Heartstopper by Alice Oseman is a graphic novel series about a teenage boy called Charlie surviving high school as one of the only openly gay students in his year. He meets Nick, another boy at his school, and develops feelings for him. The graphic novels have been adapted into a Netflix series, and the trailer was released online on Mar. 16. The trailer included multiple iconic moments from the graphic novels, as well as great acting and casting choices, which was enough to get fans excited for the premiere of the series. Considering that the graphic novels already have a considerably large following, Netflix's Heartstopper definitely has the potential to become the next big coming-of-age show.
By centering the narrative around an openly gay character, Heartstopper provides more visibility for queer audiences and will be an example of positive on-screen representation of the LGBTQ+ community. Not only does Heartstopper showcase gay characters, it also has bisexual, lesbian and transgender characters within Charlie's main group of friends. There are also multiple queer people of color in the graphic novels and the Netflix series, which provides more representation for an extremely marginalized community.
Heartstopper is primarily an LGBTQ+ romance, but it also doubles as a coming-of-age story, as it deals with all of the difficult topics that go hand-in-hand with growing up and being a part of the LGBTQ+ community. The graphic novels focus on mental health, dealing with bullies and friends disapproving of romantic partners. There are also more serious topics like getting outed, homophobia and characters who can't return to their home countries because of the laws regarding LGBTQ+ rights.
The plot of Heartstopper is very similar to popular coming-of-age movies about queer characters, like Love, Simon, Booksmart and The Half of It. The high school setting is familiar within the genre and does a great job of portraying the struggles of growing up and self-discovery. The graphic novels also show Charlie, Nick and their friends having fun outside of class and even have a few flash-forwards to the characters as adults, which definitely highlights the nostalgia of their younger years and the simplicity of spending time with friends as teenagers.
The graphic novel series is currently still being written, and Oseman updates her Tumblr blog with new pages every few months. The most recent instalment of the series that has been published is Heartstopper Volume Four. The first volume of the graphic novel series was published in 2018, giving Oseman's story a good amount of time to increase in popularity before Netflix adapted it into a TV series.
While it is not clear how much of the story Season 1 will show, the trailers and promotional photos have shown that the series has done a great job of staying true to the graphic novels, as well as exhibiting a great understanding of the plot and characters. Heartstopper fans everywhere have been very excited for the release of this new Netflix series, and with such a large following already the show has extremely good chances of succeeding and becoming more popular amongst new viewers.
Heartstopper will premiere on Netflix on April 22.