Sara Quin of indie pop duo Tegan and Sara talks about the upcoming final installment in the band’s graphic novel series and offers an insight into the life events and creative journey that led to Tegan and Sara: In love.
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Photo by Sara Quin courtesy of Macmillan. |
Indie pop icons Tegan and Sara have teamed up again with Eisner Award winner Tillie Walden to release the highly anticipated conclusion to their middle school memoir duology. Sara Quin spoke with Jasmine Amiri of School Library Journal about the upcoming graphic novel and offers an insight into the life events and creative journey that led to Tegan and Sara: Crush.
Jasmine Amiri: This is a fabulous duology. Both 2023 Tegan and Sara: Junior High and the upcoming conclusion, Crushare outstanding graphic novels for middle school. What led to the decision to do them in graphic novel format?
Sarah Quin: You know, it wasn’t our idea. The publisher of our memoirs, Secondary schoolput us in touch with their children’s publisher, and they said, “Look, we have an idea. We’d like to take your high school story and set it in junior high, make it a middle school series, and publish it as a graphic novel.” And we thought, “Great!” I give full credit to the publisher who came up with this idea, and thankfully they were patient with us while we learned to work in the comics medium.
That was five or six years ago, and it’s funny to think about it now. It was so easy and fun to translate, which is unusual because most of the projects we work on and develop have more teething issues. So we had the shape of the story, and we just had to be creative and imagine it happening in seventh grade. What details could we adjust to make it feel more appropriate? Or what would happen if this story happened now instead of in 1993?
It was a fun experiment to sit down and think about what details we would share with artist Tillie Walden. We had read a few graphic novel scripts the publisher had provided us to see how it was done, but even the examples varied, so Tegan and I got lost in details. We described what the characters looked like, their expressions, what the room would look like—worldbuilding that way would be impossible if you were writing it as a prose novel because there would be too much description. But it was so much fun handing that world over to Tillie, and she did such an incredible job. It was a really fun, collaborative way to work.
JA: How did your collaboration with Tillie Walden come about? Did you know that you were twins before you started working together?
Ask: We didn’t know she was a twin! I’ve loved graphic novels since I was a teenager, but I’ve always read adult graphic novels and had never come across Tillie. The publishers recommended a list of artists to consider and Tillie was the first one I looked at and I immediately read every single one of her books. It was a no-brainer. She’s just so funny and amazing.
The first time we all spent time together in person was at the reading tour for Tegan and Sara: middle school. She’s done a lot of events with us and I said, “Can’t you just join our band?” She’s amazing and a great balance for me and Tegan. She’s really wonderful.
JA: I think that actually rolls off the tongue easily —Tegan, Sara and Tillie.
Ask: I think it’s great. I’d love to give her the lead role. It could be Tillie, Tegan and Sara.
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Inside pages of Tegan and Sara: Crush by Tegan Quin and Sara Quin ©2024. Artwork by Tillie Walden. |
JA: You mentioned this before, but the book is set in the present day, whereas you were actually in middle school in the early 1990s. What led to the decision to set the book in the present day?
Ask: We had initially created a quick draft of a graphic novel script set in the actual time it happened. We thought that with the popularity of shows like Stranger Thingsthere’s a nostalgia that’s relatable for people who didn’t grow up in that time. But the publisher said they thought it should be set in the present day so that these kids can face unique challenges that maybe we didn’t face as kids, and that would make it more relatable. And to be quite honest, I think they were right.
In Crushit was fun to play with this idea of social media and what it means to start your journey of finding your identity while also struggling with what other people think of you or what you think of yourself. I think that gave it a layered, new texture. If we had set it in the ’90s, I would have struggled to make it instantly digestible for a younger audience, because for us that didn’t happen until later in life, when we were leaving high school and starting to get reviews in newspapers. The thing that happens almost instantly now when you put your face online – that didn’t happen back when we started our band.
JA: Did you have to change the story much from your real-life experiences? Aside from adding things like cell phones and modern pop culture, how different are the events in the book from your time in middle school?
