Really enjoyed this one! I should have read it so much sooner! But I don’t regret it. This maybe a new obsession! I love the characters, plot, etc.

Review: "The Wolf Queen: The Rebellion of Petigré" by Denis Lapière & Émilie Alibert, art by Adrián

Rating: 4 out of 5

"The Wolf Queen: The Rebellion of Petigré" is a visually stunning and thought-provoking graphic novel that transports readers to a fantastical world where the boundaries of gender, identity, and societal norms are intriguingly blurred. In a realm where summer and winter alternate with the swiftness of night and day, and giant insects have replaced most other lifeforms, the story unfolds with a rich tapestry of adventure and mystery.

The narrative centers on Petrigré, Rum, Angus, and JJJ—heroes on a quest for love, identity, and freedom, all while searching for a hidden treasure in the icy mountains. This journey is not just a physical quest but also an exploration of the profound questions of what constitutes power, identity, and the essence of humanity. The characters are compelling, each struggling with their dreams and desires in a world teetering on the brink of war, their paths intertwining in unexpected ways.

Lapière and Alibert’s script is both engaging and layered, weaving a story that is as much about the internal battles of their characters as it is about the external conflicts with the other tribes. The concept of wolves switching genders with each moon and the matriarchal rule of egg-laying women adds a unique twist to the fantasy genre, challenging traditional narratives and offering a fresh perspective on gender and power dynamics.

Adrián’s artwork is a highlight of the novel, with its striking visuals that bring the bizarre and beautiful world of the Wolf Queen to life. The illustrations are detailed and expressive, perfectly complementing the story’s mood and tone. The use of color and form enhances the fantastical elements, making the world feel both vivid and immersive.

The quest for the treasure—whether it be gold, silver, or an unstoppable weapon of destruction—serves as a compelling backbone to the plot, driving the characters forward and creating a sense of urgency and tension. As the story unfolds, the consequences of their actions begin to ripple through the tribes, setting the stage for a dramatic and thought-provoking conclusion.

Overall, "The Wolf Queen: The Rebellion of Petigré" is a must-read for fans of fantasy graphic novels who appreciate complex characters, imaginative world-building, and narratives that challenge conventional ideas. It is a captivating blend of adventure, philosophy, and stunning art that will leave readers eagerly anticipating the next installment.

I really enjoyed this graphic novel, very unique and interesting. Very much Game of Thrones vibes. I loved it! Highly recommended!

Loved it! So interesting! Kept my eyes glued to it wanting to finish it! Would like to read more in the series if possible.

I really enjoyed this unique and interesting graphic novel, the lead and the zombie drawings gave me a Game of Thrones vibe. I loved it! It’s definitely going to be an interesting series. Highly recommended!

This is the start of a new series, which kind of thrusts you into the world with no explanation.

There are humans, there are wolf-people, they maintain a peace between them. The humans are born from eggs, and are led by an empress, the wolves are ruled by a king and he has only one heir. Oh, also, the wolves switch between male and female anatomy until their 18th birthday, at which point they eat a human egg, and depending on if that egg is a male or female egg, determines what the wolf's sex remains. The wolf king's daughter, is willing to rule, but does not want to rule as a man, she wants to stay as a girl. When she finds out her father is going to lock her up and then force her to eat a human male egg, she escapes. There's a lot that goes on, but this is just me trying to understand the world that's been created.

Oh also, also, the humans have a special swamp, and if you're caught stealing an egg, or other various issues, you are hung and then thrown into the swamp, where you become a slack-jawed, undead, immortal being. Who does free labor.

The artwork was gorgeous though, I loved the bright colors throughout. The story is interesting, but there's not much that really happens in the first volume. The Tometetu was really cute. Petigre and her boyfriend do not have a healthy relationship, and I'm sure that will crumble soon. Though this could be geared towards YA readers, so maybe they'll find a way to live happily ever after.

Humans lay eggs and young wolf-people change genders every full moon in this slim initial volume packed with unique world-building but not much story.

I have to hand it to The Wolf Queen: it has some interesting concepts that I’d be curious to see explored in more depth. The problem is that the world-building here consists largely of throwing out wild concepts without much explanation and then not demonstrating why those oftentimes bizarre elements are crucial to the characters.

The story opens on a teenage boy named Angus being put to death for the crime of selling human eggs… because humans lay eggs in this universe for some reason. Also, that death sentence isn’t quite what it seems; he’s dropped into a strange mist that turns him into a white-skinned zombie-like creature called an immortui and doomed to wander the earth.

