Hey, WAIT!
Listen to the lives of the long-ago kids, the world-fighters,
the parent-unminding kids, the improper, the politeness-proof,
the unbowed bully-crushers,
the bedtime-breakers, the raspberry-blowers,
fighters of fun-killers, fearing nothing, fated for fame.
All-ages graphic novel, written by Zach Weinersmith, creator of the "Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal" webcomic, and illustrated by French cartoonist Boulet. It was published in 2023 by First Second.
We all know of "Beowulf," don't we? Probably the oldest epic poem in Old English, about a millennium old, crafting the tale of mighty warrior Beowulf, battling the monster Grendel in Heorot, the mead-hall of Hrothgar, King of the Danes, and then destroying the monster's mother in her underground lair, and years later, falling in battle before a terrible dragon. Most of us read this, or parts of this, when we were in high school or college. Some of us forgot it when the term test was over -- but the tale of adventure, told in the unique and unforgettable style of the ancient bards, is difficult to forget entirely.
So what do we get when we transform this ancient gore-slathered literary epic into something suitable for children? Surprisingly, it turns out pretty good.
Much of Fitt 1 is focused on the kids of ancient legend and deep history, kids who took epic levels of Halloween treats, or who blotted out the sun with Nerf darts. And Carl, who turned a fortune of golden treasure into a fortune of candy and toys shared with all kids, and he was crowned King. But even such great kings pass, as they age into spotty teens, and so the cardboard crown passed from kid to kid to kid, each fabled and wise, until at last Roger was named King. And Roger ordered built a mighty treehouse, a vast kid-hall to be called Treeheart, great was its glory, stuffed with video games and sodas.
And as we begin Fitt 2, we meet the most dreadful foe to ever face off against childhood: Grindle, a middle-aged sourpuss with spindly legs, coke-bottle glasses, and a bushy mustache. His hatred of children and fun and noise was legendary, and he was possessed of the most terrifying power: with a touch of his liver-spotted hand, he could age the young into the old, depriving them of the joys of candy and toys and puppies and burping. And so, driven by his rage at youth and noise and fun, Grindle climbed into Treeheart and aged scores of candy-loving kids into boring grownups. And then -- he cleaned the treehouse. And he went home.
King Roger is grief-stricken, but he orders the kids in his domain to continue the joyous mayhem they are accustomed to. But Grindle returns and ages even more innocent, noisy kids! Horrified at the carnage and fearing to lose even more of his subjects, Roger orders the kids to stay away and dwells within the treehouse, wracked by sorrow and darkness. It is a time of great mourning among the kids.
But hope rises in the form of a five-year-old cousin of long-ago King Carl, a girl wearing an awesome teddy bear helm, with the strength of six-and-sixty kids, a warrior beyond compare -- the mighty Bea Wolf! But can even this powerful, heart-sticker-bedecked brawler stand before the middle-aged evil that is Grindle?
"Go home!" she said. "My hands guard this hall! For six and seven days, your storm shrouded our stars! Rains of sorrow, rivers of sadness, ruin without recess!
"Make no more clouds. I have drawn the rainbow here."
Now a few things to know about this: first and most obviously, this is a very loose adaptation of "Beowulf," but it still takes a lot of inspiration from the full epic poem, and if all you know of "Beowulf" is whatever chopped-up version you read in high school, you are not prepared for how long this is or how much it rambles. This is very true to the original, which is full of little side stories about other great heroes, other kings, and previous adventures of Beowulf.
So in this story, too, we get treated to a very meandering narrative, where someone will just randomly break in with "Hey, I gotta tell you this story about an amazing kid!" and you get several pages of a bunch of kids having to appease an angry farmer by re-capturing a herd of pigs using smuggled Brussels sprouts and lima beans, of Bea facing a bunch of teenagers at dodgeball and fighting off a horde of lake monsters, of multiple kids whose feats of childhood glory -- staying up late, eating all the ice cream, hiding out forever in the corn maze, building an airplane -- have made them legends throughout the suburbs.
Can you have a final battle between Bea Wolf and Grindle without resorting to blood and gore? Well, obviously you can, but I won't spoil the surprise of how they do it, except to say that it's excellently action-packed. There was a New York Times reviewer who was unhappy with this book because there were so few beheadings and dismemberments, which -- okay, New York Times, I guess y'all are working on a century-long record of being weird dumbasses, but most people don't want a comic book with children being torn apart by a monster. The way they do things here, with Grindle's ability to age the young into the old and Bea's method of defeating Grindle, are age-appropriate and wonderfully funny, so I think that's another point in this book's favor.
Boulet's beautiful black and white artwork is wonderfully fun and stuffed to the brim with glory. He depicts action and emotion with unbelievable skill and depth, and his characters are all varied and unique, which is an amazing accomplishment considering how stuffed full of characters this book is. You can spend many fun, productive hours enjoying all the details hidden on each page.
One of my favorite things about this book is Weinersmith's afterword, which is a kid-friendly analysis the history and language of "Beowulf" and how Weinersmith adapted the Old English of the poem into something that would read well in modern English, while still retaining the epic grandeur of the original text. In the original poem, there was lots of alliteration, which Weinersmith continued using for "Bea Wolf." And "Beowulf" had lots of simple riddles in descriptions, called kennings. The examples Weinersmith cites include a "whale-road" to refer to the sea, and a "storm of swords" for a battle. So in "Bea Wolf," we get "fuzz-beards" for teenagers, "starbreak" for nightfall, "neck-serpent" for a necktie, and "fear-winged feet" for fleeing in terror, as well as a good example of the book's clever alliteration. And of course, there's the Old English "Hwæt," the first word in "Beowulf," meaning essentially "Listen to me!" becomes "Hey, wait!" in "Bea Wolf."
But what of the rest of Bea Wolf's tale? What about the battle against Grindle's mother or the final battle against the dragon? Well, Weinersmith says that's a tale for another time -- and I hope we eventually get to see those sequels...
But greatest among girl and boy is the ungrounded geezer-brawler,
fight-master, smasher of sea-beasts, matchless monster-stomper
who topples sorrow-towers, who tore the tie from the time-stealer.
Bea Wolf, legend-kid, everlasting flashlight of fun-lovers!