Some of us might hold fond memories of the good old days of middle school. For all the not-so-happy others tagged as nerds, or worse, middle school was a battleground and battlefield of insult and injury, fear of the unknown meshed with a sinking dread one might make it home in one piece. Because even in middle school, where we should enjoy a peaceful transition to adolescence, many of us can’t forget, which is what Tony Weaver, Jr. and Weirdo hope to ameliorate.
Weaver, who heads a non-profit that advocates for improving mental health and learning self-acceptance, has penned this graphic memoir to show how he overcame bullying as a pre-teen to embrace his inner weirdness. Weirdo does not shy away from the hard conversations; rather, Weaver uses his childhood experiences to communicate the importance of addressing the emotional dissonance that arise from what some consider middle school hijinks. And he approaches mental health with a gentle but humorous touch that should be required reading for parents.
The Beat talked to Weaver about Weirdo, his work with Weird Enough Productions and his journey towards self-acceptance and self-love.
Nancy Powell: What is Weirdo all about?
Tony Weaver, Jr.: It’s the nerdy kid’s instruction manual to self-love and self-confidence. It is a middle-grade graphic novel that chronicles my personal experiences overcoming depression, anxiety, and suicide and learning how to love myself in the process. A lot of kids are struggling with their mental health today, and when my mental health was in jeopardy, stories are what saved me, so I created a story to help save kids who are dealing with the same thing. We talk about these concepts that can be really heavy, but it’s ultimately a positive and joyful story filled with lots of anime and video game references that help people feel seen and recognized.
Powell: Why did you choose the graphic novel format to tell this story?
Weaver: I’m a huge comic book and manga fan, especially manga! When I was younger, manga stories were the ones that really spoke to me, and my big priority when creating this book was that I wanted to make sure that it engaged young people and was something that they were able to immediately dive into. Also, when you look at market trends right now about how interested kids are in manga and graphic novels, it just made sense for this book to be in that format. Additionally, I think that illustrations and images can talk in ways that words can’t, and the illustrators I was able to partner with on this book, Jes & Cin, did a wonderful job of creating these immersive moments that I think drive the story home.
Powell: Reading your story brought back some pretty painful experiences about being “different,” but I think you handled it gracefully. Can you talk how the story developed?
Weaver: So, Weirdo is a memoir, and it is an extremely truthful memoir. 99.9% of the events in the story are ripped directly from my real life, with some names and very tiny details changed, so I did not need to “develop” the story much. If anything, I had to take some stuff out, and I had to figure out what events made sense to best explore. They’re all experiences that I overcame, experiences that I found friends through, and that really to me embodies the spirit of the book.
Powell: And how long did it take you to write?
Weaver: It took me an entire lifetime to create this story. When the time came to sit down and write it, I spent a couple of months outlining in my notebook, not really writing but just identifying what events I thought were most important and what sequence they should appear in in the story. Once I had all that together, I put it on paper in roughly a month. This book was really important to me and it was in my heart from the beginning. I also think that as a writer, I just move pretty quick.
Powell: Growing up, which superheroes did you turn to to let off emotional steam?
Weaver: I was much more of a manga fan than a superhero fan. I had an action figure of Spider Man 2099, which is wild considering how popular he is now. I love the resurgence of Miguel O’Hara, but I spent a lot of time with Naruto, members of the Hidden Leaf Village, Rock Lee, Gaara from the Village Hidden in the Sand. I think Naruto was really that series for me, it was definitely the thing that gave me a safe place. There’s a moment in Weirdo where we do a pretty heavy reference to Rock Lee’s fight versus Gaara during the Chūnin Exams, because that moment where Rock Lee is in the midst of this fight, and he ultimately loses but his sensei is proud of him anyway, it certainly meant a lot to me!
Powell: Your work in Weird Enough Productions has put you in the spotlight. How has that been for your own mental health, and what do you message do you want readers to take from this?
Weaver: I will say, transparently, I think I had to relearn positive mental health habits for myself while running Weird Enough Productions. I started it while I was a junior in college, specifically because I was deeply aware of how the youth mental health crisis was affecting kids even before COVID. In an effort to support kids with this deep passion that I had, I ended up exhibiting a line of behavior that was really damaging to me. I wasn’t getting enough rest, I wasn’t letting my team members get the rest that they needed, and I was in ‘go’ mode all the time. Ultimately, that wasn’t sustainable. My heart was in the right place, because I was deeply passionate about helping kids to this point where I was willing to sacrifice bits of myself to make sure that that happened.