Next we’re introduced to rebellious young Petigre, heir to the throne of the wolf people. Every full moon, Petigre switches genders, but she wants to live as a girl despite her father’s wishes. See, it turns out that the wolf people use human eggs to fix their gender one way or the other. The logistics of this biological process are never explained, so the mind can only reel.

Petigre fights with her father and bristles at his insistence that she must be a boy to rule their kingdom. When she learns that her father has decided to lock her up for the next two full moons so that she can be fixed as a boy, she decides it’s time to run away. Her human boyfriend, Rum – raised by the wolf people as one of their own – comes along for the ride and they strike out into the snows of winter.

However, before Rum and Petigre get too far into the wilderness, Rum suggests that they catch an immortui to serve as their pack-mule; the mindless creatures will take any order. This is when Angus comes back into the story, existing in some kind of half-life as an immortui in the sixteen years since the opening scene.

While all of this is happening, elements of the wolves try to instigate war, and the human queen must do everything she can to stop them from taking more than they already receive.

And then after all of that setup, the volume just ends! This first volume felt like a chunk of a much larger story that did not stand on its own. It’s possible that if I could have kept reading, I might have enjoyed the story more, but it was difficult to get invested in a book that seemed more in love with the weirdness of its ideas than good storytelling.

As for the art, it’s colorful and expressive, bringing a light, playful tone to a story that is ultimately about war and succession.

I really enjoyed this unique and interesting graphic novel, the lead and the zombie drawings gave me a game of thrones vibe , I loved it, this first volume introduces the set up and the main characters , it might be a bit confusing to some, but the set up is needed and I think it’ll make more sense to people in future books. I liked the manga influenced art style and I loved the focus on gender, the matriarchal and patriarchal societies, it’s definitely going to be an interesting series. I read a review calling this woke feminism, I don’t think looking to the future, being open and discussing change, society, equality and treating people with respect is ‘woke’ (the feminism I won’t even comment on in case it threatens their fragility coming from a feminist) I think it’s called evolution and we’ve been doing it for thousands of years or we’d still be over a bunch of sticks wondering why we’re cold. But if you do love original fantasy, clever discussions of gender and identity, you will love this. Highly recommended

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion

Hmmm... Tweenage fantasy that just about manages to get over its woke politics and deliver something of interest – and then stops, as it's clearly just an introductory volume. Somehow, the wolf community need human eggs at a key time in their life, for with every new moon they turn – in that they undergo a gender change, and the gender of the human egg somehow fixes it once and for all as a coming-of-age kind of ceremony. However, the women humans are reluctantly involved in this fandango, sacrificing two eggs per month, and dumping any males who sell the eggs into the Bog of Making Immortal Zombies, to be blunt about its name. The wolf princess refuses to be a male heir to her father, and so snatches away with her boyfriend, who seems to be a cross between the two species, and by default is of course bisexual, and while her brother is trying a military coup of sorts, she finds a treasure map and waltzes off through the mountains to follow it.

So, yeah. Feminism, gender-bending-woke-feminism, bisexuality – it's either going to be that kind of stuff that clouds your appreciation of what is here, or it's going to be the very mediocre, manga-styled art. Either way you have to get over the fact the better beats of the story are also hidden behind yawnsome done-before-and-better elements (such as the donor of the treasure map). What the heck the whole treasure side of things will bring I have no idea, but this ungainly hodge-podge of ideas wouldn't inspire me to find out. The art certainly will need to improve no end to make the military machinations, with all their double- and treble-crossing, easy enough to follow. Perhaps two and a half stars for the potential it flirts with, but it's not for me.

Sentient wolves shift their gender every full moon without the help of a human egg, laid by the women in the human empire. There is a treaty in place that every full moon, the wolves are given 5 eggs to keep the peace, much to the anger and sadness of the human empress, who has not appeared to age in decades. The egg trade is banned and anyone caught smuggling eggs is sentenced to be plunged into the mud of the Immortal Marsh and wander aimlessly for eternity, a zombie of sorts.

Unlike the matriarchal humans, the wolves are always led by a King. However, the princess hates shifting into male form and runs away with her boyfriend before her father can force her to use a human egg and be a man forever. Along the way, they obtain an unusually sentient zombie from the Immortal Marsh to help carry their things. The long held treaty is hated on both sides, and despite the King's attempt to protect it, war is on the horizon.

This novel introduces the storyline and the main players, and set them up for a more advanced storyline in the future. I do wish there was more of it in this book, but it was a good introduction. The worldbuilding is unique and the characterization is distinct. I am interested to see where they take it.

I would recommend this book for people who like short reads, genderbending wolf people, and lovely art.
Thank you to Netgalley for this title in exchange for an honest review.