Ask: It’s funny – Tegan and I didn’t even talk much about how we might fictionalize it. We just knew we were following the same direction that happened to us. We were kids trying to figure things out, really interested in music, discovered we could make music – and almost immediately people were drawn to us and the music we were making. It’s based on our history and the plot points and the story arc of what happened: figuring out who we are in our relationship as sisters, as individuals, with our friends, and maybe figuring out who we’re with romantically. We knew all of that and how it would fit into the plot.
I got the script back from Tegan and she had used things that had happened in our real lives but were kind of fresh. Like in the first book, when we went bowling with our dad and his new girlfriend and one of us got her period – that’s not how it really happened. But we used to go bowling with my dad’s girlfriend and I can remember details that we could dig up. We always tried to connect it to our story while also thinking about what it would be like to be 13 now.
Then it was just a matter of adding mobile phones. But every time we talked about technology, I asked, is this really a Addition ?Are we just adding a cell phone so people know *wink, wink* it’s now discontinued? So we really tried to make technology a character in the book.
JA: One of my favorite recurring moments was the conversations in Tegan and Sara’s “twin magic” room. How did you come up with this concept?
Ask: Honestly, that was all Tillie. We had talked a lot with our editors about adding some sort of narrator, like an older Tegan and Sara, to come into the story and help the reader get into the twins’ minds. And that could work, but I felt it would be disruptive to have adult versions of Tegan and Sara narrate the story or give more feedback on what’s happening. It was Tillie who came up with the brilliant idea of having them share a mind space.
There is something beautiful about it too, it is somehow ethereal. It is not mind reading, we know they are not having these conversations, but you know that they had these conversations. And I thought it was beautiful.
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Inside pages of Tegan and Sara: Crush by Tegan Quin and Sara Quin. Artwork by Tillie Walden. |
JA: You mentioned that you grew up with graphic novels—Which graphic novels inspired you or served as the basis for Intermediate And Crush?
Ask: When I grew up, I loved Calvin and Hobbes. That was one of my first introductions to comics. My stepfather loved Batman And Spider Man Comics. He was the one who asked, “Have you ever read comics?” And we were big readers but not really interested in comics, so he gave us Calvin and Hobbes and we cried with laughter. We found it so unbelievable.
I wouldn’t say that when we sat down to work on this book, we thought: “Calvin and Hobbes”, but I always liked the humor and the magical element of hanging out with a stuffed animal. It doesn’t feel like it’s just for kids – even my stepdad read those books. That kind of comic and middle-grade storytelling, when it can be entertaining for older people but really relatable for a younger audience. I think that was the balance we were trying to figure out.
Tegan and I read stacks of middle school graphic novels before we did this. There are so many wonderful ones, but I think what you are as a writer or a storyteller is not something you can necessarily learn from reading a ton of books. I think it’s who you are, so the Calvin and Hobbes series feels more like the original seeds. Just like with music, people will ask, “What influences you, what inspires you?” I mean, it’s the things I listened to in the 1980s: it’s still Cyndi Lauper, Madonna, Bruce Springsteen and Prince. It doesn’t matter how much new stuff I record, it’s like the fundamental part of me Calvin and Hobbes and Cindy Lauper.
JA: That is a great combination. I have just one last question: What would you like to tell readers about the duology and Crush, special?
Ask: We really struggled with social dynamics in middle school; it’s such a tough age. 7th and 8th grade can be brutal, and we kept it a little lighter for these books, but it was meant to feel like a companionship. No matter what’s happening in your real life, you can find a safe place and comfort in the story and with these characters.
I hope that this book, more than anything else we’ve done, is an aspirational goal. These are the kinds of friendships and connections you can have. And maybe it’s not music, but if you can find something that allows you to connect to another person or to yourself or to a feeling you have, then that’s entirely possible. I hope those things resonate with everyone who reads it.
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Cover artwork for Tegan and Sara: Crush. Artwork by Tillie Walden. |
Jasmine Amiri is a graphic novel reviews editor at SLJ.
