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The Cutest Comic of ADHD Awareness Month

Posted on by L. Dreeye
The Cutest Comic of ADHD Awareness Month

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Eileen’s primary literary love is comics, but she’s always on the lookout for the next literary adventure, whatever form it may take. She has a bachelor’s degree in media studies, a master’s degree in digital communications, a small number of published short stories, and a very cute dog. Follow her on Bluesky.

View all posts by Eileen Gonzalez

October is ADHD Awareness Month, a time to learn and educate others about attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. ADHD is often the butt of jokes and misunderstandings, and stories about neurodivergent people often focus on the negative aspects of their difference. That’s why it’s especially important to look into graphic novels like Get On Up!, a fun comic book featuring neurodivergent characters created by neurodivergent author Tori Sharp. As part of this ADHD Awareness Month, I interviewed Ms. Sharp about her book and the power of positive imagery.

Get up! lidGet up! lid

Get up! follows best friends Clay and Kyle, who have always enjoyed working behind the scenes on school musicals. With high school graduation approaching, Clay is ready for a change and decides to audition for—and land—a role in his next play. (“What better way to figure out who you are than theater?” says Sharp.) But acting isn’t as fun as she’d hoped, and she soon finds she’s more interested in creating an advice podcast with Kyle – and with Denmark, who She has her own reasons for not wanting to participate in the school play.

both from Get up!The main characters are neurodivergent: Clay has ADHD and Kyle has autism. These identities were inspired by, but not directly related to, Sharp’s own neurodiversity.

“Clay’s ADHD and Kyle’s autism aren’t even identical to mine, and I wrote them down,” she says.

She explains that there were two reasons for splitting her personalities into separate characters. First, “(i)f I were to give the presentation of Kyle’s autism and the portrayal of Clay’s ADHD to one character… it might confuse the presentation, and I believe that clarity is the first pillar of writing. The traits of autism and ADHD are so overlapping that in some presentations it can be quite difficult to tell them apart.” And second, “it’s much easier to make good-natured jokes about it if it’s inhabited by two different characters who can bounce it back and forth. But this is a comedy!”

Humor is part of what makes Get up! so unique. While Clay and Kyle’s neurodifferences certainly impact their lives, they are neither a driving force nor a source of concern. Comics (or stories more broadly) featuring neurodivergent characters going on fun adventures are still quite rare. At first glance, the only graphic novel Sharp could come up with with inspiring imagery was Space boywhich featured a character whose synesthesia was “depicted so beautifully” that it “made (Sharpe) love the story even more.” Still, Space boy it’s not so much a fun, feel-good game as it is “a strong sense of hope, even as it deals with trauma and other heavy topics.”

Image courtesy of the author, Sabreen Lakhani.

Seven million children in the United States are diagnosed with ADHD, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. Many children (including Sharp, who didn’t realize she might have ADHD until she went to college) go undiagnosed. Because ADHD doesn’t magically go away when a child turns 18, this means millions of adults live with it and need support too.

Stories like Get up! play a vital role in spreading awareness and compassion. They help neurodivergent readers see that “having to go at your own pace is never a bad thing,” while neurotypical readers better understand the people they know (or may know in the future) who see and experience the world differently. -different. .

“There is as much diversity within a neurodivergent population as there is within a neurotypical population; this is part of the idea of ​​STAND UP!” says Sharp. “Each of us discovers our own scene, our own values.”