PositiveFull StopMost striking about BTTM FDRS is the illustrator Ben Passmore’s use of flat coloring, with which he is able to create the drama and tension needed for horror. Constraining himself to just one or two colors (I want to say that the colors themselves are exciting and characteristically distinct), Passmore trains your eye toward objects and apertures ... a brilliant scheme for a horror book ... As the narrative tension builds, color, its reduction to pinpoint attention and explosion, scores the book emotionally ... As the narrative tension builds, color, its reduction to pinpoint attention and explosion, scores the book emotionally. At times, Passmore’s colors break out kinetically into three or four shades and we get the visual sense of an argument, of differentiation, of conflict or the mental chaos of coming face to face with something incomprehensibly monstrous. At other times we see a figure illuminated in a flashlight’s circle with only a dim sense of something out there beyond the light.
