Almost half a year has passed since the popular Bee and PuppyCat showed up on YouTube and took the internet by storm. I mentioned the series very, very briefly in one of my Web Crush posts, but the series hasn’t exactly gotten the love it deserves from this blog. A brief summary: a young 20-something, Bee, has recently been fired from her job and is looking for a new one. During the search, she comes across a cat which she then adopts and spoils with love. It turns out that this cat is an intergalactic warrior/babysitter and also may be a dog rather than a cat? It’s a mystery. But, the good thing is now that Bee has a job fighting space baddies next to her puppycat.
Actually, my synopsis does the series no justice. Why don’t you just watch it? The episode is only ten minutes and it’s totally worth it. Don’t worry, I’ll wait.
Despite my love for this quirky series, I didn’t exactly keep up with the Kickstarter, because if there’s anything I learned from the Homestuck Kickstarter it’s that I spend entirely too much money when there are bonuses on the line. However, recently I checked back and was pleased to find that creator Natasha Allegri surpassed her donation goal by more than $200,000! That means we get nine more hand-animated episodes of PuppyCat!
Those won’t come out for a long time, though—hand animation is laborious, no matter how talented the crew is. To tide the clamoring masses over, though, Allegri is also producing a comic series starring the titular space warriors. Produced through Boom! Studios (distributors of the Adventure Time comic and the future Steven Universe comic), Allegri had planned to release the comic without the influence of her Kickstarter. Even though animated episodes have a wider audience, Allegri wanted to make sure that even without the nine episodes she was able to “…tell as much of [PuppyCat’s] story as I can!” (x) Which, as a fan and as someone who writes stories of her own, I think is fantastic.
What’s even more fantastic is what this—PuppyCat and even Allegri herself— is bringing to the comic stage. Amongst an array of violent comics full of machismo, Allegri and her peers are setting up a niche in the comics world that focuses a bit more on silliness and the abstract than the world being in peril and superheroes. There’s nothing wrong with the latter, of course, but for an outsider looking in, series like Batman and The Avengers can seem intimidating to get into simply because of the expansive continuity (which Saika and Lady Geek Girl have discussed in their series “So You Want to Read Comic Books”). Smaller series like Adventure Time and PuppyCat allow the reader to get into something that perhaps doesn’t need as much background knowledge to enjoy right away. And while it’s silly at times, the series don’t shy away from some serious topics.
Me too, puppycat.
Furthermore, Bee and PuppyCat (and Adventure Time to some extent) bring another relatable female character to the comic pages. Much like the series that inspired PuppyCat, Sailor Moon, Bee is a bit of a spaz—which doesn’t magically change when she fights baddies—and she has to deal with the everyday burdens of life. Yet she faces them in a way that is somewhat understated and fits with the slightly jaded, apprehensive, sarcastic outlook that many 20-somethings have these days. As Sailor Moon was and continues to be a great role model for younger girls, Bee provides that same sort of comfort for us Generation X-ers. Or at least in my case, anyway.
Coming from Allegri, we already know that the art is going to be amazing. The few teasers that have been released prove this without a shadow of a doubt. If the comic manages to keep the same tone and humor as the short—which I’m pretty sure it will—I’m sure Bee and PuppyCat‘s following will be just as strong offline as it is online.
(Story via Comics Alliance)
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