She’s written My Little Pony and Archie Comics, and now Toronto-based comic writer Stephanie Cooke is bringing her writing passion to… competitive pillow fighting? Yes, you read that right. Cooke has written a number of graphic novels, but Pillow Talk is her first young adult novel. The book follows Grace Mendes, a competitive pillow fighter who discovers herself through this strange sport. With gorgeous, body-positive art by Mel Valentine Vargas, Pillow Talk enters the expanding pantheon of comics catering to younger audiences.
Ahead of her appearance at Toronto Comicon, from March 14 – 16, Stephanie Cooke spoke to Bam Smack Pow about her journey in comics and her new graphic novel.
How did you begin your journey to writing comics and graphic novels?
I feel like my story is a long, winding one that involved me feeling very lost for a lot of my youth, and not knowing what I really wanted to do. But the short version of it is this: I’ve always loved telling stories and my first paid work as a writer was as a news editor and podcast host for an entertainment site. I went to a lot of conventions and had the great privilege of meeting and befriending incredibly talented creators. One of those creators pointed out that if I loved comics and I was already a writer, it was silly to not try my hand at writing comics, and I realized that they were right. I began small and pitched to anthologies to get some short stories published, and I built up a portfolio. But I also discovered how much I love writing comics, and it gave me the itch—it’s all I want to do!
What is your new graphic novel, Pillow Talk, about? What inspired this story? And what can readers take away from it?
Pillow Talk is a coming of confidence story about a young woman learning to love herself through the surprising sport of competitive pillow fighting. And while that may seem like a wild concept, it’s inspired by a very real underground pillow fight league that used to exist in Toronto called the Pillow Fight League. It was more like roller derby or wrestling than what you’d think of when you think “pillow fighting,” and I was involved in this league for one wild night (I ended up in the ER thinking I broke my ankle during a match). And while I didn’t end up in the league after that, I thought it could be part of an incredible story… and here we are!
I hope readers take away that our relationships and experiences shape us into the people we become. And the more we embrace being in the moment and pushing our own boundaries, the more we learn about ourselves and grow. While again, this story has a pretty out-there premise and setting, it’s a platform for our main character to discover a new found-family and learn that she can be an absolute badass, even when anxiety and self-doubt tries to tell her otherwise.
What appeals to you about writing for young adult audiences?
We all have different and yet often, similar experiences growing up. While everyone’s journey is unique, the emotions and anxieties that we feel are often very similar. Striving for happiness, successful careers, fitting in, finding yourself, etc. are common goals—so writing for that audience and trying to help normalize that experience, is really satisfying. As I mentioned in my “origin story,” I felt really lost for a lot of my youth, and I bounced around jobs trying to find something that stuck. And I think that it’s okay to be aimless sometimes, and to just do what you gotta do to survive while you figure everything else out because it’s hard. But make sure you also have fun along the way and get the most out of that time—so trying to weave in those feelings to a narrative like in Pillow Talk is tricky, but hopefully validating to the people reading it.
You've worked on original titles as well as IP. How differently, or similarly, do you approach the two?
I have a lot of fun with both! Of course, when you’re working with IP, there’s a lot of other considerations happening. You have to think about continuity, brand pillars, character voices, and all of these other things that you didn’t create yourself—so while you’re putting your own spin on things, you’re also thinking about how this would sound within the larger world and if it matches the vibe. Like with My Little Pony, there’s specific pony slang such as instead of “everybody,” you’d say “everypony.” Or the saying “hand to heart” is “hoof to heart,” etc. But they’re fun touches that add to that experience as a reader and contribute to the extensive worldbuilding for that franchise.
Writing your own books is exciting too though, because the world is blank and you can do whatever you want and whatever works for your story. It can be set in modern Toronto or whatever place, and you have an established world to pull from for the story, or you can create somewhere fictional and come up with everything yourself. It’s truly so fun to pull all of those elements together and create a cohesive (hopefully) story that transports readers into something that previously only existed in your brain.
But overall, writing my own stuff and IP is about having fun in those sandboxes and telling the stories that I want to tell, and ultimately, that’s the vibe I bring to whatever I work on.
Pillow Talk is described as “... a delightful, inclusive, feminist, coming-of-age sports story”. The comics industry has made some strides in being more inclusive, but there's still a ways to go. How does your work, especially Pillow Talk, fit into making the industry more inclusive?
Wow, yeah! I have been in the industry for a long time in a variety of capacities, and it’s been exciting to see that ship steer in terms of inclusivity in the stories themselves and also, when it comes to the creators. But of course, as you say, there’s still a ways to go. The thing that I’m the most proud of with Pillow Talk (and by far the thing we get the most compliments on) is the body diversity in it. We wanted there to be diversity in every aspect, but especially in their bodies because in real life, we come in all shapes and sizes.
I’m generally pretty flexible when it comes to the character designs, but when I was writing the pitch for Pillow Talk, the one thing I didn’t want to compromise on was showing different body types, especially with our main character, Grace. I wanted her to be tall and fat. The word fat shouldn’t automatically be a derogatory word, it’s just a descriptor, and doesn’t mean that you’re unhealthy. I have amazing athletic and fat friends who are incredibly vocal about how they love to be active, but there’s this stigma that if you’re fat, you should only exercise to lose weight. But fat people are allowed to enjoy activity too without the goal of it being weight loss.
When I saw Mel Valentine’s portfolio, I knew that they were the perfect person for the art because they were the only creator in the mix that had character designs depicting body diversity. They were my only choice, and thankfully, my editor agreed and helped champion our vision, which Mel brought to life with such love and passion.
Can you give us a sneak peek into what you are working on next?
So, in addition to writing for teen and young adult audiences, I write a lot of middle-grade graphic novels, such as The Racc Pack, which like Pillow Talk, is also set in Toronto. It’s all about a family of raccoons (well, two raccoons and a possum who thinks he’s a raccoon) as they go on various heists and capers to get food from the humans. The second book just came out at the end of January… and while it’s not officially announced yet, I will say that what I’ve been working on next is also a little trashy… and to stay tuned for more info on that!
Note: Some answers may have been edited for length and clarity.