Bug Boys:

Bug Boys #1

by Laura Knetzger

Join two bug friends as they learn about the science of the world around them and the meaning of friendship in this early graphic novel series perfect for fans of Narwhal and Jelly!Rhino-B is a brash, but sweet guy. Stag-B is a calm and scholarly adventurer. Together these two young beetles make up the Bug Boys, best friends who spend their time exploring the world of Bug Village and beyond, as well as their own -- sometimes confusing and complicated -- thoughts and feelings. In their first adventure, the Bug Boys travel through spooky caves, work with a spider to found a library, save their town's popular honey supply from extinction, and even make friends with ferocious termites! Join these two best bug buddies as they go above and beyond for each other and the friends they meet in their adventures.  “Bug Boys has a wonderful blend of silliness, introspection, adventure and the right amount of weirdness. I loved how Rhino-B and Stag-B deal with the pressure of being true to each other and to the new friends they make on their journeys.” – Drew Brockington, author of CatStronauts 

Genres: Graphic Novels, Middle Grade, Comics, Childrens, Fantasy, Fiction, Juvenile

272 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 11, 2020

About the author

Laura Knetzger graduated from the School of Visual Arts in 2012. She has worked as a storyboard artist for Adventure Time. She lives in Seattle and makes comics about feelings.

Reviews

[ally]

if the beautiful mundanity of frog and toad met the silly whimsy of adventure time (but with the best friendship that is present in both) 🪲🐝🐛

[Spencer Orey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun and beautiful episodic stories about bug friends. The stories are sometimes profound, sometimes just funny. I cried twice. My kid laughed so hard at story time that we almost fell out of bed.

[Madison | ReadingWraynbow · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was so sweet, so cute, so warm, and so happy! Never thought as a 29-year-old I’d relate to lil bb stag and rhino beetles so much, but here we are and I’m not mad about it. Messages about friendship, feeling emotions fully, and mental health. Sweetest illustrations and immaculate color palette. Cant wait to buy this one!

[Christopher · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this aloud with my six year old son. The art is fantastic, charming, and at times weird. I thought it was going to be a story of a couple bugs on a treasure hunt, but it turned out to be a Ray Bradbury-esque portrait via vignettes of childhood summer. The titular bug boys get up to some mischief, they get into fights with each other and make up, they experience anxiety and what I'm pretty sure was a mushroom-induced drug trip that opened their minds up to arcane symbols hidden in the landscape around them.

This book was far deeper and stranger and more wonderful than anyone would expect it to be, and it was great.

[itselv]

I am in love. It helped me through difficult times, and for that, and for the lovely content, it sets on my favorite shelf, aka my heart. Oh how pure and thoughtful!

[Kristin · Rating 3 out of 5]

The art is consistently lovely but stories veer wildly from one-joke slice of life tales to meditations on war and existential dread. The underground story feels like it's from a different book and a drawn as a trippy, glowing metaphor for...something,

[Mari Johnston · Rating 3 out of 5]

This review and many others can also be found at Musings of a (Book) Girl.

At first glance, Bug Boys seems like nothing more than the adventures that two best friends find themselves going on – but it’s so much more. Laura Knetzger did an incredible job of capturing the fears and uncertainties that kids feel and having Stag-B and Rhino-B work through them.

The first thing I thought of when I saw Bug Boys was how much the art style reminded me of Adventure Time. After finishing the graphic novel and reading Knetzger’s bio, I discovered that she was a storyboard artist for the show! Her art brought a lot of that same life into the story and that’s something that helped make it special.

‘If you don’t care, then why are you crying?’
‘I’m not crying ’cause I’m sad! I’m just ALLERGIC! To these feelings.’

One thing I didn’t completely love was the writing. It often felt disjointed. I never considered putting the book down and not finishing it, and I would definitely consider reading future volumes, but it did bother me.

Overall, this is a very strong graphic novel for Random House Graphics to include in their debut list. It was hard not to fall in love with Stag-B and Rhino-B – the two really are the best of friends for all the right reasons. Kids will see themselves reflected in these two characters but so will adults. And it’s almost as if a little bit of Adventure Time continues to live on.

