Talking Oni Press’ ‘Hey, Mary!’ With Andrew Wheeler and Rye Hickman

Try as he might to ignore his feelings, Mark knows he’s gay. What he’s less sure about is what being gay means as a practicing Catholic. It’s in the midst of this personal crisis that writer Andrew Wheeler and artist Rye Hickman‘s new graphic novel, Hey, Mary!, begins. With colors by Hank Jones and letters by Frank Cvetkovic, here’s what Wheeler and Hickman had to share about their book and helping readers who might be going through similar experiences:

Rachel Bellwoar: Talking to kids about sex (especially in relation to religion) can be a charged subject, yet we see what not talking does in Hey, Mary! – how isolated Mark becomes because he doesn’t feel comfortable or safe going to anyone with his concerns. Adults struggle with these questions around faith and sexuality, too, but did you always want to make Hey, Mary! for young adults and what has that process been like?

Rye Hickman: I would argue that it’s less not talking about sex and more not talking about sexuality that provides one piece of Mark’s initial feelings of isolation. And we’ve seen, historically, that conflating the two has always been bad news for the queer community. I think that Mark’s story is emblematic of the struggles all teens go through, and queer teens in particular, so it makes perfect sense to tell our story to them first. That said, I really do think Hey, Mary! can resonate for grown-ups as well as for young adults!

Andrew Wheeler: I hope we’ve told a story that can resonate with people at all ages of life, but the most important audience to reach was always going to be teens and young people, because that’s the age when queer people are most likely to start asking questions about their identity and least likely to know where to turn for answers.

I want to pick up on the use of the word “sex” in your question, because I think it might be misleading. “Sex” is always the thing Christians need to be protected from and “family” is always the thing that needs to be protected, but that framing is artificial and designed to be prejudicial. Christians have sex and queer people have family, and this is a book about family.

Bellwoar: Was the title, Hey, Mary!, chosen as a riff off Oh, Mary! or had you picked it before Cole Escola’s play hit the zeitgeist?

Wheeler: It’s one of those moments of weird synchronicity, but there’s no relationship there! “Hey, Mary” is a blending of queer colloquialism with the literal meaning of “Hail Mary.” My Image book Sins of the Black Flamingo was originally just called Black Flamingo, but another book came out with that title while we were still in development, so these things happen!

Bellwoar: Mark initially looks to religious paintings for answers. Were those paintings a big inspiration for you as well?   

Hickman: I absolutely loved getting to invoke those religious paintings! It felt like I got to sneak little master studies into the book. I found them very inspirational – queer history can be and has been erased, but it’s hard to argue that historical queer people never existed when you’re faced with the loving attention some artist gave to his rendering of Saint Sebastian’s abs.

Bellwoar: What was it like coming up with your own take on the Stations of the Cross for the chapter title pages?

Hickman: That was the area where I got the most editorial feedback, actually! I’d done my research and decided on some very plain framing for the stations. No one liked it- and I suppose it wasn’t terribly Catholic, not nearly flamboyant enough, to quote our character Jojo, so I went back to the drawing board and came up with the framing you see in the book. But as far as coming up with the content of each station, that was great fun, because I got to riff off the various compositions that hundreds of artists before me had come up with. It felt like doing a silly little dance on the shoulders of giants.

Bellwoar: Mark and Luka’s relationship evolves a lot over the course of Hey, Mary!. How was it depicting that friendship visually?

Hickman: I love the way that Mark and Luka’s relationship shifts throughout the story! Mark is, physically, fairly self-contained and tense for most of the book, while Luka, farther along on his own journey, exudes relaxation and confidence. There’s a sweet moment near the end where we get to see beneath Luka’s facade a little bit- and I had a good time shifting Mark’s body language during that moment, as he finds his own confidence.

Bellwoar: When did the conceit of having Mark be able to talk to historical figures come in and did you enjoy getting to come up with voices for Joan of Arc and Michelangelo?

Wheeler: The idea of speaking to saints as intercessors to God is core Catholic dogma, so that’s part of the conceit of these conversations, but it’s also a more engaging way to articulate Mark’s struggles. I love how Rye brought these figures to life, so that we get a real moment of horror with Savonarola, for example, while Sergius and Bacchus become these heartthrob pin-ups through Mark’s eyes.

Joan was always Joan, very assured and direct, but Michelangelo went through a few changes, and at one point had a longer sequence. I kept wanting to write him as humble, but Michelangelo knew he was a rockstar!

Bellwoar: Like Mark, I wasn’t aware how many Catholic saints and artists were also queer. In a time when we’re seeing organized efforts to erase history, why is it crucial that these stories keep being told?

Wheeler: For the people who hate us, the fact that we’re real people is an unbearable inconvenience. The haters force us to keep insisting on our existence — in history, in the future, in every country and culture. Stories are one of the ways we can do that, and we will keep doing it until our existence is undeniable.

People complain about queerness being “forced” into sci-fi movies or superhero comics or video games set in the past, but it only looks like we’re forcing our way in because they want to keep us out. We belong everywhere.

Bellwoar: Thanks for agreeing to this interview, Andrew and Rye!

Hey, Mary! is on sale now from Oni Press.