Queer besties Andy and Scout navigate life, love, friendship, the tumultuous political environment and their 20s in this hilarious comics collection.

I was not expecting to love this nearly as much as I did. I’m not sure why? But I’m thinking it’s because I saw the cover, with the kinda not the best illustrations (they reminded me vaguely of Beavis and Butthead or King of the Hill), so was leery?

But set aside your reservations—this is timely poignant and holy fucking shirtballs hilarious.

Andy is a trans genderqueer person of color whose life is kiiiiiiiiiinda a dumpster fire but also they just like to life by the moment (outwardly the toughest, inwardly the most sensitive).

Scout is Andy’s BFF, an over-thinking feeler who wants to date again but can’t move on from her ex-girlfriend…of two years ago. She’s super heckin’ awkward around those she finds attractive, and takes three hours to send texts to girls who end up being straight. She also likes burritos (and turning herself into a burrito).

Ari is Andy and Scout’s new roommate, an aro ace trans introvert who will bluntly tell the others how it is (and that she will not be joining them for meaningless holidays or participating in worthless capitalistic rites of passage). She also has silent Saturdays and solo Sundays, which are hilarious and also I 100% agree with.

Gwen has newly broken up with her boyfriend of five years and is ready to embrace her bisexual self—except she’s never done anything with the opposite sex and does that means she’s not queer?? Anywho, she explores her sexuality, has an awakening, and realizes that you can have it all—although sometimes you also have to unpack of a lot of societal expectations, particularly when it comes to family who don’t accept you or have awful, bigoted views of the world.

Taylor is…a grad student.

In the forward, A.E. Osworth talks about how they and their friends tried to match themselves to a Grease Bat, and then realized that they were all shades of each character.

I absolutely agree. I found myself in each character—from Gwen and Taylor’s struggle to believe they belong in queer spaces (either from realizing their sexuality late or experimenting with it late or being queer and never having had sex before), to Ari’s lack of fucks and extreme introvertism, to Scout’s agonizing over every romantic thing, to Andy’s floppies, to Taylor’s social awkwardness.

There’s a little something for everyone. And a little Grease Bat in everyone.

Additionally, there’s intersectionality, the exploration of gender norms and queerness, seriously funny t-shirts and hats, mental health discussions, interesting jort choices, and social and political commentary—and also much talk of microaggressions, such as addressing a group of people “hello ladies” or taunting non-feminine conforming individuals who aren’t wearing their three articles of gender-conforming apparel (it’s like a more aggressive form of 17 pieces of flair). And much drinking and a little casual cocaine.

Anywho, if you’re exhausted by the constant attack on queer spaces and queer rights, and need something that’s #ownvoices and inclusive and all-around adorable, check this out.

I received this ARC from NetGalley for an honest review.

reading more than 50 short comic strips with no overarching plot can get a bit monotone overtime, but this collection has a perfect balance of lighthearted fun, chaotic dumb energy, and heavy topics that i flew through it easily. there are strips where the characters just go drink beer and set something on fire in the back yard to blow off steam, there are ones all about reaffirming to each other - and the reader - that you’re perfect the way you are, and there are ones dealing with misgendering, homophobia, and the 2016 us election. the wide variety keeps it from getting repetitive and boring.

our two main character are scout - an awkward lesbian with too many feelings - and andy - an unstoppable genderqueer person with more than enough chaotic energy to go around. then there are their friends - ari; introverted, Better Than U, asexual and aromantic (note that this isn’t said on page, but she very much reads like aroace), gwen; newly single bisexual, only here for a good time and to spread sunshine, and taylor; a shy and questioning grad school student who is in over her head. despite all stories being told over only a handful of pages, you get to know all five of these characters incredibly well. they are all their own individuals, and even though they are very different they go together. The Found Family Is Strong With This One. (if anyone is wondering, i’d say i’m a combination of scout and ari.)

overall, grease bats was extremely entertaining. this is definitely for all us tired, queer, 20-somethings out there. somehow i could see myself in almost every single story. there were times i laughed, and then other times i felt so hard for the characters that it broke my heart.

