The Heartstopper Yearbook by Alice Oseman

Fans of Alice Oseman’s wildly successful Heartstopper series will welcome a chance to spend time with the characters they have grown to love, in this yearbook which looks back on the years since Heartstopper was first conceived, celebrating friendship, diversity and championing LGBTQ+ issues with a smile. This is not just a pastiche of Oseman’s previous material but an exploration of the artist’s journey from early concepts and sketches to the latest iteration, a Netflix series featuring real actors. Starting with scrapbook style profile pages of some of the main characters we are soon taken back to 2013 when the first drawings of Nick and Charlie were evolving in cheap sketchbooks. By 2014 Oseman was exploring digital drawings on a Wacom tablet and free drawing software called Gimp. More sophisticated software followed and participation in online art challenges including one in 2016 where she had to draw her characters in alternate universes and ‘emjoi challenges where my Tumblr followers would send me emjoi suggestions and I’d have to draw my characters with those expressions' p. 23. That was the year the Heartstopper comic was launched online and by 2017 she was preparing for a physical edition of the book and redrawing most of the pages. Success followed rapidly but the overwhelming impression is that it comes through constant drawing and hard work developing the characters and responding to followers; 2020 ‘was the year I started to feel very proud of my art style and how far I had come as an artist' p. 45. Readers just looking for more Heartstopper stories will find mini comics, a quiz and lots of extra, previously unpublished material. The author is fully involved with sharing the creation process, giving the book a journal feel, every corner filled with colourful images or comment and there are even step by step instructions on how to draw the main characters. 'Experimenting with art is the best way to develop as an artist' p. 55 and Osman shares plenty of material and inspiration here. Lovers of Heartstopper will embrace this well presented edition and it might win more fans, but there is plenty also for aspiring artists and comic makers.

Themes: LGBTQ+, Friendship, Comics,Art design.

Sue Speck