Recently named as one of the School Library Journal’s Best Graphic Novels of 2024 writer Jeremy Whitley, artist Cassio Ribeiro and letterer Nikki Foxrobot’s Navigating with You, from Mad Cave’s Maverick imprint, is described as a “charming POC-led WLW romance where two new friends hit the road in search of the missing volumes of their favorite manga.” BF’s Ellie Egleton caught up with Jeremy Whitley to talk about disability representation in the medium, road trips, and hunting down that last comic to complete the run…
BROKEN FRONTIER: Jeremy, in your newest graphic novel Navigating with You, with artist Cassio Ribeiro, you pair two characters, Neesha Sparks and Gabby Graciana together. The two girls have such distinct personalities yet go so well together. What are their key characteristics that you wished to portray and why do their differences help to form their beautiful relationship?
JEREMY WHITLEY: I really wanted to create two characters that felt really real, who had their own voices, and that those voices were distinct. In Gabby, I wanted somebody who was social, talkative, playful but lacked confidence because of her previous relationship and the losses she’d suffered recently. Gabby is trying to figure out who she is now.
Neesha on the other hand could not be more certain of who she is. She’s an activist who is proud of her queerness, her disability, and her blackness. What she’s not sure of is where she belongs. Because of her parents’ divorce and moving from her home in New York to North Carolina, she’s not sure how to be who she is in this new place.
I think what works so well about them is that Gabby finds who she is in Neesha and Neesha finds a place to belong in Gabby. I think the best relationships give both people something they need. Neesha would have never started the friendship between the two of them, but without the love of Neesha, Gabby never would have had the confidence to get out of the abusive relationship she was in.
BF: We are first introduced to Neesha in Navigating with You when she starts at her new school. She is independent, smart and does not want to be defined by her disability. Why does this positive representation of a disabled character matter to you?
WHITLEY: Comic generally has so little representation of physically disabled characters. And so much of that representation is trauma based – a hero who is horribly injured or a bystander hurt by action. Portrayal of a person with a long term disability living their life is so rare. Even more rare is for a disabled character to be the subject of a love story, which is something real disabled people experience every day.
When I took on portraying physical disability in my run on Marvel’s Unstoppable Wasp, it became very quickly apparent how much it mattered to people who live with disability. Everybody deserves to see themselves portrayed as the heroes and romantic interests they are in real life. Perhaps just as importantly, it shows readers who don’t have that experience that disabled people aren’t just supporting characters and sidekicks.
BF: Navigating with You is all about self-discovery and acceptance. How do you balance these deeper themes with all of the fun and adventures of a road trip?
WHITLEY: It’s a funny thing, because I think that’s sort of the natural state of things, right? We all have adventures and romances and fun times. Amidst all of those, we also learn important lessons about life. The hardest thing about translating that dichotomy to a story, especially a comic, is just economy. You only have so many pages in a graphic novel like ours and that doesn’t always lend itself to the pacing that often comes with “slice of life” stories.
Basically the way we were able to balance it was for myself and our editor Lauren Hitzhausen to edit this thing within an inch of its life. The first draft of this book was almost a full hundred pages longer. We cut and cut and cut. We condensed until we were sure that everything we had left was absolutely essential. We actually still ended up twenty pages longer than our initial goal, but Mad Cave was gracious enough to agree with us that it was strongest at this length. Any more cutting would have left us with a worse version of the story.
BF: Now, the road trip that Neesha and Gabby take is in search of their favourite manga series, a mutual interest that help the girls find common ground. Is this inspired by your own reading pile? And did you enjoy writing the few chapters of the manga that we see within Navigating with You?
WHITLEY: Absolutely it is inspired by my own life. As a comic book reader, it has always been challenging to get ahold of full runs of stories I love. I’ve gone longbox diving at conventions. I’ve been to used book stores. I’ve picked up books from stores I just happened to stop by when I was in town. I had to go hunting online to fill out my set of Strangers in Paradise trades. It’s a process that’s near and dear to my heart.