This was a very cute, funny, and sometimes emotional graphic novel! There were parts that didn't run as smooth as the rest, but overall I really liked it! It was kind of like hanging out with a bunch of friends. It wasn't quite what I was expecting but I liked it nonetheless.

This is the cutest book in the world of LGBTQ+ literature, and I'm going to buy it for every single one of my queer friends. It's the book that the LGBTQ+ community deserves, and I've never seen anything like it before!

Here's the gist: This book is a compilation of comics written by Archie Bongiovanni, a genderqueer artist, for Autostraddle. The comic strips were compiled into this book. So it's not exactly a graphic novel because it doesn't have a completely connected plot, but there's still continuity and you can tell that time is passing. I was initially disappointed that it wasn't a graphic novel (which just shows that I need to read the blurb more carefully), but that disappointment didn't last past the first comic strip, because it's just so endearing!

The two main characters are Scout, a lesbian who still isn't over her ex-girlfriend Emily, and is absolutely hopeless at asking girls out. Andy is a polyamorous, genderqueer, extremely flirtatious and smooth person. Basically the polar opposite of Scout. But the two are best friends and support each other through all their romantic endeavors and misadventures.

What I love about this comic is that it's so clearly written by a queer person, for queer people. Andy's gender feels have a lot of credibility since they come from a genderqueer creator, and I learned a lot about what a genderqueer person's day-to-day life can be like. I was frustrated right along with Andy when they got misgendered - like when somebody at a restaurant would be like, "Hey ladies, here are your drinks!" Then Scout would be there to comfort Andy and try to distract them with something. Which would often be glitter, because Andy is a flamboyant person. :)

It talks a lot about the importance of having safe spaces for queer people and how much it hurts to have those spaces taken away - like a queer bar being bought by a straight cis man to just be a sports bar. Scout and Andy get rightfully upset about that.

The characters aren't perfect - they make mistakes and hurt each other accidentally. But they always have a conversation about what went wrong and then do their best to act better. This is such a realistic and wholesome thing to see, and it's great to have this behavior modeled in these characters. It can be really helpful for readers to know a healthier way to behave.

And the supporting cast of characters is so diverse across the LGBTQ+ spectrum, too! Ari is a trans girl who seems to me to be asexual and possibly aromantic. She never comes right out and says it, which is completely fine and realistic, too! Taylor is a gay girl who has never actually dated another girl and feels like an imposter because of it (which leads to some really excellent discussions of what it means to be "queer enough." Spoiler: if you identify as queer, then you're queer enough!) And Gwen is a bisexual girl who is a self-proclaimed slut and proud of it. The sheer amount of diversity illustrated in these characters is beyond fantastic, and I literally couldn't ask for a better roundup!

The only reason I didn't give this 5 stars is because there are some typos throughout the comics. Can it be called a "typo" if it's hand-written? I completely understand having typos in the webcomic, because that's a more informal format. But when it comes time to turn said webcomic into book form, I think the spelling errors can be fixed. This included such mistakes as spelling weird "wierd." That said, I read an ARC, so this may be fixed in the final version.

In conclusion, this is one of the best books I've read this year, and the perfect gift for an LGBTQ+ person or anybody in their 20s trying to figure out who the heck they are.

***Thank you so much to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.***

I got an ARC of this book.

Ok, so like I am super queer. I am trans, ace, aro, in a QPR with a married lesbian house wife, and in a poly relationship with a married gay man who is questioning his gender. Can you get any more queer? The answer is yes. Reading this book made me feel so much more queer and it was WONDERFUL. 

This book is literally perfect. The characters range from super queer and confident to baby queers and insecure (sometimes in the same character on the same page!). I loved all of the characters. ALL OF THEM. Scout and Andy were fantastic. They were goofy, in your face queer (ANDY'S SHIRTS OMG), and just so real. All of their drama felt over the top, but also like a typical gathering of queer friends. (How many times can I say queer in this review? I don't know, but I feel like a thousand is appropriate for this book, because I just love the word and the way this book made me feel about myself and the world.)

