Hey, Mary! Writer Andrew Wheeler (Cat Fight, another castle) and visual narrator Rye Hickman (a miserable, bad dream) were released by Oni Press on Tuesday, April 15th, 2025.
Hey’s official explanation, Mary! “Mark is a good Catholic boy. He goes to church, says prayers, spends too much time worrying about hell. When he realizes that Mark is in love with another boy at his school, he struggles to reconcile his faith with the weight of shame and judgment over the centuries, and benefits from the charm of clients from his charms from drug latents. The figures of Catholic history and lore, including Joan of Ark, Michelangelo, St. Sebastian and Savonarola, can finally answer the question.
Beat will be releasing Mary before the release of the graphic novel on April 15th, 20225! We spoke with Andrew Wheeler and Ly Hickman, the creative team of . Hey, Mary, Mary! Read on to learn more about how the book’s visual language has evolved, their experience releasing stories about the growth of “Queer of the Family of Faith” in this political climate, and the fear of Hickman travelling to promote his work.
Ollie Kaplan: Hey, Mary! Did the inspiration and the character draw from your personal experience? If yes, what role does Catholicism play in your life today?
Andrew Wheeler: Hey, Mary’s main character! It’s Mark, a proud teenager in a Catholic family whose feelings for his friend, Luka, confused him. He seeks guidance from the people of his life, but also receives unexpected advice from his appearances from saints and history. From that explanation, I might tell you that it’s not an autobiographical story! Nonetheless, it is a very personal story. Because it articulates my own struggle between my faith and my strangeness. I grew up in the church, and Catholicism is the foundation of my values, beliefs, and relationships with the universe! I lived this struggle, but in a way, this book is an act of faith.
Kaplan: Rai, I can’t find any information about your spiritual background, so feel free to answer this question as well if it suits your personal and/or family history.
Rye Hickman: I actually grew up in an evangelical church. That’s when Andrew approached me about Hey, Mary! I was amazed at how similar my teenage experience in church was to the experience of our main character, Mark. Much of his struggles between his faith and his newly discovered strangeness appears to be rather universal. I am truly looking forward to the book that reaches all kinds of Christian readers.
Photo Credit: ONI Press
Kaplan: You’re on Gamesradar, Mary! Like Mark, the main character of the film, you said you grew up “strangely in a family of faith.” How do you hope that Mark’s story will help both LGBTQ+ and CIS-HET readers understand what it is like to be strange in a family of faith?
Wheeler: I hope that queer readers will see themselves at work. I hope that everyone who reads it can see humanity on both sides of this equation, even if experience is not exactly theirs.
Kaplan: Have you had any stereotypes or ratios you’re trying to talk about like Mark in mainstream media, or you’ve intentionally tried to avoid giving up?
Wheeler: I don’t think I was really thinking about it from a stereotype perspective. JoJo is a gender care drug performer, which is a brutal time for gender-diverse people and drug performers. Is there a scene where JoJo was reading kids in the library and who knew it would be controversial?
Photo Credit: ONI Press
Kaplan: How did you develop visual cues that convey Mary’s visual language, especially internal conflict?
Hickman: Mary, I decided to ink Mary! Traditionally, I’ve always been a brush guy. Brush offers a very flexible and organic markmaking opportunity. I was expanding with Emmanata’s ideas in the background. It’s a long, faint, dark tendril when Mark feels a vertical “speed line” when he is absolutely amazed. I think it’s a bit experimental, but I’ve been doing it in some way for a while. When traditionally done it worked very well and I was really hooked on it.
Kaplan: Hay, are there some Mary? You are especially proud of it.
Hickman: The whole book is an incredible achievement. Comics do a lot of work and the effort of the team! We are extremely grateful to our colorist Hank Jones, his thoughtful touch and gorgeous palette, and our letterer Frank Kvetkovich for bringing the dialogue to life. The book has a sequence in which our non-binary drug queen, JoJo, tells several biblical stories to Mark and his friend/Crashluka. I think teamwork really sings in that sequence. I’m very proud of that.
