b.b. free #3
Duna Haller
Recap
B.B. and Chulita are going on a road trip for their freedom fifteens and launching their own B.Chula radio, but somehow trouble keeps interrupting them. Just as Chulita was telling her parents about the plan, they find out someone has been stealing swamp water for themselves, so obviously first they gotta stop them!
Review
As a writer of children’s lit myself, I struggle a lot with making my stories relevant and empowering, without being too pedantic. Since I started reading b.b. free, I’m amazed to see how Gabby Rivera (Juliet Takes a Breath, America) makes a fun, fantastical and easy-reading story be that powerful and accesible at the same time. Shape and content match perfectly here, and we get to see the struggles and joys of two 15 year old girls going on the run and fighting bigotry and unfairness, both in their lives and childhoods and in the world outside, from a post-ecological apocalypse perspective.
There is a defining moment in this issue that I’m sure will shape how we look at representation in comics for years. Chulita, a disabled black girl, beats the two guys who were stealing water and were also extremely mean and ableist towards her and her motorized dream machine (yeah, that amazing flying wheelchair, and she damn well beats them with it!). She is then revealed in that scene as a trans girl. We hear those words come from her mouth, not any other character, when and how she chooses it, and just after she told b.b. that she didn’t need help with the bullies. It’s incredibly powerful and it doesn’t feel forced or out of place or tone with the story. Like Rivera has done with her and her disability before, she’s given agency and strength. And her own narrative.
To add to it, Royal Dunlap’s (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) art always seems at the same time sci-fi cartoonish and truly emotional in the expressions of the characters. Their visual narrative, placed all over b.b. free, tells stories on panels with almost no dialogue. It got extremely emotional when b.b. went to sleep with Chulita in #2, and now we have both the powerful determination in Chulita’s face and dream machine movements when she beats the bullies, and the heartbreaking tears on b.’s face when she discovers that new unknown picture of her father. The images move emotionally with the story, and it really makes you feel in a single glance what the story is telling you (moreso, even the cover does that, with b.b. holding a flower in her hands as tease for the narrative to unfold). To round it up, Kieran Quigley’s (Steven Universe) colouring gives the characters and the spaces a cohesive and fantastical tone, dare I say an ecological one, as it seems to fit in with the nature around them.
Final Thoughts
b.b. free handles every issue more like a love & care letter to oppressed kids, like a story of finding your own strength and owning it. It gives us some of the most important moments in representation, and the art moves emotionally with the story. It's a captivating, fun and fantastical read that I feel is important we look up to, both readers and creators.
b.b. free #3: The Strength Of Owning Your Own Story
- Writing - 10/1010/10
- Storyline - 10/1010/10
- Art - 10/1010/10
- Color - 10/1010/10
- Cover Art - 10/1010/10
10/10
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