Enlarge / Youngsters and grown-ups alike will get pleasure from answering “sweet’s clarion name” in Bea Wolf. (credit score: Boulet/Macmillan)
A rowdy group of younger “mallow-munchers,” “bully-crushers,” and “bedtime breakers” should battle a fun-hating foe intent on placing an finish to their untamed revels in Bea Wolf, a brand new graphic novel by cartoonist and author Zach Weinersmith, with illustrations by the French cartoonist Boulet. It is a 21st-century re-imagining of the Outdated English epic poem Beowulf, however not like most prior translations aimed toward adults, this one targets children (though adults ought to like it, too).
Ars readers are doubtless already acquainted with Weinersmith’s work, most notably the webcomic Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, nonetheless going sturdy after 20 years, in addition to The New York Occasions bestseller Soonish, a well-liked science ebook co-authored along with his spouse, Kelly Weinersmith. Whereas he is recognized for his science-nerd credentials, Weinersmith (like me) earned his undergraduate diploma in English literature. That is the place he began drawing what’s now referred to as “Basic SMBC.” The comedian quickly morphed into the single-panel model we all know and love at this time, whereas Weinersmith went again to school to review physics.
It was whereas he was learning literature that Weinersmith fell in love with Beowulf, in addition to the medieval chivalric romance Sir Gawain and the Inexperienced Knight. When he grew to become a father, he advised a few of these timeless tales to his daughter, Ada. In 2015, he crowdfunded a kids’s retelling of Sir Gawain known as Augie and the Inexperienced Knight, and stated it was as a result of he wished to present his daughter a ebook “about little ladies who’re good, and scientific, and risk-taking.” Boulet created the illustrations for that ebook, so it was solely pure for Weinersmith to ask him to additionally illustrate Bea Wolf.
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