What I learned is that if I really love the work that I’m doing and I really want to create impact, I have to love it enough to learn how to do it sustainably. Part of that is why Weirdo came about, because I was jumping across the country to two to three cities a week trying to do workshops for kids, and as one person I can only do so much, but a book can live in places where I can’t. A book can exist in every classroom, every locker, every backpack, and every bookshelf, and that commitment to doing work for positive mental health sustainably is where the book came from.
Powell: Kids today face unenviable pressures to succeed and conform in today’s world, and the pressures do not seem to subside. What do you think society and parents could realistically do to advocate for these mental health issues?
Weaver: I think that a lot of the pressures that kids are dealing with come from the private sector. Unfortunately, we live in a world in which the public education system has been formed into a training ground for the future needs of the private sector, and I just don’t think that’s how things should be. I think that the public education system should be a place focused on allowing students to develop intelligence and agency so that they can live the lives that they want to live. As long as we let our national curriculum be shifted at the behest of whatever random negative externality the private sector is dealing with, there’s always going to be this overt pressure on kids.
I think it starts with the public education system at large. That kind of systemic change is going to take a while. So, while we wait, I think parents just need to be very clear with their kids about the love they have for them and the fact that their support is not conditional. I think a lot of kids don’t overtly hear that from their parents, knowing that “hey, I love you for who you are as an individual and not just for what you produce academically.” I think that starting with those conversations can help kids walk into these rooms with a bit less pressure, but ultimately, we have to shift the system at large.
Powell: I also think parents have a blind spot when it comes to success, with many high achieving ones forgetting once upon a time how their younger selves were treated. How might parents go about educating themselves on how to manage the pressures their kids face?
Weaver: I think the meaningful, but also slightly trite, answer here is that you have to have a relationship with your kids. The reason that a lot of young people struggle with mental health is because their parents struggle with mental health, their parents were kids whose mental health was not supported, and now they’ve grown up and they have children whose mental health they are not supporting. There’s a certain level of generational healing that needs to happen to support young people today.
When my mom got me therapy, that was a huge thing because my mom hadn’t been to therapy, my dad hadn’t been to therapy, and they were both certainly in places where they could benefit from it, but mental health just wasn’t something that they thought about. In the Black community, especially, many of us are in survival mode, and are just really focused on “go, go, go, survive, survive, survive,” and when you live your whole life like that, and then you bring a child into that life, it gets a little difficult for you to look at a child and try to prioritize their agency and freedom while you can’t simultaneously prioritize those things in your own personal life. I think parents bring pressures that they have to their kids, and they have to do personal work to dispel that stuff first.
Powell: If you could give any advice to your younger self knowing what you know now, what would that be?
Weaver: I would say play video games with your friends more! As an adult, one of the things that I miss most is being able to hop on to Maplestory or Halo 3 and see that lobby with 16 people in it where I can just go and play games with my buddies. Those are relationships, many of which I still have to this day, but I wish I spent more time cultivating those things. Even when I was in college and I was building Weird Enough, I kind of holed myself in my room and didn’t take advantage of the opportunity to really build social communities and networks. That’s the advice I think I would give to my younger self: You don’t have to do everything alone. If you’re able to overcome some of that apprehension that you have for facing people and dealing with people, there’s some really amazing humans that are waiting to be in community with you.
Powell: Any parting words you’d like to make regarding the new graphic novel? Will this be a continuing series?
Weaver: It is my goal for many series to take place in the world of Weirdo! They likely won’t be as biographical as the first book, but if there’s anyone that’s curious about the book or is really on the fence, what I want you to know is that it’s a positive story. Some people are inclined to avoid conversations about mental health, but these aren’t things that we can’t avoid. You either have the conversation when you want to, or you have the conversation when you have to, but the conversation is going to happen.
I really wrote it to be a resource for kids and for every adult, whether that’s a parent, a teacher, or a librarian, that has a young person in their life that they care about to help them navigate that mental health journey. It’s a journey that all of us have to go on, and I think Weirdo is just a great way to equip them for that. It’s not just a book; I call it a sword. It’s a sword crafted upon a lifetime of experiences that I hope readers will use to slay any dragon that stands in the way of them and their personal goals!
And now, an exclusive preview of Weaver’s new graphic memoir Weirdo, which goes on sale at bookstores September 17, 2024:
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