A physical ARC was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

[Peoria Public Library · Rating 4 out of 5]

Katy rated it 3 stars
Spencer rated it 4 stars

[Starr ❇✌❇ · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was really cute! It definitely reminded me of shows like Adventure Time and Summer Camp Island, and I feel like it would adapt well to that type of media as well. The stories themselves were fairly short didn't really build much of a full picture, but that's the way of things with younger media. I especially liked the cave story, and its odd parallel genstone-infused out of body experience thing, and I enjoyed the silliness allowing for complexity and the bittersweet in the bee story.

[Christy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many stories contained in one book, each a sweet lesson. Stories about relationships, the earth, and how termites are actual terrors to bees (it’s true! This book caused me to confirm). RHKG slays it once again.

[disco · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cute fact: “Bug Boys was made with pen and ink on Bristol board and Photoshop.”

[Ehryn]

I LOVED this book. It’s just full of cute, short adventures that show case different aspects of friendship. It’s something light to read and I’m already hunting for the next volume.

[Lynn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cute book about two young beetles who are best friends and like to meander around their garden. Kind of cute, made for younger kids and has simple reading. It just doesn’t mean anything b

[kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

cutest book i’ve ever read! the art to the content to the lessons!! bugs living in a mushroom!! being best friends!! reading!!! cleaning!! adventures!! beetles, bees, spiders, dragonflies, termites!!! learning to talk things out and appreciate life and take it slow!! i love this book and can’t wait to read the next. so much of this was also lowkey poetic and i love the way it’ll stay with me. i can see myself reading this again

2nd read - forever the cutest book. not only are the characters adorable, they live in the cutest world and learn some extremely important lessons. be willing to admit your mistakes. be open to adventure. stay true to yourself. apologize when you need to. don’t judge a person prematurely just because they’re different or you’ve heard scary things. don’t underestimate what you can do. accept the duality of the good and bad things within you. learn whenever you can. don’t give up. take it slow and accept the beauty around you. be there for your friends and loved ones.

this truly the type of book to read every year if you’re into super cutesy things with bugs nature friends and lessons

[Juli Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not going to lie, this a pretty weird little collection of graphic stories. The adventures are simple, the dialogue is awkward, and the characters are all bugs. But the sweet sensitivity of the protagonists and their idyllic insect town are truly charming and the illustrations (especially the color work!) are spot-on. There's also a subtly wry humor throughout that I enjoyed.

[Mortisha Cassavetes · Rating 5 out of 5]

I won an ARC of this book and want to thank the author and Random House for this amazing graphic novel. It will release in February of 2020. I really loved it. The story follows Rhino-B and Stag-B, two little bugs that are best friends. They go on lots of adventures and even get into a little mischief. They love to explore and find treasures in their Bug Village and where ever the treasure maps take them. I really loved the bright and colorful illustrations and highly recommend this cute graphic novel to everyone.

[Erica Ravenclaw · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The best book of my life”- my 5 yo kid

I’d say this is a pretty good read for story time with your kiddos. The art is charming and the stories will bring some chuckles. We are all looking forward to the next one!

[ripley ✨ · Rating 5 out of 5]

SO STINKIN CUTE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Penny Geard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Adorable! I love Rhino-B and Stag-B! 💕💕💕
The only thing that stopped this from getting 5 stars is that I wish the stories had a little more substance or more inter-connectivity. Still some hilarious jokes and wholesome lessons.
I especially enjoyed the drug (?) trip that they go on in one story 😄 which doesn’t sound kid-friendly but it is!

[Pia · Rating 5 out of 5]

very desperately want to live inside of a mushroom now and explore the bug library🥹

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Episodic adventures of two bugs, loved it

[Joshua Glasgow · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little while back, in hopes of elevating the level of bedtime story I was reading to my now 4-year-old son, I decided to read BUNNICULA to him a few chapters at a time over the course of several nights. It was still a little too wordy for his taste; although he was initially excited, there were just too few pictures for him to appreciate it. More recently, I checked out Zach Weinersmith’s graphic novel BEA WOLF, mostly for myself because it had been recommended to me by a former co-worker, but after getting about 75% of the way through I thought it would be a fun read to share with Odo and so I re-started it and read it aloud to him before bed. He was very much into it, as was I: it had a good balance of narrative and images and despite being found in the “juvenile fiction” area of the library it was intelligent and funny in a way that was equally—or possibly even more—satisfying for me as an adult as it was for him as a young’un. Having such positive feelings about that experience, I decided to continue seeking “juvenile” level graphic novels for the two of us to read and I gotta say I’ve been very satisfied with this decision. We’ve since read four such graphic novels and are onto a fifth currently. Odo has remained engaged with each of them and I have found each of them almost as good as anything written for an adult audience.

