"It's the only comic out right now that does that. "What I love about 'For Better or for Worse' is that it's in real time," she says. "I really appreciate the crudeness because you can see the evolution that the books take, which is someone growing up."Īs a teenager, Schrag's influences ranged from film (she cites an obsession with "Natural Born Killers") to comic strips, such as Calvin and Hobbes and For Better or for Worse. "The art and storytelling changes so much between the ninth- and 12th-grade books," Schrag says. Neither Simon & Schuster nor Schrag considered editing any of the work she did at ages 15, 16 and 17. It makes me glad that I did it then, when I was sort of in the throes of teenage exhibitionism." I do get sort of shocked at how brazen I was, but I know that I wouldn't write something like that now.
But Schrag feels otherwise: "I'm happy with them. For many of us, the thought of going back and reading - let alone publishing - any of our high school output is cringe-inducing. Now, 10 years later, Simon & Schuster has reprinted all four books. Salt" (with whom Schrag still keeps in touch), to the virginity losing, the getting drunk, the parents splitting up and the coming out, first as bisexual and then as a lesbian. She spent each of her teenage summers narrating, drawing and inking the previous school years' events - often in explicit and hilarious detail, from punk shows in San Francisco to sex talks with cool art teacher "Ms. Berkeley High really gave me a sense of freedom and possibilities." I really felt like I was in control there. For Schrag, going to Berkeley High was like "going to this huge exciting place where anything could happen.
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