Bea Wolf

Bea Wolf is a 2023 middle-grade graphic novel adaptation of part of the Old English epic poem Beowulf, written by Zach Weinersmith and illustrated by Boulet. It began as a story Zach told to his daughter Ada Weinersmith on the commute to and from school. It was promoted through the comics Bea-wolf, Algo, Bea, and Bea-2, and referenced in Sympathy and Care-2. Zach considers it his magnum opus, saying in Bea-2: "Sorry about the ad but for God's sake it's the best thing I've ever written so please go buy it"

Synopsis

In a land of children known for their feats of fun, the tree house Treeheart is besieged by the middle-aged Mr. Grindle, whose touch can bring a fate worse than death: adolescence and adulthood. To face this foe comes a child warrior: Bea Wolf.

Plot

The book opens with a quote from Such, Such Were the Joys by George Orwell: > ...the child thinks of growing old as an almost obscene calamity, which for some mysterious reason will never happen to itself. All who have passed the age of thirty are joyless grotesques, endlessly fussing about things of no importance and staying alive without, so far as the child can see, having anything to live for. Only child life is real life.

fitt 1.

The book opens with a narrator who introduces a band of rowdy, fun-loving children. He describes several of them in turn, then their king Carl, who found buried treasure with a metal detector and used it to buy a hoard of toys for everyone to share, taking none for himself. Eventually, he grew into puberty, and he and his friends waded to a nearby island to burn a funeral pyre of toys in respect. He passed his crown on, and the royal line continued until the eleventh monarch, Roger, who used the kingdom's amassed fortunes to construct Treeheart, a treehouse paradise for his people. Treeheart faces threats from safety inspectors and envious teenagers, but the worst of all is Mr. Grindle.

fitt 9.

In the epilogue, the narrator tells of kids returning to Treeheart and celebrating, but warns of Grindle's mother, who has discovered the state of her son, and traps kids in crochet cocoons to hang in her house till they reach adolescence. But that is a story for another time.

Afterword

Zach gives an afterword about the original epic poem of Beowulf, how it was popularized by J.R.R. Tolkien's love for the story, and how Bea Wolf came to be. A few pages of character design and sketches are featured before the book concludes with acknowledgements.