Breaking Out and Breaking Up

This story originally appeared in PW Comics Week on February 20, 2007 Sign up now!

by Chris Arrant, PW Comics Week -- Publishers Weekly, 2/20/2007

Although Breaking Up sounds like a tale about a romantic break up, this new graphic novel by Aimee Friedman and Christine Norrie canvases the fault lines in the relationships among four teenage girls as they weather the changing tides of high school politics and drama. They enter their junior year as a tight foursome, but quickly become at odds with one another over parents, popularity, boys and sticking their noses into each other's business.

The main characteris Chloe Sacks—thoughtful, artistic and "unlucky" enough to fall for a boy who exists outside the social strata of the high school cliques. Even as she pursues him, she feels [embarassed]about her affections toward the social outcast, and Chloe finds herself going solo as her friends try to stay on the good side of the high school's elite. But the other girls are hardly villains, each going through their own struggles to assert themselves without fracturing the relationships with those around them.

Released earlier this year, Breaking Up marks the graphic novel debut of Aimee Friedman, a New York Times bestselling prose novelist. Known for her young adult novels South Beach and Hollywood Hills, she brings her talent for depicting the true-to-life friendships of young women to the comics medium in this release from Scholastic's Graphix comics imprint. Bringing her script to life is cartoonist and illustrator Christine Norrie, best known for the graphic novel series Hopeless Savages.

PW Comics Week: Early on, Chloe Sacks starts to loose her footing with her friends when she begins a relationship with an unpopular boy. This starts the cracks in the friendship among the foursome and opens up the book for readers. Can you tell us what's going through Chloe's mind at this point?

Aimee Friedman: In some ways, this question gets to the heart of Breaking Up, which to me is very much about what happens when you shift away from your friendships—which once were your whole world—to romantic relationships. I think that, in the book, Chloe goes through what a lot of teenagers—and even some adults!—feel whenever they fall for someone, especially someone they worry their friends might not approve of: at once confused and excited, anxious and elated, and a little bit surprised by themselves. Add to these conflicted emotions the social pressures of high school and popularity, and you have some pretty serious drama. These are such tricky waters to navigate, and it's all part and parcel of growing up.

Christine Norrie: I think that Chloe had the best of intentions at the beginning. She was so happy and excited seeing Adam, but something in her made it seem okay to sneak around her friends. She probably thought she'd wait until everything was "just right" and then work it out. Which is really a bad route to take since nothing is ever just right, especially when you have a major crush raging and your brain has turned to goo and everything is confusing!

PWCW: Confusing is a good word for what Chloe and her friends are going through in their third year of high school. The book takes place in the Georgia O'Keeffe School for the Arts, aka "Fashion High." How did your own high school experiences reflect what you did in the book?

AF: I wanted to create a world that was at once very similar to my high school, with a bit of fantasy thrown in. I went to the Bronx High School of Science in New York, which is a very competitive school that still has a tradition of emphasizing mathematics and the sciences. Funnily enough, it was at Bronx Science where I discovered my great love for English and the humanities. And it was at Bronx Science that I felt a little jealous of my friend who attended LaGuardia High School for the Performing Arts (the inspiration for the movie Fame!), where, I imagined, one could dance ballet or sculpt all day. (Not the case, of course.)

So, since Chloe is a visual artist, I thought it would make sense to put her in the kind of high school I dreamed about, one that is very artsy. On the other hand, what I truly appreciated about my high school was how diverse it was—kids attended from all five boroughs and from all walks of life. It was in every sense of the word a "city" school. That's what I wanted O'Keeffe to be as well—not your average apple pie suburban high school, but a place full of color and spark and creative energy.

CN: My own high school experiences were quite different! My best friends were a bunch of guys, and we'd go to the comic shop and hang out—not quite Bloomingdale's and cappuccinos. But I did go to a high school for the arts for a brief time and tried to put some of that vibe in the general setting. Much of the emotion I put into Chloe and the relationships with her friends comes from my best friends now, who are all super cool ladies. Though it's been about 15 years since I was in high school, things don't really change all that much in the way you fundamentally connect to people.

PWCW: Christine, how would you describe the relationship between the four girls?

CN: I would describe the girls as very sisterly. Especially Mac Kenzie and Chloe, of course, since they've known each other forever. I think they individually may appear to be really different—from physical characteristics and family situations to personal interests and tastes. But they all share some kind of special bond, that kind of fundamental understanding that someone just "gets you." Sometimes the people you think you'd never hang around with end up being great friends due to a diversity in thoughts and ideas and because you're basically in tune to one another.

PWCW: Although you've done three successful prose novels, this is your first foray into comics, Aimee. How did the idea of writing comics get to you?

AF: When I was little, I adored comic books, more than most girls my age did. Somewhere at my parents' place, I still have a towering stack of dog-eared Archies, which remain my favorite to this day. I loved Casper the Friendly Ghost, Spider-Man (because, like me, he was from Queens), The Green Lantern, you name it. I even used to draw my own miniature "graphic novels" about two dueling girls, albeit completely modeled on Betty and Veronica (though I did have the grace to change the names!). So in some ways it's no surprise that I would wind up writing a real graphic novel some day.

When, as an adult, I began writing novels for teens, I felt very strongly that there needed to be more comics for girls. I wanted to explode both the myth of "only boys read comics" as well as the superhero stereotype, I wanted to give young adult women a graphic novel they could truly call their own, one that wasn't magic or manga, but that dealt with friendship and high school and love and lip gloss and all the truths of their world. Luckily, my desire to do this came at a time when graphic novels were really starting to catch on, and my fabulous publisher, Scholastic, started its own comic imprint, Graphix. Somehow, all the stars were aligned.

And as someone who grew up devouring comics, I feel so lucky to be a part of this truly golden age of graphic novels. I count Maus, Persepolis, Embroideries, Blankets, Ghost World, Hopeless Savages, American Splendor and The Rabbi's Cat as some of my favorite books, period. I can only hope that Breaking Up takes that position in the lives of some teen readers.

PWCW: Christine?

CN: I'm terribly excited that Aimee and I got to do a book like Breaking Up. I strive to do unique and original work and I'm pretty sure there isn't anyone else doing a teen Manhattanesque story about a bunch of girls who love shopping and iced mochas, especially for an American audience. My biggest hope is that girls who are into young adult fiction like Gossip Girl will see it and not only discover our story but the world and medium of comics.