PRIDE MONTH 2024! When last we visited the characters of Alice Oseman’s Heartstopper it was for our Pride Month coverage two years ago when we looked at all four print volumes of the hit-webcomic-gone-on-to-become-smash-TV-series. For those new to the story Oseman has introduced has a sprawling cast of teen characters in Heartstopper but its main focus is on the romantic relationship between two schoolboys Charlie – an openly gay and more sensitive young man – and the slightly older Nick who is in many ways his social opposite, part of the rugby team and the accompanying school social hierarchies.
While volumes 1-4 followed multiple storylines and subplots, even if Charlie and Nick were front and centre, this fifth and penultimate collection hones in almost exclusively on some pivotal moments for our two protagonists, as they reach a crucial point in their relationship and as the realities of adult life begin to beckon. Oseman, as ever, plays the emotional complexities of these scenarios with a delicate carefulness, especially in the case of Charlie and Nick discussing whether to move things on physically. It’s a narrative sensitivity that expands to the supporting cast too, and on how it impacts them.
The second major storyline in Vol. 5 sees the slightly older Nick preparing for university and having to make the decision about whether or not he moves across the country or studies locally to remain near Charlie. It’s a reminder, of course, that however much we are invested in these characters, first love is rarely the lasting one. While the ensemble cast’s presence is less pronounced there is a storyline regarding asexuality that will no doubt be picked up on in the next book.
Oseman’s visuals are stripped back and yet highly expressive. There’s a fluidity to them; a sense of motion and movement, both physically and emotionally, that so expressively captures the quiet intensity of events on the page. Just look at all the changes in perspective, in close-ups and pull-backs, the manipulation of between-the-panels reading comprehension to effectively elicit emotional response in the readers… it all underlines that Heartstopper isn’t just about Oseman deftly capturing a certain progressive zeitgeist in her work. It’s also pure comics, exploiting the possibilities of the medium to their greatest strengths. It’s going to be very hard to let go of these characters when that sixth and final volume arrives.
Alice Oseman (W/A) • Hodder, £12.99
Buy online from Gosh! Comics here
Review by Andy Oliver