I am thoroughly entranced and swimming in the world building. Here human women lay eggs, and the wolves change gender every moon cycle until on their 18th birthday. They set their gender with an egg from the humans. Intrigued yet? The Child of the wolf king wants to set as a girl, but her father needs her to set as a boy to take over ruling the kingdom. She set off with her boyfriend, a human, to make her own life, or to at least wait out her 18th birthday and make the choice for herself. Meanwhile in the land of humans, egg laying goes on, but if you do something against one of their laws, they kill you, then bring you back as a type of zombie called Immortui. They make great pack beasts, but die if they get to far from the swamp. This book was way too short. It just wet my whistle of a grand adventure. For some reason it gives me vibes of Jim Hensen with Dark Crystal and Labyrinth, but that could just be the enormous bugs everyone rides. I want more of this story, and I really want this turned into a cartoon that I can watch. It could be the Last Unicorn of this generation.

Love the art style of The Wolf Queen-- it reminded me of the White Walkers from Game of Thrones. What I found dissapointing was the storyline. I found it quite confusing and hard to follow the characters' backgrounds as well as the storylines.

You have the Wolves who change gender every full moon but require human eggs (yes, human have eggs in this world) to permanently settle their gender. To keep the peace, the humans (a matriarchal society) sacrifice two eggs a month to the wolves so as to avoid war.

The current heir to the wolf throne, Petigre, wishes to settle as a female but the Wolves have never had a female leader before so her father forbids it.

After discovering that her father is planning to lock her up until her 18th birthday and force her to turn male Petigre and Rum run away.

In this world, there are also creatures called Immortui who are immortal humans who have been killed but buried in what I assume is a magic swamp, which basically turns them into zombie like beings. It is used as a punishment for crime.

There is magic and intrigue and politics and I can see a lot of potential with this story, characters and world building.

CW: death

Giant insects have replaced most other life forms except for wolves, women (who are in charge of egg laying) ruling over men. Wolves are civilized and can switch genders when there is a full moon. Petrigre has two more full moons before she will change into a boy of which her father approves. Her father wants “her/him” to rule after he has passed. He tells her that she can’t rule if she is a female. She runs off to her boyfriend Rum. On the way, they meet a half-wizard riding on the back of a caterpillar. They decide to travel to find a special treasure hidden in the Icy mountains. First though, they will go to get a zombie to help them on their journey. The zombie saves Petrigre without being order to do so. How? Why? They don’t know what the treasure is. It could be anything. A tenuous truce between the two major tribes are about to fail. Will they go to war? Will Petrigre and rum find the treasure?

This fantasy novel is written to explore concepts of gender, trans rights and power structures in a unique and surprising way. It is written well by the two authors and the art is perfectly done for the story. I didn’t want this to end as I want to know what will happen. I loved this graphic novel — it was fascinating. It’s a different fantasy novel. I highly encourage you to read it if you are a fantasy reader!

Most fantasy stories seem to pigeon-hole themselves into the same mold as things like J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings almost to the letter. It can become pretty dull when you have thousands of the same medieval-ish story about elves and dwarves fighting dragons and the like. Every once in a while, something comes along and goes completely nuts with the world building in a fantasy setting, and today’s top is one such case. The Wolf Queen – Book 1 The Rebellion of Petigré by Denis Lapière, Émilie Alibert, and art by Adrián, is a new series published by Europe Comics that uses a fantasy setting to explore concepts of gender, gender-relations, trans rights, and power structures in a way that was fairly surprising.

“In a distant time when summer and winter alternate as quickly as night and day, giant insects have replaced most other lifeforms. Wolves have become civilized and switch their gender at every moon. Egg-laying women rule over men. And the half-wizard Tometeu tribe ride around on small caterpillars and beetles. Amongst this throng are Petrigré, Rum, Angus, and JJJ: heroes in search of love, identity, dreams, freedom, and also a treasure hidden in the heart of the icy mountains…Will they find it? What will be? Gold and silver? Supreme power? An unstoppable weapon of destruction? And what consequences will it have for all the tribes teetering on the brink of war?”

In this world we not only see a strange power structure wherein one tribe are some sort of matriarchical egg-laying humans, we see another that are werewolves that swap gender on full moons. A tenuous truce exists between these two “tribes”, and that seems to be slowly teetering towards full collapse. All power structures are deeply based in some way on gender, and neither tribe is exactly doing a great job on being accommodating to anyone “outside the norm” in any way.