This book references everything from Ellen DeGeneres to Tom of Finland. I just can't even with my fan boying over here. There was shouting about capitalist society. There was protests. There was call out of the patriarchy and the way that marriage is just a social construct for enforcing gender norms and heteronormity. I AM IN LOVE.  This is the book that explains my brain and my life in college (minus the drinking. I had like no drinking in college, because I was crushing on one of my professors and I needed to impress her by being the best feminist ever). 

Just yes. This book is a yes. Also, I am upset by how many times I was embarassed by how accurate these comics were to my life. Please, Bongiovanni, leave me and my Grey's Anatomy, burrito love, and my embroidery hobbies alone. Thank you. (Also, please just continue to write amazing books that I fall in love with.)

This book started by warning us that we would see ourselves and our friends in these characters and it was downright scary (and at the same time comforting) how right that was. This was a flawless, unapologetic and honest rendering of what means to be LGBT.
The comic strips are simple in its style and are mostly black and white but they still have all kinds of jokes and funny details that always make me laugh like Andy's outrageous t-shirts. It reminded me of the political comic strips you can find on the back of newspapers if they were mixed with millennial memes.
The book spans over several years and follows the lives mostly of Andy and Scout and their close group of friends while going through relationships, nights out, coming out parties and hundreds of other sad and happy moments that we all recognize.
One of the drawbacks for me was the absence of a glossary at the end because this is a great book for straight cisgender people to be introduced to LGBTQ characters that are not just gay but a colorful and diverse sample of the LGBTQ experience and all the situations they have to go through every day of their lives that most people are not aware of. While doing it, the authors had to use terms that are not common knowledge for most people outside the community and I can see that creating a barrier for some readers and waisting a learning opportunity.
This book is set and aimed mostly at an American audience, with the 2016 election featuring heavily towards the end presenting us with some of the most heartbreaking scenes in the entire story. While for most liberals, the election was a moment of profound sadness and anger, for a lot of these characters it was a moment of utter defeat, everything that they had been able to accomplish in the past decades suddenly meaning nothing. While a cisgender person would simply shrug it off and wait for Trump's term to end, a lot of these characters first reaction was making sure that all their documents were in order and seeing all the rights and protections that they had enjoyed from until then disappear, their lives being impacted on every front from being able to renew their documents, procure jobs or just go to the bathroom outside their own houses.
While all those experiences are 100% valid I did find that the characters to be sometimes biased to anyone that is not as liberal as them. When I refer to people on the other side of the hile, I'm not referring to Trump supporters or anyone that outright refuses to evolve in their way of thinking but to the people that are both economically conservative and support LGBTQ rights or to people that might be facing someone that is different from them for the first time and don't know the correct etiquette. That bias was partially addressed through when Andy and Scout discussed wanting to go through their lives without constantly having to bow to the pressures of a society that is not yet prepared for people like them.
At the same time, we get to learn about all these new terms, sexual orientations and genders that are only now starting to be recognized and seem to predict the start of a new era of diversity and acceptance, we get to see things like the erasure of LGBTQ rights and historical spaces, everyday scenes of discrimination sometimes within our own community the fear of not being queer enough among many other problems.
It also features a lot of lighter and heartwarming situations that are still didactic in away. One of the problems that were discussed several times was how the ex rule does not apply in the LGBTQ community because the dating pool is so limited that everyone ends up dating or sleeping with someone else's ex and how hard that can sometimes be for the people that do not partake in the hookup culture.
I really loved this story and characters as a whole though and by the end of the book, I felt I was among friends.
Thak you to NetGalley and BOOM! Studios for this ARC.

Grease Bats gave me all the warm fuzzy queer feelings I could have asked for. Scout and Andy's friendship is so accurately millennial and wholesome that it reminds me of my personal relationships with my queer friends. Can you say REPRESENTATION? Archie's art style is cute and quirky and lends itself so well to the story that I couldn't imagine these characters looking any other way. My personal favorite strip was "Case of the Floppies" which talks about the non-binary struggle of getting your period and feeling dysphoric. I highly recommend this to not only people of the queer communities, but really anyone who is looking for an authentic look into the lives of young people in the lgbtq+ community!

