The Obsessed Issue
The Zine-O-Sphere #005: Wherein "Our Hero" becomes this zinester's new favorite unhinged teen drama
Nothing—and I mean nothing— beats the AUDACITY of Canadian Teen Television.
Seriously. Even as someone who grew up in an Democrat-only, NPR/PBS household, there are just some portions of the American childhood experience you can’t escape, including abstinence education and “sanitized” media.
Still, my generation was lucky enough to find Canadian teen television in the form of three particular shows on Teen Nick and the Disney Channel: Naturally, Sadie; Life With Derek; and of course, Degrassi: The Next Generation.
Now, you all need to know something about Canadian teen soaps—they do not shy away from anything. They cover everything. Teen pregnancy? Yup. Unprotected sex? Definitely. Sexual Harassment and Assault? Yeah. Queer characters and storylines? Absolutely. Bullying? For sure. Suicide and mental illness? Of course. Substance abuse? Well, duh. Cancer? Yes… School gun violence? *sigh* Unfortunately.
In other words, Canadian teen soaps make shows like The Secret Life of the American Teenager and Dawson’s Creek look like primary school shit.
The very first episode of Degrassi: The Next Generation is about Emma Nelson escaping a child predator she met on the Internet. There are not one but TWO episodes within the first season of Degrassi about eighth and ninth graders doing DRUGS and facing actual consequences for it. Season 2 brings the arrival of Craig Manning, a troubled teen with an abusive dad who, spoiler alert, DIES shortly after Craig is removed from his home by Canada’s version of CPS. (The dad dies, not Craig.) In Season 3, fourteen-year-old Manny Santos has unprotected sex, gets pregnant, and THEN has an abortion in the span of a month…at fourteen.
Lest we forget about the infamous thong scene burned into our millennial/Gen Z memories—
(Me too, JT…me too.)
American Teen Shows could never. I love Dawson’s Creek, the OC, and Gilmore Girls as much as the next white millennial, but they could NEVER. (Except maybe that insane plot where Pacey Witter loses his virginity to his English Teacher…what the heck was that???)
For almost fifty years, Degrassi has never shied away from covering the real, raw truth of being a teenager. Similarly, everyone who watched Life With Derek in the mid-2000s was painfully aware of the ridiculous, border-line uncomfortable chemistry present between step-siblings, Casey and Derek. That’s honesty on a level most of us can’t even acknowledge because it’s just that taboo.
Obviously, Canadian teens are much better equipped to handle the pressures and pitfalls of adolescence and early adulthood with shows like these running on their TVs. Right?
My fascination with Canadian teen television has always existed in some form or another. So, by the time I discovered Our Hero, a Canadian teen drama about a girl who makes zines, I felt like I’d somehow struck gold.
Here’s the premise—
Kale Stiglic is just a regular teenage girl, except she’s also really cool cause she makes and distributes a monthly zine entitled Our Hero. Alongside besties Mary Elizabeth Penrose (religious nut) and Ross Korolus (gay bff), Kale moves through the teen girl world with a spectacular talent for documenting her every thought, action, and lesson in the photocopied pages of her zines.
Told in alternating live action shots and collaged, stop-motion animation, Our Hero is easily one of the most unique teen shows I’ve ever seen. In the vein of Lizzie McGuire, Kale learns all the important lessons a teen has to learn—the importance of true friendship, unimaginable heartbreak, grief, and, of course, the running theme that things may not always be as they seem. Unlike Lizzie McGuire, the show tackles topics in the way Degrassi does. Nothing is off the table.
The first episode is about a fight between Kale and her dad, a newspaper comedy columnist. He’s written about a particularly embarrassing moment from her life, without her permission. Kale is understandably furious and seeks to take revenge on her dad by publishing old, saucy love letters written between him and her mother in the place of his column.
Sooo embarrassing, right?
Except—those letters were NOT addressed to her mother. Kale unintentionally publishes letters from her father to his mistress and threatens the very foundation of her parents’ marriage, forcing her to reconsider her actions and come to terms with the fact that revenge is often not the best policy.
Other episodes in the first season follow Kale as she goes on dates with hot guys from the copy place, becomes “zine famous,” and gets a job at a health food store to afford to print additional copies of her zines. Yup. You heard that right. A character who makes zines and works in a health food store is named KALE. Like, her parents thought it would be a good idea to name a child after a LEAF??? What is this, Portland? (No, it’s Toronto.)
Now, we can’t forget Kale’s older brother, Ethan. He’s going through a period of separation from his super hot wife and attempting to become a stand-up comedian. (Apparently, you can make this stuff up.)
