Swati “Lucky” Srikumar and Maia Kobabe’s One Little Trick Could Save Your Life: ‘The book cannot come before our health’

Swati “Lucky” Srikumar and Maia Kobabe are both California-based nonbinary cartoonists, longtime friends, and the co-authors of a new middle grade comic from Scholastic, Opting Out. Opting Out is an exquisite exploration of the agony and ecstasy of being twelve years old. The book grew out of feedback Kobabe (who uses e/em/eir pronouns) got from parents who read eir 2019 memoir, Gender Queer. Kobabe said in a 2022 SPX panel: “It was written mostly based on feedback I received when Gender Queer first came out from parents who would say ‘I read this and it was so useful, but my gender nonconforming child is twelve, or ten, or eight, or six, a little too young for this book. I had a lot of parents ask me: ‘Would you ever make an all-ages version of Gender Queer?’ I was like, ‘I don't want to abridge my memoir — that feels weird — but I could write a new book that hopefully addresses what you're asking me.” In May of this year, Opting Out was published by the Scholastic imprint Graphix. It follows a year in the life of twelve-year-old Saachi as she wrestles with gender, friendships, and her emerging identity as an artist. In June, I spoke with Maia and Lucky about Opting Out, their com...