Kirkus-Style Review

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Title: Bttm Fdrs
Authors: Ezra Claytan Daniels and Ben Passmore

An alternate reality Chicago creature feature with the social commentary of Us, this carnival-colored graphic novel finds symbiosis in a fresh, new genre: Gentrification Horror.

When Darla moves into her first apartment—an old animal testing lab cum industrial artist’s loft in the Bottomyards, she thinks she’s found a cheap place to live while she works on her clothing line. The Bottomyards are so far south Darla can’t trust the CTA, her scheming landlord Gene, the creepy ComEd guy who seems to be stalking her, or her best friend Cynthia, an oblivious white woman who is only interested in coming over to Darla’s place when she learns local ironic DJ Plymouth Rock lives in the building, too. On her first night in the building, she meets original tenant Katherine and her traumatized adult son Chucky, who laments the building’s rising rent as she packs for a move to the suburbs. “Everything is a pattern in history,” she tells Darla, “and it’s played out more times than we could ever count. No matter what you have, no matter how little it is, they’re gonna take it from you eventually.” The next day, after a failed attempt at selling her designs, Darla accuses Cynthia of pretending to live in her new neighborhood to look cool. She consoles herself with a night out at the neighborhood bar that brings her closer to Julio, aka Plymouth Rock. The romance is short-lived—the two return home to find that Cynthia is missing. Soon, Darla confirms her worst fears: there’s something in the walls…and it’s alive. Claytan Daniels and Passmore explore racial tension, authenticity, and body horror in this colorful twist on the classic haunted house story set against a backdrop of urban blight. With a wry sense of humor and plenty of bumps in the night, Bttm Fdrs posits a world in which the monster in your closet might belong there more than you do.

Pub Date: 2019
Page Count: 295
ISBN: 978-1-68396-206-9
Publisher: Fantagraphics Books Inc.

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