Unbelievably, there’s an episode where Ethan gets completely hammered and kisses Kale’s ultra-Catholic, sixteen-year-old best friend Mary E. (Keep in mind, Ethan is married and probably in his mid-20s.) This all leads to an utterly awkward confession scene in which Mary E. admits to her Priest that she wanted to kiss Ethan and the only reason they STOPPED is because she saw a “naked lady dog tag” hanging around his neck…taking it as “a sign from God” she shouldn’t be there.
Yeah, I have no words and neither does her Priest.
On a more serious note, the episode I cannot stop thinking about is Season 1, Episode 2, wherein Kale writes about an erotic dream she had about her English Teacher, Mr. Henry. When I tell you all I audibly gasped at how real this episode felt to me, I mean it. It felt like I was watching my younger self try to flirt with her married male teachers in high school. I paused it a few times to take some obligatory second-hand embarrassment breaks and scream into a pillow.
The episode culminates in Mr. Henry reading Kale’s zine (i.e. the wet dream) and inviting her to a movie. If your mind immediately went “Danger, Will Robinson” in response to that, so did mine. I was petrified for her, already expecting the worst.
Instead, Mr. Henry gives Kale some really solid advice about life, passion, and creativity. He tells her about this affair he had with a woman in Hong Kong and how it fundamentally altered his approach to being. Kale is completely enamored with his zest for life and admits in her final voiceover, “For the record, I do not want to sleep with Mr. Henry. I think the point of my dream was that I find him attractive because 1. he has something to say to me and 2. he has passion and isn’t afraid to use it.”
I appreciated this nuanced point. As someone who has struggled with crushes on older people in the past, it can be difficult to parse through those feelings and identify which is which. It gave voice to something I could never articulate before now. The fact that Kale and Mr. Henry end on pleasant, appropriate terms is quite stunning. It’s also fairly realistic. It’s exactly what happened to me. This is the first show I’ve ever seen portray it in such a direct, destigmatized way.
Yes, you can make the argument that this show is just as cheesy as most unhinged teen dramas are. Then again, it’s so much more than the stereotype. The zine element brings something fresh to an otherwise cringe-y display of teen awkwardness and all-too-familiar life lessons. Kale’s episodic reflections make sense within the context of her zine. The stop-animation sequences and collages are equally unique and surprisingly hysterical.
The production itself appears to employ the same DIY ethos it spotlights. Our Hero is scrappy, inventive, and, at times, entirely self-aware. There is no room for censorship or tip-toeing around the issues here. Everything is out in the open in the best possible way. Queer characters are treated like real, complex people. Teenagers experiment openly with sex and drugs. Kale learns important lessons without the heavy-handed lectures typical of most American teen dramas. She learns by experiencing life on life’s terms. She makes her own decisions and lives out the consequences of those decisions no matter what. For a teen drama with this many insane subplots, Our Hero is remarkably grounded.
The same could easily be said of zines and self-publishing. These are spaces where we can be free to talk as openly as we’d like about any topic we’d like. When we make zines, we have the opportunity to create the kind of work traditional publishing models often limit or outright reject.
As Kale discovers throughout the first half of Season 1, her zines provide her with an important outlet for creative expression. She gains confidence and challenges herself to be better. Her voice soars with each new issue. I’d like to think that feeling is what drew most of us to zines in the first place—our desperate need for expression on our own terms.
Well—that, plus a wink from the hot clerk behind the Kinko’s counter certainly doesn’t hurt, right? 😉
Upcoming Zine Workshops, Events, and Other Stuff
Society of Illustrators MoCCA Arts Fest 2025: Manhattan’s largest indie comics & cartoon festival happening Saturday, March 15 and Sunday, March 16! This multimedia event draws over 8,000 attendees and over 400 exhibiting artists that exemplify the limitless aesthetic and social power of comics and cartooning. Get tickets here.
The IE Print Zine Fest is happening this weekend from 11am-6pm on March 15th. S/o to Miquela Davis for letting me know about this one!
The Biggest Little Zine Fair and PLACE.LB are cohosting a Zine Workshop on March 29th from 12-4pm. Check it out, if you’re in the Long Beach area!
‘Til Next Time!
Hi zine friends! I’m so glad to be back amongst the living and writing about zine culture again. If you want to watch any of Our Hero, you can find it on YouTube. I am planning a whole series about this show and diving deep into the nuances of its portrayal of early-2000s zine culture. I hope you all follow along!
If anyone has any resources, thoughts, or zines to share with me, please leave ‘em in the comments below. I would love to hear from you :)
Happy Zine Making!
This was such a fun read, thanks for the introduction!
My only experience with Canadian teen television is the bits in "How I met your Mother" where they make fun of it 🤣