Sports is hell

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.)

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.