LOS ANGELES — Disney “The Energy of Pleasure” content material creator and Kirkus Finest E book of the 12 months creator, Tony Weaver, has been nominated for a Will Eisner Comedian Business Award for his debut novel “Weirdo.” The Eisners, usually known as the “Oscars of the comedian ebook world,” are introduced every year at San Diego Comedian-Con. If he wins, the Atlanta native would be the first Black creator to take house the Finest Publication for Youngsters award.
For Weaver, his comedian ebook stardom started with struggles in early childhood, when he was bullied for the variations that make him a hit in the present day.
“Folks advised me I used to be misplaced, that I used to be unorthodox,” he mentioned. “And people are the varieties of phrases and emotions that I began to affiliate with myself.”
That exterior bullying grew to become inside ache. It tarnished Weaver’s self-image all through his adolescence. Hopeless and alone, he tried to finish his life as a youngster.
“I did not really feel like my life had worth,” Weaver mentioned. “In that darkish second, the issues that saved me had been tales — comedian books, manga, anime, video video games. Seeing all these completely different characters battle their trials and tribulations made me really feel like I might, too, in moments after I wasn’t comfy speaking to my mother and father and did not have any associates.”
The tales that saved Weaver’s life impressed him to develop into a storyteller in his personal proper. Below his banner, “Bizarre Sufficient Productions,” Weaver makes movies for his following of greater than 1 million throughout Instagram and TikTok, leads psychological well being and self-love workshops for youngsters in faculties and, after all, has authored the very ebook that is served as a beacon for younger folks just like the Tony of outdated.
For Weaver, this work reconciles the place he is been together with his psychological well being journey and the way he desires to assist different younger folks with theirs. A method he leads this effort is by creating position fashions and sharing assets with susceptible younger folks by way of his writing – particularly for Black youngsters and different youngsters of colour.
“We stay in a world the place there are extra books about animals and anthropomorphic objects than there are about youngsters of colour,” Weaver mentioned. “So, if you find yourself a baby of colour and also you need to determine the place you belong, the place are you speculated to look?”
It is a lack of illustration and belonging that Weaver has seen firsthand working with youngsters in faculties. Based on him, youngsters as younger as fourth and fifth grade had been already creating detrimental concepts about themselves; concepts that led him to need to quit as a youngster.
“That made me cease and go, ‘Wait, who advised you that? Who put these limits on you? Who advised you there was one thing you could not be?'” Weaver mentioned. “Suicide and despair charges amongst younger persons are the best they have been since we began measuring. And for younger folks of colour, we’re in a really troublesome place.”
Based on the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention, suicide charges amongst males ages 15 to 24 rose greater than 18% between 2014 and 2023, peaking in 2021 at almost 24 suicides (23.8) per 100,000 younger males within the US. For Black teenagers, charges almost doubled between 2014 and 2023. Whereas it is an issue larger than one individual, Weaver wished to be one individual making small adjustments in a giant method.
“The highly effective factor about tales is that they are often anyplace,” Weaver mentioned. “The explanation I made a decision to make ‘Weirdo’ a ebook is as a result of it may be in all of the locations that I can not be. It may be in each locker, each classroom, each backpack, each house.”
For his writing specifically, Weaver’s objective is to craft an ecosystem of assist that reaches by way of the web page and welcomes its concepts as a device for survival.
“My ebook, ‘Weirdo,’ is what I name the nerdy child’s instruction guide for self-love and self-confidence,” Weaver mentioned. “However after I speak about it to folks, what I inform them is that it is greater than a ebook. It is a sword cast in a lifetime of expertise.”
Weaver additionally traces his storytelling inspirations again to the Walt Disney Co., the place heroes like Hercules helped him foster his personal “zero to hero” moments amid the darkish experiences of his youth.
“The Walt Disney Co. has the biggest ecosystem of tales in human historical past,” Weaver mentioned. “Once we sit again and mirror on the truth that this one organization-whenever they’ve one thing to say, each time there is a movie they need to put within the world-people present up. Once they current characters, folks resonate with them. And for me, I wished folks to resonate with my writing like that.”
It is a spirit he carries into his work as Disney “The Energy of Pleasure” creator.
“To me, a Disney ‘The Energy of Pleasure’ creator is an individual utilizing their platform and the work they put into the world to encourage the identical pleasure Disney hopes to deliver viewers with their tales,” Weaver mentioned. “I’ve had the privilege to hitch this group of creators who’re centered and invested in bringing pleasure to the world.”
To his followers and those that look to tales for hope, Weaver hopes to channel the ability of pleasure right into a guiding mild for many who want it most.
“Each time it will get darkish, there may be all the time mild on the opposite aspect,” he mentioned. “All we now have to do is preserve transferring ahead, and we’ll discover that factor that’ll information us house. And as soon as we get there, it is our job to be that mild for different folks.”
In case you are experiencing suicidal ideas, substance use or different psychological well being crises please name or textual content the brand new three-digit code at 988. You’ll attain a skilled disaster counselor without cost, 24 hours a day, seven days per week. It’s also possible to go to 988lifeline.org.
Andres Rovira, Dean Singleton, and Daisy Macias contributed to this report.
