bea-wolf
Original: bea-wolf on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
DEAR READER,
Hey! I have a new book coming out and this is an ad for it.
It's a kids book done with Boulet, Earth's greatest cartoonist, who also illustrated nugs and the green knight. If you want to just buy the book you do, click on the comic to see our sales page. If you're not interested, click back twice for today's regular update.
- Z. Zach
[Panel: a man telling a story]
In Christmas of 2018, I was visiting with my wife's parents and had a weird idea for them.
Problems arose at once.
[Panel: a woman thinking]
I thought it'd be cool to make my daughter a little gift, but named after her.
[Panel] Yeah, but to do that, you'd have to find people-eating monsters with a lot of the story.
[Panel: a car driving] But, I just made the idea for a while, but it came back up when I started thinking about my daughter to pregnancy.
That one time, we did a story made each way to school. My daughter is very smart and very clever, but it was almost impossible to hold her attention with anything I did or thought.
Wanna talk about... books? Boring! Wanna talk about your day school? Boring! Wanna talk about your dad school? What's happening at school?
[Panel: a woman and a child in a car] But, then, one day, I started telling her this story as a joke.
Once there was a treehouse, and kids gathered there and it was the greatest treehouse in the world. They all wanted they wanted and ate whatever they wanted and stayed up all night.
UNTIL, GRRETH...
For months every day we got in the car and would ask me the same thing.
What happened next with Beawolf?!?
[Panel] So I would start, over telling it, developing the story.
Then, one Christmas, twelve years to the day I'd had the idea, I gave my wife a little gift. A handmade booklet with the words written down.
And the boy enjoys her about spinning his web of lies.
Then one christmas, I drew the original work. The more engaged she became.
And the story spread far and wide until, one day...
To my amazement, the more I used techniques from the original work, the more engaged she became.
And stars speckled the shoreless sea...
Make the shoreless sea.
It's a very old way to say 'sky'.
Waaaahh!!
[Panel] Every morning after retelling the story, I was excited enough to run to my laptop to write down anything that came out, scribbling words and to edit everything else.
And the story grew and grew until, one day...
My god, it's done. But, who's going to read a kid like this person about my culture?
[Panel] It was a strange position to be in. Normally, I write something and hope it's good. This time, I was sure I had something really special. But I wasn't sure I could convince a publisher. So I reached out to my friend Boulet, greatest cartoonist on Earth.
Wanna work on something really weird with me?
[Panel] To my eternal delight he not only understood what the idea was, but really liked it and started drawing all these incredible character designs and getting...
I mean, really incredible.
And, we got a publisher! One of the best american comic houses - First Second!
[Panel: a man holding the book] Were doing preorders now, and the book will be out in February.
Officially, Beawolf is for 8-12 year olds. Unofficially, little kids also really enjoy hearing it aloud and looking at the pictures, and a lot of adults have loved it too.
It's got lots of jokes designed to amuse kids and adults. It's also got a whole section of the book describing 'the original.' What it is, what I had hopping to it, how we made the manuscript and so on. So technically it's educational.
My hope is it's one of those books you can appreciate as a kid and then enjoy in a different way as a teen, as an adult, perhaps a parent.
Y'all, this is as good as a thing as I'm capable of making. However I'm biased. The bottom line is you don't have to trust me. Just look at these quotes from the best authors ever.
'Glorious, accurate, profoundly silly and hilariously profound.' - Neil Gaiman
As haunting, hilarious and perplexing as the ancient stories one hears around the campfire, castle or cubbyhole.' - Lemony Snicket
It's Niven and Bahl's mutant offspring, gorgeous and darkly witty.' - Mary Roach
[Panel: the book cover, BEAWOLF]
Out in late February! But preorders help us a lot with publicity.
- Zach
Votey: Handwritten cursive text reading "Thanks, ZACH".
Hey! I have a new book coming out and this is an ad for it.
It's a kids book done with Boulet, Earth's greatest cartoonist, who also illustrated nugs and the green knight. If you want to just buy the book you do, click on the comic to see our sales page. If you're not interested, click back twice for today's regular update.
- Z. Zach
[Panel: a man telling a story]
In Christmas of 2018, I was visiting with my wife's parents and had a weird idea for them.
Problems arose at once.
[Panel: a woman thinking]
I thought it'd be cool to make my daughter a little gift, but named after her.
[Panel] Yeah, but to do that, you'd have to find people-eating monsters with a lot of the story.
