“Virtuosic . . . refreshing . . . Every element seems packed with meaning: When guns fire and bombs explode, they do so with a DAYUM, and when police helicopters fly overhead, they go 'whip whip.'”
—The New York Times
“A candid and incendiary look at how knowledge of the past shapes who we are in the present, highlighting why Passmore is one of the most exciting political cartoonists working today.”
—The A.V. Club
"Ben Passmore has entered a realm where personal creative brilliance intersects the historically profound, and in doing so he's created a masterpiece."
—David F. Walker, author of The Black Panther Party: A Graphic Novel History
“Black Arms To Hold You Up stays with you long after reading it. Ben Passmore's mastery of the comics medium is evident in every panel of this journey through Black history, struggle, and resistance—made all the more compelling by his personal lens. This book is necessary at this particular moment in history, and it powerfully makes the case for its relevance in any moment in history.”
—Marcus Kwame Anderson, illustrator of The Black Panther Party: A Graphic Novel History
“As much a call to action as it is an unflinching record of individuals who refused to surrender their dignity or their lives. . . . This is an essential work of uncompromisingly political graphic nonfiction that is provocative, funny, devastating, and rich with historical insight.”
—Library Journal (starred)
“Part primer, part deep dive, with a bit of memoir, I learned about lesser-known revolutionaries and revisited my most revered. Ben’s personal story—as a lost mixed-race kid imagining a Black father who might teach him who he is—hit home. Black Arms to Hold You Up is a thoughtful mix of the personal and political, humor and heartbreak—just like America itself.”
—James Spooner, author and illustrator of The High Desert and founder of AFROPUNK
“In the western cannon, the political cartoons that came before merely interpreted the world in various ways; it is clear that with Black Arms to Hold You Up, Ben intends to change it.”
—Ronald Wimberly, cartoonist
“[Passmore] offers a rollicking survey course in a history that has often been reduced to slogans or erased altogether.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred)
“Ben Passmore's loving, instructive, and abrasive book educates about Black resistance against racist state violence and Black compradors. . . . As we awkwardly hold ourselves together, we can lean into Passmore's call to arms—of various types—to scrutinize history and heal our communities.”
—Joy James, author of New Bones Abolition, Contextualizing Angela Davis, and In Pursuit of Revolutionary Love
"A mordant and highly original graphic novel that has readers reconsider Black resistance."
—Kirkus Reviews (starred)
