Smash Pages Q&A | Jordan Morris on ‘Youth Group’

If you ever participated in church youth groups as a teenager, you owe it to yourself to check out Youth Group by Jordan Morris and Bowen “Bones” McCurdy.

The genuinely funny story features Kay, whose mom coerces her into attending the youth group at their church in Orange County, where Kay gets to participate in singalongs featuring pop songs where the words have been changed to celebrate Jesus and encourage abstinence, and meet overenthusiastic leaders like Meg. She also discovers that she’s a “Blight,” a person who can’t be possessed by demons, which is both helpful and a hindrance because the Stone Mission Church youth group is really a front for a group of demon hunters fighting a war, and her Blight blood makes her a target.

First Second will publish the graphic novel this week, and Morris was kind enough to answer some of my questions about it

Let’s start with your secret origin — when did you first discover comics, and when did you decide you wanted to make them?

I’ve been a comics reader ever since I can remember! My mom used them as tools to get my sister and I to behave in the supermarket. If I could get through a shopping trip without totally embarrassing her, I’d get a Spider-Man, Archie, Mad Magazine, etc. Yes, I am old enough to have gotten my first comics in the supermarket. 

As far as making them goes, I had been a professional writer for a while before getting lucky enough to try my hand at comics. I had always dreamed about working on them, but it was a party I had assumed I’d never be invited to. My first project with a graphic novel adaptation of Bubble, a sci-fi comedy scripted podcast that I created for the Maximum Fun podcast network. I adapted the podcast with a great writer, Sarah Morgan and an amazing artist, Tony Cliff. That opened up the comics doors that I have subsequently flung myself through. 

I have to say that your portrayal of youth groups is scary accurate, at least from my experience. What were your own experiences with church youth groups like — and did you have to exaggerate or play them down in “Youth Group”?

I regret to inform you that all of the most cringe-inducing stuff in Youth Group was pulled from my actual experience. Yes, my Bible study did change the lyrics of pop songs to be about Jesus. My experience was complicated. It helped me through a tough time in my life and I made a lot of great friends, but I also didn’t agree with everything that was going on. I tried to give the characters in the book similar complex relationships to the church. They see how it can help people, but they also have a lot of notes. 

While I did laugh out loud many times while reading the graphic novel, I also liked the feeling of community and acceptance that you conveyed in the story, which came across as touching in many places. It seems like it would be easy to just let this be a parody of religion and faith and horror conventions, but you made something here that’s more layered than that. Was it hard to strike a balance between these different tones — while also adding the horror element on top of it? 

We tried to make sure the characters weren’t just punchlines. If someone is too one-note, it’s hard to follow them for an entire story. Often when you see religious young people in media, they’re pretty ridiculous. I think Rod and Todd Flanders are very funny, but there’s a reason you don’t see many episodes of The Simpsons about them.

As far as stirring in the horror ingredients, we tried to resist the urge to make jokes about horror conventions. We wanted to make sure the characters were the source of the humor and that the horror and danger stayed real and scary. 

Besides your own experiences with church youth groups, what are some of the other influences on Youth Group? 

I love horror comedy that takes the horror stuff seriously. Obviously, Buffy is a big influence on this book. Also, Shaun of the Dead is such a wonderful mix of actually horrific horror and really funny, lived-in relationships. 

What was the collaboration process like between yourself and Bowen McCurdy? 

Bowen was a dream to work with and did a gorgeous job on the book. Their characters are so lively and expressive. They also do big emotions so well and since we’re dealing with teen characters having big teen feelings, Bowen’s style was just perfect. 

They had the brilliant idea of creating a music playlist for each character before we started working. It’s set in the ’90s so it was a blast to revisit all that old music from my high school days. Kay (our main character) is a little spooky and a little mopey, so her playlist was stuff like Tool and Nine Inch Nails. Cortland is a laid-back stoner so he got 311, Sublime, etc. Not only did this help us dial in on the characters but since the playlists were on YouTube we got to revisit all the great/terrible ’90s fashion that made its way into the book. 

What else are you working on at the moment? 

Promoting Youth Group! I’m so proud of the book and want to get it into as many hands as possible so I’ll be hitting the road to cons and book events to (safely) hurl it at whoever is nearby. Please look for me at your local comic con and for Youth Group wherever you get books and comics!