Billie the Bee

by Mary Fleener

Overview

In an alternative cartoonist’s debut graphic novel, a bee and her friends must save their ecosystem!

In expressive black-and-white lines with forays into bold Cubism, Fleener tells the story of Billie the Bee, who is too big, too fast, and has far too much personality to simply collect pollen. So, the Queen Bee (with ulterior motives) sends Billie out to patrol the woodlands and marshes of San Diego for danger. She encounters a heron on hallucinogens, dirty joke-telling turtles, and humans illegally releasing vermin that will unbalance the entire ecosystem. Mixing coming-of-age graphic fiction with facts about bees and the environment, Fleener’s Billie the Bee is both a great reintroduction to a comics talent and ripped from the headlines.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781683961734
Publisher:	Fantagraphics Books
Publication date:	02/26/2019
Pages:	128
Product dimensions:	6.60(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	16 Years

About the Author

Mary Fleener lives in Encinitas, CA, with her husband.

Editorial Reviews

01/28/2019

Fleener (Slutburger), a cult autobio-comics pioneer from the 1980s Wimmin’s Comix scene, makes a striking departure from form in this goofy but layered fictional look at the natural world through the compound eyes of one very special honeybee. Billie, a worker bee of unusually large size, receives a unique assignment from the Queen: become her hive’s “ranger,” exploring the Californian eucalyptus grove where they live and befriending the local fauna. While Billie builds community with bawdy turtles, a rhythm-impaired rattlesnake, and an epicurean coyote, she also encounters foreign predators as human interference disrupts her environment’s delicate balance. While the plot, rendered in playful black-and-white line drawings, is a standard coming-of-age yarn that builds to a pat climax in which Billie must save her hive from natural disaster, the underlying moral explores how outsiders can traumatize native populations through negligent intrusion. This trauma is keenly felt through Fleener’s signature cubism, deployed sparingly in key scenes to add emotion and tension (though that same technique feels dated when used to spice up sporadic musical interludes). With some adult language and brutality yet an all-ages, semieducational tone, Billie’s story is a quirky, pleasant take on the talking-animal book. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

"Fleener's forays into cubism make for some of the coolest-looking comics around."

The Guardian

"Billie the Bee is a valuable introduction to two spheres of knowledge: the ways of the bee, and the agreeable style of a total comics legend."

Strong Words

"This enormously talented underground writer/artist returns to the drawing board for an environmentalist graphic novel about a bee beset by invaders."

Paste

"These cubist tableaus are the book’s real draw, hypnotically patterned and lovably trippy."

The Globe and Mail

"On its surface, Billie the Bee is an approachable coming-of-age tale. And beneath that is a cautionary tale of the dangers in upsetting natural balances through negligence."

Broken Frontier

"A welcome return for an alt-comix pioneer."

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