Nick, 16, and Charlie, 15, sit facet by facet on the sofa, watching a film. Charlie has fallen asleep, arm outstretched, palm going through upward.

Nick (Equipment Connor) gazes at a sleeping Charlie (Joe Locke) — first with tenderness, then with trepidation. His eyes dart right down to Charlie’s hand and the strain is palpable.

When he reaches out and lets his hand hover above Charlie’s, sparks fly, in a literal sense, onscreen. Tiny animated stars and lightning bolts burst with the quiet sound of fireworks. A heat yellow glow envelops the area between the boys’ palms.

This second comes towards the top of the second episode — aptly titled “Crush” — of “Heartstopper,” the wealthy coming-of-age love story that not too long ago arrived on Netflix.

“Heartstopper” has racked up one inconceivable success after one other because it started life in 2016, as a black-and-white webcomic by Alice Oseman. The reception to the comedian, which has obtained greater than 52 million views, impressed Oseman to crowd-fund and self-publish a “Heartstopper” graphic novel in 2018, which drew the eye of a writer in 2019. Three extra volumes and a coloring guide have adopted, collectively promoting a couple of million copies. The live-action adaptation has remained amongst Netflix’s most-watched English-language reveals because it premiered in late April.

So the story has clearly resonated. However what is especially placing in regards to the Netflix sequence, which was created and written by Oseman, is the diploma to which it faithfully recreates the comedian onscreen, with actors who intently resemble the primary characters and lots of pictures that match the photographs from the supply materials.

Probably the most conspicuous aspect is the incorporation of 2-D animation. The moments are spare and delicate — snow falling round Nick and Charlie or leaves swirling round associates, a recurring visible within the comedian. However primarily based on the considerable suggestions on-line, viewers noticed and approved. (Netflix declined to say whether or not it deliberate to resume the present for an additional season.)

“We simply thought it might add one thing, like slightly little bit of magic to the present — as a result of it’s referred to as ‘Heartstopper’ for a cause,’” Oseman stated in a video interview from Kent, England, the place she grew up. “It’s all about these little moments in a relationship the place your coronary heart is thrashing and your emotions are so massive.”

Now 27, Oseman began writing Nick and Charlie as characters when she was 17, in her first novel, “Solitaire.” Her writing model, she stated, is deeply influenced by the truth that she began writing when she was the identical age as her characters.

“Now, as an grownup writing youngsters, for me, the primary factor is to at all times deal with teenage characters as mature human beings and by no means attempt to write down, to fake you’re being a young person,” Oseman stated. “As a result of youngsters don’t really feel like youngsters; youngsters are the oldest that they’ve ever been.”

Nick and Charlie, facet characters in “Solitaire,” had been Oseman’s first queer characters — she wrote them at a degree, she stated, when she didn’t but know she was queer herself. They signaled the start of her journey in writing queer fiction.

Her favourite scene from the webcomic is Nick and Charlie’s first kiss, which was surreal to see became tv, she stated. It felt as if somebody had plucked it out of her head and dropped it into the actual world.

“As a director, that’s my job: I think about what it’s going to appear to be,” Euros Lyn, who directed your entire sequence, stated in a video interview from Wales. “So I had all these photographs in my head, after which I went to the graphic novel and realized they had been the identical.”

Lyn learn the script first, earlier than studying the graphic novel, and was blown away by how effectively Oseman had transcribed her personal imagery into language. He was additionally charmed by the imagery itself — little drawings Oseman had made within the margins of the scripts that had been finally tailored into a few of the graphic thrives of the present.

“When everyone learn the scripts with these doodles within the facet, it was so magical that we went, ‘Effectively, this has to look on the display screen,’” Lyn stated. “It elevates the emotion and the depth of these moments, and offers them one other high quality and narrates one thing that’s taking place throughout the minds of the characters.”

How the staff makes use of animation, although, evolves all through the present. On the finish of the primary episode, Nick’s mom, Sarah (Olivia Colman), is driving him residence from rugby apply. As Nick stares out the window, pondering of Charlie, a easy pair of animated sea gulls is mirrored within the automotive window, one other motif from the graphic novels. By the top of the fifth episode, viewers see an intricate pair of lovebirds circling and flying as much as the digital camera. (Anna Peronetto, the animator, recalled searching of her window and analyzing London’s inexperienced parakeets to review how they moved.)

“There have been some key frames that we had been actually cautious to transcribe as fastidiously as we may, in order that the mise-en-scène can be as exact as attainable,” Lyn stated. “Not solely was the manufacturing design true to the graphic novel, however the costumes had been — the tone of it was as true to the graphic novel as attainable.”

The webcomic and graphic novel had been each drawn in monochrome, so Lyn and his staff needed to invent a colour palette and a lighting model that match the story. The casting course of, too, was a problem: They wanted to seek out actors who not solely seemed just like the characters but additionally may channel their feelings.

Discovering an animator was simpler. Peronetto was a faithful fan of the “Heartstopper” comedian, an obsession she shared together with her sisters. It was her older sister who launched Peronetto to the graphic novels, and her twin sister was the one who got here throughout Oseman’s Instagram submit in search of a 2-D animator.

“One thing that has not been highlighted sufficient with this venture is the way it’s not solely been very inclusive within the solid selections, but additionally the staff,” Peronetto wrote in an e mail. “I discovered it refreshing to be surrounded by quite a lot of gifted ladies and other people from the L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ group throughout all levels of manufacturing.”

Peronetto sometimes watched an early minimize of every episode, then mentioned with Lyn and Sofie Alonzi, the movie editor, which animations may match. She was free to give you artistic options primarily based on the storyboards — she knew by then which parts and tone a scene wanted. And she or he at all times had her copy of the graphic novel helpful.

“When engaged on new parts, a very powerful factor was to maintain the feelings proper, and it was clear to me what the animated scenes ought to make the viewers really feel,” Peronetto stated. “I merely tried to ship the identical feeling I had whereas studying ‘Heartstopper.’”