[Panel: a car driving] But, I just made the idea for a while, but it came back up when I started thinking about my daughter to pregnancy.
That one time, we did a story made each way to school. My daughter is very smart and very clever, but it was almost impossible to hold her attention with anything I did or thought.
Wanna talk about... books? Boring! Wanna talk about your day school? Boring! Wanna talk about your dad school? What's happening at school?
[Panel: a woman and a child in a car] But, then, one day, I started telling her this story as a joke.
Once there was a treehouse, and kids gathered there and it was the greatest treehouse in the world. They all wanted they wanted and ate whatever they wanted and stayed up all night.
UNTIL, GRRETH...
For months every day we got in the car and would ask me the same thing.
What happened next with Beawolf?!?
[Panel] So I would start, over telling it, developing the story.
Then, one Christmas, twelve years to the day I'd had the idea, I gave my wife a little gift. A handmade booklet with the words written down.
And the boy enjoys her about spinning his web of lies.
Then one christmas, I drew the original work. The more engaged she became.
And the story spread far and wide until, one day...
To my amazement, the more I used techniques from the original work, the more engaged she became.
And stars speckled the shoreless sea...
Make the shoreless sea.
It's a very old way to say 'sky'.
Waaaahh!!
[Panel] Every morning after retelling the story, I was excited enough to run to my laptop to write down anything that came out, scribbling words and to edit everything else.
And the story grew and grew until, one day...
My god, it's done. But, who's going to read a kid like this person about my culture?
[Panel] It was a strange position to be in. Normally, I write something and hope it's good. This time, I was sure I had something really special. But I wasn't sure I could convince a publisher. So I reached out to my friend Boulet, greatest cartoonist on Earth.
Wanna work on something really weird with me?
[Panel] To my eternal delight he not only understood what the idea was, but really liked it and started drawing all these incredible character designs and getting...
I mean, really incredible.
And, we got a publisher! One of the best american comic houses - First Second!
[Panel: a man holding the book] Were doing preorders now, and the book will be out in February.
Officially, Beawolf is for 8-12 year olds. Unofficially, little kids also really enjoy hearing it aloud and looking at the pictures, and a lot of adults have loved it too.
It's got lots of jokes designed to amuse kids and adults. It's also got a whole section of the book describing 'the original.' What it is, what I had hopping to it, how we made the manuscript and so on. So technically it's educational.
My hope is it's one of those books you can appreciate as a kid and then enjoy in a different way as a teen, as an adult, perhaps a parent.
Y'all, this is as good as a thing as I'm capable of making. However I'm biased. The bottom line is you don't have to trust me. Just look at these quotes from the best authors ever.
'Glorious, accurate, profoundly silly and hilariously profound.' - Neil Gaiman
As haunting, hilarious and perplexing as the ancient stories one hears around the campfire, castle or cubbyhole.' - Lemony Snicket
It's Niven and Bahl's mutant offspring, gorgeous and darkly witty.' - Mary Roach
[Panel: the book cover, BEAWOLF]
Out in late February! But preorders help us a lot with publicity.
- Zach
Votey: Handwritten cursive text reading "Thanks, ZACH".
Alt text
A guest advertisement comic by Zach (with illustrator Boulet) for his upcoming kids' book BEAWOLF. The strip is a long vertical sequence of small panels in which a man tells the story of how the book came to be. An opening note explains this is an ad: clicking the comic goes to the sales page, clicking back twice returns to the regular update. The story panels show the author getting a weird idea while visiting his wife's parents at Christmas, wanting to make a gift for his daughter, and beginning to tell her an ongoing oral story on the daily drive to school to hold her attention. The tale features a treehouse where kids stay up all night and eat what they want, a 'shoreless sea' (an old way to say 'sky'), and a monster named Beawolf. The daughter keeps asking 'What happened next with Beawolf?!?', so he develops the story over years, eventually writing it down and giving his wife a handmade booklet. He reaches out to cartoonist Boulet, who draws incredible character designs, and they land publisher First Second. Panels show the man holding and reading the finished book, dark swirling monster-and-cosmos illustrations representing the book's art, and praise quotes from Neil Gaiman, Lemony Snicket, and Mary Roach. The final panel shows the book cover reading BEAWOLF, with the note that it's out in late February and preorders help with publicity, signed Zach. Votey: a small framed panel with handwritten cursive text reading 'Thanks,' and below it 'ZACH'.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.