Wheeler: This is a fun collaboration and I am endlessly grateful to Rye, Hank and Frank for bringing their hearts and souls to the page! The scene where Mark meets the saints in the library is my favorite due to the saints’ personality and the audacity of the sequence. The chapters where Mark sits with his parents towards the end of the book are really important to do the right thing, and Rye’s acting and storytelling really sold the moment. There are many fantastic moments in this book, but it’s a chapter where everything is absolutely grounded.
Photo Credit: ONI Press
Kaplan: This is an adult story, so I would like to ask you about your journey as a creative and people. Like Mark, did religious iconography play a role in understanding your sexuality and gender expression?
Hickman: I think religious iconography is an interesting lens for looking at sexuality and gender representations, but here there is a very different place from Mark. The evangelical symbolism is because in the mid-2000s, EMO children pretended not to notice while adopting vegetable tales, WWJD bracelets and EMO senses. Ah, and I think it’s the video game that follows the left. I’m kidding.
However, Catholics are walking here swooped, and fortunately I experienced it in my art history course. Thanks to one of them, I was very engrossed in Sandro Botticelli’s work. Botticelli’s figure was elegant and idealized, and he was a rare painter who appeared to paint people first and the second to paint gender. I’m not sure if that makes exact sense, but maybe I’m projecting it, but there are still manuals that draw manuals that claim that men and women need to approach them differently than the first line you put. You feel like you can see the difference, and on top of that, Botticelli portrays in great detail the kind of gender expression that was fashionable in his time, but which is meaningless in our modern structure. All of this has made me crazy and helped me to see the rigid binary of my world being invented and adaptable.
Wheeler: When it comes to iconography, Catholics absolutely reveal it. The portrait of St. Sebastian is the trigger for Mark’s awakening, for good reason. A saint has set a bell on the heads of gay boys for centuries. St. Sebastian and Michelangelo’s David are like the aisle of men’s underwear in a Catholic department store.
Of course, I had the comics as well, and the colossus of Rick Leonardi woke up just as well! The cartoon and the church were two places where a boy could see his abs in front of the internet. There is a strange parallel between his relationship with Catholicism and his relationship with comics. Because comics were another formative influence that was excluded from homophobia. We’ve seen progress, and a lot of it is performance. The comic industry is not a business that compensates for the harms of the past. The fact that this story could be told in comic form feels like a victory.
Photo Credit: ONI Press
Kaplan: I love goat photos on your social media accounts. Could you tell me more about your goat?
Wheeler: I went on a farm trip when I was little. There we were all given sachets of feed for the animals, and the goats stole my bags and devoured them. After that, I was scared of goats for a long time! But I love the exile and I came to love the goats because they are unfairly malicious like the devil. The idea of a scapegoat is an undeniable bearer of the sin of other people, and is just one of many insults that can be held responsible in the Leviticus.
I’m lucky enough to live near City Farm at Riverdale Farm (not related to Archie). Checking out “My Goat” was a very enjoyable excuse for an afternoon walk!
Kaplan: I’ve heard that he’s participating in Prism’s Q con. Can you tell me what you look forward to most and why attending small, weird practices is essential to you? (Interviewer note: I was confused by the guest on the Prism’s Q Con podcast!)
Hickman: I don’t know where I heard it. I haven’t been to Prism’s Q Con this year. But I’d like to see if it could be viable in 2026. Sounds like a great experience! I’m very happy it exists.
Photo Credit: ONI Press
Kaplan: Is there anything else you would like to add?
Hickman: Hay, I am very grateful to Oni Press for supporting Mary! And we are pleased to see that readers are now able to experience it!
Wheeler: This is a scary time when this book will be released to the world. I feel like I can’t even travel safely to the US to promote it, and books may have a hard time reaching people who need to read it because of the way schools and libraries are stripping their freedom. Oni is fearless about his support for this book and I am also grateful for the Comic Beat that we spoke!
Hey, Mary! Andrew Wheeler and Rye Hickman hit storefronts on April 15th, 2025. Published by ONIPress and distributed by Simon & Schuster. Get a copy here!
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