The writer and illustrator on turning her ‘weird hobby’ into a bestselling YA series and Netflix hit, the importance of asexual representation and lessons from her fans on love bites
At 28, the author and illustrator Alice Oseman recently achieved what so many of her peers cannot: she bought a flat. But instead of giving up Netflix so she could save for a deposit, as Kirstie Allsopp notoriously recommended, she sold the streaming service the rights to her gay romance comic book series.
The series in question is of course Heartstopper, the web comic turned graphic novel turned Netflix show that this paper’s reviewer described as “completely lovely” when it aired earlier this year. The boy-meets-boy tale, set in a British secondary school, sees rugby captain Nick and socially awkward Charlie navigate friendships, bullying, coming out – and falling in love. It’s not hard to see why the TV adaptation won over teenagers and adults alike, with its lovable characters, quirky nods to its comic book origins – for example, tiny animations of hand-drawn flowers form a circle round the actors when Nick and Charlie share their first kiss – and an injection of starriness in the shape of Olivia Colman (Nick’s mum) and Stephen Fry (headmaster Barnes). The show’s success resulted in a huge increase in book sales for Oseman: the Heartstopper series has now sold more than 6m copies worldwide. Volume One recently won the Books Are My Bag readers’ choice award and is a contender for the 2022 Waterstones book of the year.
