Hi comics offers the continuation of the hunt of the Sangerye family against monsters that invade Harlem in the 30s. Historical comics, Bitter Root is nevertheless of a glaring relevance after the success of Black Panther and police violence. Hang on to your book because the action starts again.
Beware of hate
Harlem in the interwar period, a couple leaves a nightclub still intoxicated by jazz music after a night of partying. They choose to go through the park to return faster but the hooked legs of a gigantic being will not let them go far … However, it is later discovered that a group has been operating in secret for centuries to protect the black community, but these hunters find themselves confronted by a new type of monster that resists their weapons. This second volume of Bitter Root reveals the real threat behind these new demons. Elsewhere in the megalopolis, an Asian family defends Chinatown, another Irish in Boston and a last Indian. Each group corresponds to a minority of the time but also to the mafias. The cartoonist Sanford Greene renders these demons very well with expressive faces and exaggerated musculatures without ever falling into buffoonery. The drawing is close to the horror cartoon by the choice of caricatured faces. With Bitter Root, screenwriters David F. Walker, Chuck Brown and Sanford Greene compose a committed monster-hunting story. Indeed, these monsters, the jinoos, are white people corrupted by hatred who metamorphose. Whites bewitched by demons are a symbol of the racial hatred that infected the country then but also the racial hatred of today. However, there is no Manichaeism because grief mutates African-Americans. To amplify the problem, tensions exist over the solution to this problem because the radical Dr. Sylvester wants to kill whites to eliminate racism. Racism is not only external but also internal. Indeed, urban African-Americans despise the voodoo practices of the Sangerye. 
A family at your rescue
The monster killers come from the same family, the Sangerye. The grandmother is the keystone of the family but she is marked by the many bereavements she has known. Protector and traditionalist, she refuses to let her granddaughter Blink fight. The latter is confined to the kitchen to prepare Bitter Root, a healing serum. We also meet his cousin Berg, a mass of muscles who insists on finishing his tea before helping the neophyte cousin Cullen to lock up a monster. But this family is in crisis. Divided in the wake of the trauma, some are making different choices : Grandson Ford left the family to hunt down monsters across the country. The new threat on the streets of Harlem forces the family to reunite. In this volume, the reader goes back in time to the origin of the traumas: the red summer and slavery. Very short episodes from a Bitter Root Summer Special by the same writing duo detail previous allusions. These pages offer the opportunity to other cartoonists to seize this series: Chris Brunner makes beautiful pages on anger after a bereavement.
Horror and History
In these five episodes, the reader also receives a lesson in the black history of the United States. The main district of the book is a center of culture that will be named the Harlem Renaissance. Harlem in the 30s is the African-American ghetto of New York but especially the place of the artistic explosion of jazz and art. The action also takes place in Mississippi devoured by the Klu Klux Klan. Bitter Root also offers tributes to such a more recent culture: each cover copies the poster of a landmark film of African-American cinematography such as Do the Right Thing by Spike Lee. 
Hi Comics offers a remarkable critical apparatus in the many bonuses: a short biography of the authors and eleven short articles by academics to illuminate the references and the various facets of this story. Pages explain the particular work of the colorist. In addition, Hi comcis makes the effort to offer this second volume at the same price but with more pages. Bitter Root Family Business is the successful launch of a series on themes, characters and adventures. The success of this series is also proven by the adaptation into a film on Netflix by Ryan Coogler, director of Black Panther. So be the first to discover the origin of the film that everyone will be talking about soon. You can find links to the latest Hi comics releases like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Alienated.
