Review: Bee Vixens from Mars Issue 1

by Travelling Man

Script and letters by Alex De Campi

Art by Chris Peterson

Colours by Nolan Woodard

Cover art by Francesco Francavilla

Alternate Cover Art by Coop

Inside Cover Art by Marc Laming

Published by Dark Horse

£2.85

It’s always good to see popular culture behaving badly. The return of Grindhouse as both a style and an idea, pioneered by Tarantino and Rodriguez with Deathproof and Planet Terror has led to all sorts of bloody fun and games. The Machete movies (Apparently to feature a third instalment with the working title Machete Kills In Space), Hobo with a Shotgun and even, arguably, the blood-drenched pantomime of the Evil Dead remake all mark a return to that style. It’s pop culture from a time where everyone was horny, almost everyone died and nothing was small, subtle or understated.

Bee Vixens from Mars! Fits right in.

Something awful is happening in a beehive on the outskirts of a small Texan town. The first hint is that local women Arlene and Betty can’t stop eating it. The second is when Arlene’s husband, Deputy Jimmy, is called to a crime scene on the edge of town involving a dead body that’s been mutilated in a very specific way. As sex and death wind their way round the town, Jimmy and Garcia, his one-eyed bike cop colleague discover the truth; the beehive is cursed.

This is joyous stuff for anyone, like me, who never met a B-movie they didn’t like. De Campi has a fantastic ear for dialogue and Jimmy and Garcia in particular have some spiky, sparky dialogue. What really stands out though is her control of tone. This is a book drenched in the oppressive heat of midsummer from the first page and De Campi, Woodard and Peterson all work in rock solid formation to portray that. Look at the first panel of Garcia; backlit by the moon, bike to the side, car to the other, church in the distance. The sense of time and place is tangible, and that sense is carried through to the gleefully horrific murders. This is a book set in midsummer but not trapped there. By the end of the issue the book has punched the accelerator, the dirty Texan guitar has fired up and all hell has been let loose.

Bee Vixens from Mars! is dirty, frantic, nasty fun from the first page to the last. It’s got exactly the energy a Grindhouse title needs, a kick-ass heroine, evil bees and sex and violence galore. Rounded out by an essay from De Campi on her defining cinematic moments and some beautiful ‘movie posters’ previewing what’s to come, this is a comic with a swagger and a gloriously bad attitude. Get it before it gets you.