Meet the author

Jason Walz.

Writer & illustrator · United States

Jason Walz: cartoonist whose intense, tender graphic novels, including The Flip Side, use the language of horror to render grief and depression honestly for older teen readers.

Jason Walz is an American cartoonist based in Minneapolis who spent many years as a special-education teacher, and whose graphic novels are shaped by that work and by his own experience of loss. He is the creator of the Last Pick trilogy and of Homesick, a story about a young man facing his mother's terminal illness that drew on Walz's own life. His teen graphic novel The Flip Side uses the language of supernatural horror to render grief and depression: after his best friend dies, Theo's world literally flips upside down into a haunting alternate reality that embodies his despair. Visually striking and emotionally intense, it is a raw but ultimately hopeful book about loss, mental illness and the hard work of climbing back toward the light. Walz writes for older readers with unflinching honesty and real tenderness, making him a considered choice for teens who have known grief.