This was a fun enough read. It straddled the line between a weekly, gag-centric comic strip and an ongoing story unfolding over time.
I found it fun, but a little tiresome: it was pretty repetitive, and very deep into queer politics. I don't think somebody that isn't frequenting sites like autostraddle or waist-deep in queer theory would find it accessible. Which made it confusing: it's like it's teaching a lesson using advanced vocab, so I'm not sure who it's for. I think the only people who could make heads or tails of it don't really need the message. Yet, it can be nice to be reminded. (Sections on imposter syndrome hit close to home.)
I wouldn't recommend trying to power through it one sitting (like I did): I think it should be enjoyed as it was written, enjoying a few pages or strips every once in a while, as it was originally posted on the site.

This was a very fun and interesting graphic novel, i kind of just fell in love with all the characters. I adored Ari alot. And the nicknames was so cute *-*

Ultimately the grungy art style and layout of the book wasn't for me, but that is a "it's not you, it's me" problem! Highly recommend for anyone looking for some new, non-traditional comic reads.

Easy to pick up for short times or easy to power through and read all at once. I haven't read anything like this and think it's a perfect stepping stone to broaden my graphic novel exposure.

Very cute and inclusive which was nice. It was more of flashes into the characters lives rather than a cohesive storyline. It’s not something you have to sit down and read consistently in order to follow along. It was fun and lighthearted with nice artwork.

*TW/CW for misgendering and discussion on some hard topics like homophobia/transphobia, racism, the 2016 us election, rights to your own body, mental health, etc. It never gets too dark or lets itself be in a sad place without bringing hope and friendship in as well, but still be careful friends.*

What a fun and queer-centered comic! You can tell immediately this is made by a queer person for queer people; there are so many feelings, jokes, and experiences that only people in the community will truly understand. It was so relatable and I felt so seen in so many ways, whether about something funny or difficult or just incredibly specific. It also had a variety of gender and sexual identities, expressions, approaches to queer existence, and personalities that made it more realistic and accessible for people. ~Some~ examples of identities discussed were genderqueer (including the use of they/them pronouns), bisexual, aro/ace, polyamorous, general wlw, and gay.

There's a great discussion on a number of topics that affect queer people (both specific to queer people and things that we just happen to also experience); these included feeling queer enough, figuring out your identity, how you express, burnout from trying to support every cause possible, getting overwhelmed by the state of the world and news and such, and many others.

It had so much wonderful queer friendship content (it's basically the synopsis, just two queer friends and their friends getting into shenanigans); not only did I get to see neverending love and support, but I also got to see them working out issues, accepting each other even when they didn't agree on things, and realizing their own faults/bad ideas and apologizing + working to fix them. The characters were all so lovable and unique and oof I just want to give them all a big group hug.

On top of all this, it's just so fucking hilarious, especially for someone my age who can understand all the references and memes sprinkled throughout. I loved seeing all the funny quotes on Andy's shirts and the single-word hats Scout always had. I have so many screenshots saved on my phone of relatable/funny/self-callout moments. If you're queer, chances are you'll laugh out loud at least once.

There were only a couple of things I would've changed from this or felt weren't as great as they could've been. The first is a somewhat lack of storyline, which to be fair is sometimes intentional in webcomics, espeically this was supposed to be just about their lives in general. But I did wish some topics or things we discussed would be followed up on or appear later as well instead of being in just one "section." The ending was also pretty abrupt and didn't have any sort of wrap-up, but that could just be because this is a first volume or something. Also, while I certainly found nothing wrong with the art style, it wasn't particularly memorable either.

Overall, if you're a queer person who wants more queer-focused content that gets into hard topics but also makes you laugh and smile, pick this up!!! (Once it comes out, at least.)