I mentioned this when I recently rated MYSTERY CLUB, the second in the ‘Mr. Wolf’s Class’ series, but historically I’ve not rated the books I read with Odesa on Goodreads. There were things about that book which I felt warranted discussion, though; I was surprised how much it impressed me, even though I ended up rating it 3 stars. I thought that book was an outlier, but then we read Laura Knetzger’s BUG BOYS and once again I felt the desire to rate and review the graphic novel. It’s so interesting and weird and deserves to be appreciated.

BUG BOYS is a series of vignettes about two boys who are bugs: Stag-B and Rhino-B. They get into various misadventures and meet other bugs and share strangely philosophical meditations on life. Take, for example, Stag-B’s musings on the walk back from a swim: “Maybe Bug Village is like its own world contained in Bug World… And our house is like a smaller world inside that… And your mind is the smallest denomination of world ’cause only you live in it.” To which Rhino-B, looking at a weed growing on the roadside, replies, “I think your mind is a world… and physical places are worlds. But the world of a mind isn’t small. It could be bigger than the whole ocean.” The characters are drawn in a colorful, goofy style and can go from serious to silly in an instant, or vice-versa. It didn’t occur to me consciously, but when I was discussing it with my wife she immediately compared the style of the book to Adventure Time, which is no lie one of my favorite television shows. I agreed with that assessment in the moment, and then when I went to read reviews of the book on Goodreads I saw several people making that connection. Then I saw somebody who said that Laura Knetzger actually was a storyboard artist on Adventure Time! Well, how about that!

The part that is perhaps most Adventure Time-y is also the part that I most want to talk about. It might be the climax of the book, in a way, so I don’t know, this might be spoilers. The boys, accompanied by their friends Dragonfly and Tula Tarantula, explore a cave. Rhino-B, for some reason, is feeling very low; Stag-B, for an equally inexplicable reason, is feeling totally tops. They both chase glowing streaks of light deeper into the cave, one pink and the other green, while they think parallel but opposite thoughts: Rhino-B thinks that the future is hopeless, he’s powerless, and everything is ending; Stag-B thinks the world is warm, life is bright, and everything is limitless. They then… merge… with the light, falling to their knees. Stag-B during this moment screams out: “I’m immortal! My heart is a nebula giving birth to stars! Life is forever!” Then, over the course of the next 16 pages, the two of them turn into bizarre monstrous versions of themselves glowing on a black background. Their eyes become crosses and diamonds, streaks of light shoot out of their bodies, Stag-B transforms into a weird centaur, they fire laser blasts at one another out of their mouths, and then they pull black and white diamonds out of their chests and melt out of their new forms back to themselves, ending on their knees hugging. “I feel like I’ve been crying for hours,” Stag-B says afterward. It is a super weird drug trip in which they, I guess, have some type of emotional breakthrough. I’m not saying that I liked this part of the book exactly, but it is so unusual that it makes quite an impression.

Throughout the book there are plenty of moments that are funny and cute. Continuing the Adventure Time comparison, the boys at times reminded me of BMO in their child-like joy. In one story they are waiting to get honey at a big Bug Village goods exchange. When they see a crowd gathering, they both yell “Let’s GO!”, cartwheeling down a hill with hearts in the air around them. Another story begins with the boys and other neighborhood bugs playing “Bug Ball” with a pillbug for the ball. In another, the boys go to the beach and sparkles surround them as they put on their sunglasses and lay out their beach towels. In the next panel, they’re lying down and around them in a fancy script it reads: “Maxing and Relaxing”. In one of the stories, Rhino-B and Stag-B have an argument and Stag-B leaves with tears in his eyes while insisting, “I’m not crying ’cause I’m sad! I’m just ALLERGIC!” Then in the next panel, he adds privately, “To these feelings.” It’s all very adorable.