The humans are so matriarchical, that they are borderline misandrist, routinely executing young men for no logical reason, whereas the wolves seem to have a need for stolen human eggs to magically force a gender assignment that may not be wanted by the person. For example, the heroine of the story is a Princess that wants to stay female, but only men can rule – as such her father has ruled that she WILL be male by the time she is eighteen – the time when it basically locks in place. There’s also this whole thing about executed criminals becoming “mindless zombies” that isn’t fully explored in book one, but it seems interesting.

I can see what this story is trying to do, but the execution is not perfect – this story is somehow very vague and somewhat ham-fisted in it’s messaging at the same time. With this being book one, perhaps the narrative balances itself out a tad as the story goes. As it stands, you are somewhat dropped into the middle of a lot of fantastical concepts and an obvious social commentary without much foreshadowing of the author’s intent moving forward. Is this pro LGBTQ and Trans or not? I can make assumptions, but I am not sure. This truly would have likely been better as an omnibus than broken down. Assuming the story doesn’t veer to the opposite direction that I assume it will, it portrays a positive relationship between a non-standard pairing of inter-racial and non-binary people that was interesting for a book like this. The role of one of the characters, one of the aforementioned zombie people seems a bit problematic at the beginning, but we shall see.

Overall, I liked this, but it is hard to completely have an opinion due to how quick this portion of the book goes and how little the plot moves forward in the grand scheme of things. The art is gorgeous and it has some cool concepts so far, so it is promising. I will keep my eyes peeled for the next chapter to see how everything moves along. Assuming the messaging comes together

I found the premise of The Wolf Queen to be interesting. I think it could allow for some fascinating explorations of Gender and different power dynamics in a society where Werewolves change Gender every full moon and human women lay eggs instead of birthing babies, and for some reason, those eggs are what is required for werewolves to settle into either a man or a woman.

But all of the weird, interesting stuff going on in the background ends up falling to the wayside in reality for what ends up being a very monotonous plot.

The choice to make the Immortui that the Petrigré and co collect to be a Black Boy feels icky in so many ways. Especially as we watch Petrigré use him as apparently, Immortui exists purely to serve and must obey orders.

Overall I felt very meh about most of this and likely won't seek out the rest of this series.

Two societies on the brink of war - the humans and the wolves. The human society is women-dominated and are forced to give the wolves 2 human eggs on each full moon to maintain a peace treaty. The wolves need these eggs because they change sex every full moon and use the human eggs to choose their sex and stay that way for the rest of their life.

I LOVED this graphic novel, the art style was SO GOOD, it had a diverse cast of characters, great storyline and I cannot wait to read the next one!

I think this is appropriate for teens to read, but make sure to check the trigger warnings. I highly recommend this, it was so good!!

TW/CW: Child death (graphic), war (discussed)

This one is a doozy and I mean that in the best way possible. I read this book in one sitting! If you're tired of predictable worldbuilding this one is for you. I thought the matriarchy aspect was a strong intro and served as a fun foil.
It is a relatively short read, and I did find myself asking –how are you going to wrap that up in ten pages only to be met with – continued in volume two. It's worth waiting for, but I am impatient!
I liked the odd but fun worldbuilding in this novella, though it can be a bit difficult to get your mind around. There is a bit of prequel-itis, but I thought was well done and necessary to understand the worldbuilding. I think a lot of the design is fun and whimsical – especially the insect cars and wizard mountain guys. The art style is pretty typical but well done, and the attention to detail is clear. I'm usually a bit skeeved out by furry art, but this was incorporated into the worldbuilding well enough that I didn’t notice it – and it wasn’t relied on as a crutch. The pacing was fast, which is a pro for me. Overall I would recommend this as a short and enjoyable read.

Unfortunately, I had trouble opening this title and viewing it properly. Thank you to the publishers so much for this opportunity! This fantasy looks amazing and I hope I get the chance to read it elsewhere.

Thank you NetGalley and publishers for this ARC.

I knew I had to read this when I read the blurb and it promised a matriarchal society where women lay eggs, wolf people who change their gender every month, and wizards riding around on caterpillars. And I definitely wasn’t disappointed.

I really love the world this comic created, and I can’t wait to find out more in the next Volume. I also really loved the main character Petigré. She’s really feisty and knows what she wants, but at the same time, she’s also still looking for her place in the world. The other characters weren’t explored that much yet, but some of them also really intrigued me. On top of that, the art style is absolutely beautiful, especially the coloration.

The only slightly negative thing I have to say is that initially, the world-building is slightly confusing and overwhelming, with a lot of things being brought up just in the first 25 pages. I also have a lot of questions now, but this is just the first volume, so I’m sure they'll be answered soon enough.

I really hope the next volume comes out soon, because I’m really excited to see where the story will go. If you’re looking for a bold fantasy comic with some really strange concepts, I really recommend you give this ago.