I loved writing the manga chapters that we included in Navigating with You! It was so much fun, we’ve talked about how we need to make the actual manga as a full book. Given that our main story was so realistic, it was a lot of fun to have the outlet for fun sci-fi storytelling.
BF: As the girls travel across North Carolina, we are transported across the state. Can you talk about why you chose this setting and how you worked with artist, Cassio Ribeiro, to bring the location to life?
WHITLEY: We wanted to tell this story with these two fish out of water, both girls who were moving from different parts of the country for different reasons. As a resident of North Carolina, I happen to know that this is the place a lot of those people end up. We’re half way between Florida and New York, which made it an ideal spot for two people from other places to meet up.
More than that, I’ve lived in North Carolina since I was about ten years old and in The Research Triangle (Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill) since I was eighteen. Durham is one of my favorite places in the world and has a unique culture all it’s own. It’s the rare place where you get get world class BBQ at the local gas station and then go see the touring production of Hamilton fifteen minutes from each other. It has food, sports, and local pride like few other places in the world. And we rarely show up in movies, tv, or comics.
Bringing it all to life was an interesting challenge because Cassio lives in Brazil, so he has no first hand experience of any of this So I had to head out into the city with my kid in tow and take pictures of all the places Neesha and Gabby go. It was a fun challenge and something I felt emboldened to do by watching friends of mine who have spent their entire lives in the region telling the stories of our slice of the world.
BF: Within the first few pages of Navigating with You, there is a caption that reads “Sometimes you just have to get loud for people to hear you” and this is a key message that I took from the graphic novel overall. Why is this important for all readers to hear?
WHITLEY: Whew, that’s a tough one to answer! Great question.
I attended the Boise Comics Arts Festival a couple of years ago and when we were talking about book challenges in libraries, one of the librarians present made a suggest that seemed so simple yet so revolutionary to me. They pointed out that progressive and liberal people spend a lot of their time fighting against bans rather than fighting for the books we want to see in our libraries. If a conservative parent can lobby against a book being in the library because they don’t want their kid to read that book, then we should be lobbying for the book because want our kids to read it. If you spend all your time trying to come up with the best compromise to appease a vocal conservative minority, the result isn’t slow progress, it’s a slow regression. Sometimes, you just have to get loud to be heard.
BF: Without giving spoilers, can you share if we will meet Neesha and Gabby again? And are you working on any further projects? Where is it best to follow you online for updates?
WHITLEY: You know, originally we had only slated it to be one book, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t excited by how many people have asked that question. I don’t think it’s out of the question, especially not if people continue to praise the book and ask about more. Maverick and Mad Cave aren’t in the business of refusing to make books for which there is an excited demand. So, just maybe, if you ask loud enough, we might get to see the girls again.
It has already been announced that I have a book coming from Atheneum / Simon and Schuster with my cowriter Ben Kahn and illustrator Melissa Caprigilone called The Dashing School for Wayward Princes all about a group of fantasy princes who don’t fit in and are forced to go to a school that teaches toxic masculinity. In addition to that, I have sequels to both The Dog Knight from Macmillan Kids and School for Extraterrestrial Girls from Papercutz coming in the next year or so. Hopefully, I’ll have more things to announce soon as well!
And if people still want to hear from me between those things, I have a podcast with my friends Ben Kahn and Emily Martin called “Progressively Horrified” where we talk about horror movies and progressive politics. They can finds that wherever they find podcasts. Also, I’m on bluesky @jeremywhitley and my website at jeremywhitley.com.
BF: Lastly, Navigating with You is a graphic novel suitable for young adults and having followed your writing since Marvel’s Unstoppable Wasp, this seems to be a great audience for you and your work. What creative advice would you give to these young readers for those hoping to make their own books?
WHITLEY: If you are waiting for permission from somebody to make your own story, I am giving you permission. No one is doing to knock on your door and ask you to become a writer. Stop worrying about making it perfect or doing it in just the right way or at the right time. Just get started right now. Writers write. If you want to be a writer, you know what to do!
Buy Navigating with You online here
Interview by Ellie Egleton
