In recent years, Netflix has emerged as a champion of LGBTQ+ content. From Orange is the New Black to Lingua Franca and The Half of It, the streaming service is one of the foremost proponents of the queer and trans movies and TV shows of our dreams. Netflix is keeping that trend going with an eight-part adaptation of the ongoing gay webcomic Heartstopper, written and illustrated by Alice Oseman.
Announced via a Wednesday blog post on Netflix U.K.’s website, Oseman herself is writing the half-hour episodes, which will be directed by Doctor Who and Sherlock alum Euros Lyn.
“I feel incredibly lucky to get to work with a team of passionate, creative people who all adore Heartstopper and want to make it the most beautiful show we can,” Oseman said in a statement to the entertainment news website Deadline. “It’s a joy and an honor to get to re-tell Nick and Charlie’s story for TV, and I am so excited to share it not only with Heartstopper’s existing readership, but also a whole new audience around the world.”
According to the webcomic’s Tumblr, Heartstopper explores “the blossoming relationship between Nick Nelson and Charlie Spring, two boys at a British all-boys grammar school” and covers themes like “love, friendship, loyalty, life, time, and mental illness.” Published in three installments each month, the swoon-worthy queer love story also serves as a prequel to Oseman’s debut novel, Solitaire, in which Nick and Charlie are secondary characters.
While the comic began online in 2016, Heartstopper was published in three physical volumes starting in 2018, with a fourth volume coming this year. Thus far, 180 episodes have been published online.
Alexi Wheeler, director of kids and family content at Netflix U.K., said that there was “no way” that the streamer “could not make it.”
“It was clear right away that Alice not only had created these brilliant and emotionally engaging characters, but the world they populated was relatable yet somehow aspirational,” Wheeler said in a statement. “The whole thing is just so poignant and beautifully crafted. To tell a love story between two boys who meet at school involves such vision and creative focus, Alice has absolutely delivered this here.”
While she’s only 26, Oseman already boasts an impressive resumé. In addition to Solitaire and Heartstopper, she’s also published Nick and Charlie, This Winter, Radio Silence, and I Was Born For This. Her most recent work is Loveless, a YA novel about “a fanfic-obsessed romantic” who is “sure she’ll find her person one day,” only to discover that she’s actually asexual.
Oseman herself is aromantic and asexual and has mentioned in interviews that Loveless was inspired by her own experiences coming to terms with her identity.
While there’s no inforomation yet on when Netflix’s adaptation of Heartstopper will go into production — let alone be available for viewing — thankfully there’s plenty of queer content on streaming services to tide us all over until then.
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