The artwork was cool but I would have liked their to be a bit more of a storyline to it instead like Nimona where there are individual cereal chapters but they all connect to something much bigger outside of the overall lesson.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher I was able to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
***
Grease Bats follows Andy and Scout on their crazy, and sometimes bizarre, shenanigans as they try to navigate life, relationships and being their true, best selves.
Andy probably had some of the most interesting shirts and I’m curious where they picked them all up. Andy is very much a extrovert who I couldn’t always identify with because their true best life tended to include a lot of relationships, booze, and drama. Andy is very fun though and while they’re not always super self aware of the things they say and how it can be understood they always do listen to what other people tell them about how it makes them feel and does their best to adjust behaviors accordingly. Usually in the most dramatic way possible.
Scout is a wonderful introvert who just really wants to find a relationship that will be long term. She was typically the more balanced one but she had her moments of being a disaster and it worked because she’s human. She’s not perfect and I just loved her.
The comic also has fun recurring side characters, like their other roommate Ari who is super introverted and watches the drama unfold around her both apprehensively and with no small amount of glee and how it could play out. She is my spirit animal and I adore her. Taylor and Gwen are also amazing additions too.
Grease bats is a crazy fun comic about raw life, it’s ups and downs, and all the relationships that can help us get through it, especially the most important one (in my humble opinion) friendship.

Thank you, NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to read this comic!

Title: Grease Bats
Author: Archie Bongiovanni
Rep: every single character is LGBTQ+. Genderqueer MC and lesbian MC.
Trigger warnings: homophobia, transphobia, misgendering.

This was such a lovely and refreshing comic! The story was super fun, while also delving into more serious topics. I loved how there was little to no romance and this focuses more on friendships and found family.

The lives of the main characters were hectic and full of drama, but I still loved it! The friends they make and the situations they face, while sometimes being OTT, were realistic. I connected to Gwen's character the most, even though she is a side character.

The artwork was beautiful, the lack of colour was a little disappointing, but still lovely.

Overall, I would highly recommend this comic to anyone who loves LGBTQ+ characters, funny but serious situations and the strong connections of friendship!

Interesting but I'm exhausted by the focus on alcoholism, abusive relationship dynamics in queer spaces, and the general ~feel~ of this comic just read a bit too dark for me. I know that there are definitely queers out there who will appreciate and identify with a book like this but I couldn't relate to the characters nor did I feel comfortable with a lot of the content.

To be totally honest I loved EVERYTHING about this! I've seen some of Archie's comics online previously and I was absolutely thrilled to see there was an entire book of every strip put together.

A non-exhaustive list of the specific things I love about this book:
-Non binary identities!
-Talking about your FEELINGS
-Discussing how shitty the 2016 election was/is especially for the LGBTQ+ community and communities of color
-GOOD ART
-Andy's very good t shirts
-Supportive friendships
-Expressing the fact that it is important to talk about your feelings with your friends

I'm probably going to buy a physical copy of this when it's out so I can give it to all of my queer friends so they can relish in how relatable it is.

★★★,5⭐ | "I'm in the middle of experiencing my feelings." "On... the floor?" "Yeah, where else would I have emotions? A chair?!"

It's hard to review this one because I moderately enjoyed it but I don't have much to say about it.

This is a series of comic strips about two BFF, Andy - a genderqueer non-binary person in a polyamorous relationship and lots of casual sex with people of various genders and Scout a lesbian who can't get over her ex and is tragic at getting dates. Along with three of their other friends they experience the various aspects of life in the queer community with various ups and downs.

Archie Bongiovanni has shown many aspects of queer life from different perspectives with different needs, personalities, and expressions of their queerness. The whole thing is also overflowing with humour but 300 pages of comic strips of mostly slice-of-day with little plot content can be a bit monotonous and personally after a while some jokes started to seem bland and I felt a kind of 'scrolling through social media' detachment.

However, this is mostly just my preferences getting in a way and doesn't mean others can't enjoy it. If you like funny slice-of-day strips about queer life (and perhaps if you don't intend to read the whole thing at once) this is at least worth a try.

I was provided a free copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I'm not at all the audience for this book, but I always like to try out queer graphic novels because my teens clamor for them! I'm still on the fence as to whether or not I'll buy this one. I think the teens would like it, but also I'm not sure if I want to buy a book with so much drinking in it for the teens; I'm just not sure it would go over well in my community.