Cheer Up! creators talk real-life character connections and lessons to be found

I recently had the chance to check out “Cheer Up! Love and Pompoms,” available through Oni Press. The story, it's true-to-life characters and the world behind them were such an immediate draw that I read it three times.

Annie is a smart, antisocial lesbian starting her senior year of high school who’s under pressure to join the cheerleading squad to make friends and round out her college applications. Her former friend Bebe is a people-pleaser, a trans girl who must keep her parents happy with her grades and social life in order to maintain their support of her transition.

In this episode, Writer Crystal Frasier and Artist Val Wise share their experiences working together for the first time. We take a long look at the characters of Bebe and Annie, how their friendship deepens throughout the book and what each brings to the overall story. We talk about transgender characters in comics and how this has changed in recent years as well as Aunty Jen, to whom the book is dedicated.