sports Is Hell

by Ben Passmore

Overview

Some wars are for religion and some are for political belief, but this one is for football.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781927668757
Publisher:	Koyama Press
Publication date:	02/05/2020
Pages:	60
Product dimensions:	8.30(w) x 10.80(h) x 0.20(d)

About the Author

BEN PASSMORE is a Philadelphia, PA based cartoonist and illustrator best known for his award-winning comic Your Black Friend (Silver Sprocket), which deftly tackles issues of racism, identity and alienation, and was adapted into a short animated film. His political cartooning appears in The Nib, and he is the cartoonist behind the post-apocalyptic series Daygloahole (Silver Sprocket). He partnered with Ezra Claytan Daniels (Upgrade Soul) to bring the body horrific BTTM FDRS (Fantagraphics).

Editorial Reviews

10/21/2019

Passmore (BTTM FDRS) delivers a sardonically funny, fearlessly over-the-top satire on racism and sports fanaticism, centered on the evening when pro-football team the Birds wins the Superbowl over the Big Whites, sparking racially-charged riots in the streets. Mixed up in the melee are Birds star-player Marshall Collins (clearly based on Colin Kaepernick), who has jeopardized his career by protesting police brutality; a pair of African-American anarchists eager to help white sports fans damage their own community; and a Black Lives Matter activist who espouses nonviolence. Passmore also mercilessly skewers a pair of well-meaning but clueless white liberal allies; when danger threatens, one of them declares, “What my partner is saying is that we can help minorities by listening and understanding their pain, and not thru risking our bodies.” Passmore similarly projects a withering view of mass media, which reports on the warring gangs in the streets as if they were sports teams. Though Passmore packs his panels with abundant visual detail, employing two colors—black and tan—with a cartoony, grotesque style, he keeps the action clear and the narrative humming, imbuing what might have been a grim, too-close-to-home tale with a keen sense of the ridiculous. Even at novella length, this mordantly funny send-up packs a wallop before the buzzer. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

★ 02/01/2020

The final moments of the Super Bowl are interrupted by a series of explosions all around the stadium, causing a massive blackout that leads to complete chaos in this riotous satire by Passmore (BTTM FDDRS). Fashionable anarchists Kewku and Tea view the rioting and looting as an opportunity to kickstart what they hope will be a real revolution. Meanwhile, a Black Lives Matter activist accompanied by a pair of hapless allies' searches for a wide receiver who famously put his career in jeopardy protesting police brutality, determined to convince him to accept the leadership of the movement. The cast is brought together as they seek refuge from riot police in an upscale grocery store, only to be targeted by heavily armed crypto-fascist football fans. As the situation worsens, the humor becomes more biting; sports broadcasters begin analyzing skirmishes between the hundreds of armed factions turning the city into a battleground, spoiled elites force their captured slaves to reenact the Super Bowl, and the hypocrisy behind nearly everyone's ideology is laid bare. VERDICT A lacerating, darkly hilarious howl against racism, sports fandom, and tribalism in general by an artist with a distinct and necessary vision.

Library Journal

"A dead-on parody of the good-and-evil, triumph-and-tragedy narratives fostered by organized sports." —Etelka Lehoczky, NPR

"Amid the story's chaos and the exhausting noise of politics today, Sports Is Hell provides an unexpected clarity on the complex schisms of modern American culture while serving up a ton of laughs." —Moe Abbas, Broken Frontier

"A raw political fable that uses a sports night riot to express disillusion with the calculated human sacrifices made in the interest of political gain." —Jamie Lovett, ComicBook.com

From the Publisher