However, the problem is the weird philosophizing mentioned above gets away from Knetzger. It’s funny, there’s a scene in the book I’m currently reading with Odesa (THE FIRST CAT IN SPACE ATE PIZZA by Mac Barnett) in which a character forced into travel suggests that the journey is the destination, which another character dismisses: “Just because something sounds profound doesn’t mean it is.” That is definitely the way I feel about a lot of the philosophizing in this book. After their cave adventure, Stag-B asks Rhino-B how he feels. He answers, “…very awake.” He goes on to say, “I think I can see what I felt as a whole now. It’s a part of me, so I can’t destroy it. I can feel the sun again. And you’re here with me. I’m thinking about the mushrooms in the cave. They don’t feel the sunlight. They never have. But they create their own light.” And then at the very end of the book, Rhino-B is stuck in a tree and sees… I don’t even know what. A twisted bit of rope nailed to the trunk, with a two sunburst circles above it. He climbs down and then the next page is a bowl of spaghetti and “The End”. Huh?

So, as with MYSTERY CLUB, I’m giving this 3 stars because I don’t think it fully works as well as I’d’ve like it to. But also as with MYSTERY CLUB, I’m writing this review to say that the 3-star rating does not mean that the book isn’t worth the read. It absolutely is, and I am interested in reading the next book in the series. It was very pleasurable and I think the instinct to go weird is a good one. I’m interested to see what further strangeness is in store for these Bs.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have fallen in love with these beetle BFFs! Rhino-B, Stag-B, and all of their friends had me smiling, laughing, and relating to their wit and emotions. I didn't want their adventures to end! Bug Boys would make a fantastic TV show-- the panels practically feel animated themselves. Readers of all ages are sure to become absorbed in these cheerful insect buddies.

[Peacegal · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this one way more than I was expecting to. Like ROBOT DREAMS and BAKE SALE, this is a junior comic that is much deeper and more emotional than it appears at first glance. Two bugs navigate life and learn lessons large and small about their own lives and the world around them.

[Catherine]

ok LOVED!! this was SUCH a cute graphic novel. I would sell my soul for stag-b and rhino-b & I can’t wait to read the next in the series

[frabamakaba · Rating 4 out of 5]

SMOL

[Jeremy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Frog and Toad if they dabbled in magic mushrooms. The stories within vary from cozy slice of life, to cute and funny, to full on existential panic. And yet ostensibly this is targeted towards early readers?

Some of the stories are strange and profound, like when the boys try to rescue a bug trapped in a child's terrarium, but the bug resists rescue because he has become so accustomed to the cage he is afraid of freedom. They tell him to think about it and they will come back for him some day.

In another the little dragonfly confesses sometimes, when he flies, he gets swallowed up by the sheer immensity of the sky and never wants to come home, but it's a dark impulse he always has to fight. Pretty weird.

I'm curious what actual children would make of these vignettes. Maybe, just maybe, this sense of being a tiny creature in an overwhelming world, may be relatable to kids. Another part of me thinks this book is a bit too weird and existential for kids.

I'm not sure I liked this to my usual 4 star extent, but I do want to reward creators who take risks, and make stories for kids that go deeper than the more commercial fare. 3.5 rounded up.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read her self-published Bug Boys and loved it and was excited (and surprised) to see a big Publisher get ahold of her. Bug Boys is a normal story about two beetles who are friends and the various adventures they go on until it's not, and then it's a bizarre psychedelic incomprehensible metaphysical commentary on all of that. And then it goes back to being about bugs and friends. It's definitely off the beaten track and I LOVe the fact the children's comics has become mainstream enough that a publisher like Random House will pick up something that's borderline niche like this. Unless they didn't really get it. EVEN BETTER, THEN.
(I gave the self-published version 5 stars because this was a little tamer with regard to the psychedelic stuff, but it's still amazing and wonderful)

[Terri · Rating 4 out of 5]

A stag beetle and a rhinoceros beetle are friends and roomies. They have several adventures. Other characters include a mail carrier dragonfly, a dome spider, a tarantula, some bees and termites. A few people create a bit of drama as well. There’s some philosophy tossed out there to think about. The bugs gather around a giant chrysalis and have ceremonies, sing , dance and sometimes pray. It’s suggested that prayer might just be something that makes the one praying feel better, or calmer.

I’d recommend to 3rd-6th grade.

[Sage · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bug Boys by Laura Knetzger
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐ or (6.43/10)

Characters - 7

Atmosphere - 7

Writing - 6

Plot - 6

Intrigue - 7

Logic - 6

Enjoyment - 6

So like, there were parts where I was confused and the ending messed me up :/ I don’t know how to feel about this book honestly. It was sweet and had some good points to it, so a decent book, but nothing extremely special. Maybe the second book will explain more things? I’ll decide later if reading book 2 is worth it.