This is kind of a strange book. It sort of has a plot, but it's also sort of artsy or something where the plot is a little odd. The blurb about the book, which is quotes about "urban blight" and "gentrification" and "body horror" make it seem like the book will be about gentrification, but to me the theme was more about race.
The plot follows Donna, a recent art school grad and aspiring fashion designer. She's moving into an apartment in the BottomYards, a bad part of town, which she was originally from as a child (too small to remember). She's moving into a big apartment in an apartments building that has been mostly vacant for decades, which is under new management, and where the only former tenant is having to move out due to rising rent. Well, that's the opening pages. Beyond that, it gets kind of bizarre. Most negative reviews seem like they weren't into that, and wanted something more linear.
The comic starts with maintenance workers seeing something strange in the crawl space of the building. Then, the next pages are Donna moving in. Soon after Donna moves in strange things begin to happen. I'll call it "haunted", but it's not quite that. As the plot unfolds, it becomes clear it's more like an urban industrial thing - corporate exploitation, and science, and poverty, and organic life, all mixed up together and gone wrong. But, if you go in thinking that the building is haunted, then that kind of gives the vibe.
Much of the asides of the comic book are race relations. Donna is black and her friend, and would be roommate, Cynthia, is white. Cynthia sees the BottomYards as great for a brand. She recognizes a local musician moving into the building and makes it her goal to have sex with him, mostly for image. There are many little microagressions, and at the end, while Donna saves Cynthia from the haunted building, the news media ends up doing a story about Cynthia as the face-of-the-BottomYards (even though she isn't from there and never even managed to move in before things got so crazy with the haunted building). So many microagressions, over and over.
Illustrations are just a few garish colors per page, and style of drawing is maybe gloppy. It's a shame that there isn't any "Look Inside" on Amazon right now. If you scroll down and look at the product description area, there are a couple of frames from the comic, and those kind of give an idea of the style - especially high contrast and limited color palette. As far as telling a story, the pics are effective at that. It's easy to recognize a character from page to page, and distinctive features are played up so that reading the characters in the pics from frame to frame is effortless. Backgrounds are often highly detailed, with clutter or organic scary things (from the haunting).
If you like stand alone comics that are not part of a series, then this is probably worthwhile. Most negative reviews seem to want a more linear plot. Most positive reviews seem to really like the graphics. I am on the fence. I want a more linear plot, but also this book kept interesting, and had good character development, including for the building as a character. What sets it apart is... mood. And, really, the guessing and mystery is really common in stories about hauntings. I don't particularly like it, but it's unique and definitely a keeper for my comic collection, and I will probably compulsively reread it at some point.
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From the Publisher
Praise for BTTM FDRS:
“The brightly hued, visually compelling panels provide an electrifying feel to each page.”
—Chicago Reader
Praise for BTTM FDRS:
“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.”
—Victor LaValle, The Changeling
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Reviews with images
Nice and colorful. Liked it!
At first, the history was little hart to read, but after few pages I could understand a little and I just wanted to keep reading. Great drawings and colors, makes your eyes keep going and stay alert. Im not such a great reading person, that why most of my books has to have colors or a little of images to visualize. I will update my review when I finish my book :)
