Ngozi Ukazu is an American cartoonist and graphic novelist. She is the author of the online graphic novel series Check, Please!. She studied at Yale University and the Savannah College of Art and Design.
This adorable supplemental book for the Check Please online comic and book series was well worth supporting the Kickstarter. It tells much of the story of Check Please, but through three years of Bitty’s college tweets. There are still lots of pictures. At several points, the banter made me laugh out loud. This comic is full of feels about friendship, hockey, and love. What a joy!
Read all of our favourite character, Bittle’s tweets as he traverses sophomore, junior, and senior year in university.
I just love Check, Please! and I was hyped when there was a new kick-starter around, this time for our cute Bittle’s tweets. Thankfully, getting the physical book wasn’t too expensive to get here so I decided to go for that tier. And finally the book is here! And I had a blast reading it.
Some years do get more attention then others, and yes, I did get a bit spoiled at how the series ended, given that I haven’t been able to read Year Four yet. But I guess we could have seen all those events happening anyway, so I don’t mind getting spoiled.
Now, I can hear you say, but don’t tweets get a bit boring after a while? I can say, that it was just a tiny bit boring, but mostly I was giggling, cheering, and just loving Bittle and his team. See him celebrate parties, make so many pies that his GPA may have crashed a bit, see him crush on Jack, see him and his other teammates have a laugh over that Jack, despite not that old, not knowing how social media and other things online work. See them be sad but also celebrate the people who graduate. We read about the various school subjects, plans for futures, and more. Those tweets are fun and engaging and I could see the stories just happen in front of me. Bittle will tell you every detail about the Haus, including fun conversations. I am so glad to go back to the world of Check, Please. Because I love these characters.
Oh, and it isn’t always Bittle tweeting. Sometimes he has to study, or sometimes there is a party and Bittle has to hand his phone away to someone so he cannot tweet. 😛
Next to tweets we got photographs (illustrated), comics, screenshots, and more.
This was such a fun and wonderful book and I am happy I got it! Now I just hope I can read the fourth year someday to complete it all.
I got the early access copy of this because I backed the Kickstarter. It is amazing and I haven't stopped crying since finishing Sticks and Scones ^.^
edit: 02/09/22 This series still means so much to me. So, so glad I re-read it. I wish Ngozi collected together the additional tumblr drawings/etc. together too, it would be great having those in a collection alongside the main series.
“Check, Please! Chirpbook: The Tweets of @omgcheckplease” by Ngozi Ukazu is a companion piece to her two volume (& webcomic) “Check, Please!” It’s basically a collection of the tweets that Ngozi Ukazu spent a year & a half (& longer?) tweeting in real time as her character MC Bitty (with occasional ghost tweets via other characters) from 2014-17 to go along with Bitty’s Sophomore, Junior & Senior years at fictional Samwell University. Only really for fans of the original comic who want an added layer to the characters, their collective story, & the main romance. Has a dose of meta humor here & there from a 4th Wall Breaking Senior who graduated during Bitty’s Freshman year. Def makes me want to re-read the original comic & finally read the rest of the “Huddle!” sketch zines. Still a very entertaining, warm, optimistic, & cute comic / series about gay hockey bros, their many hockey frat mates, team manager, & assorted other characters. Rarely do I enjoy works centered on sports… but this is one of the exceptions.
Highly recommend to anyone that likes “Heartstopper” by Alice Oseman & similar queer comics & stories. Not for anyone who wants things to get too dark. The chirpbook is almost entirely comedic, though there are a few tweets / chirps now & again that reference some of the slightly darker / deeper themes that do come up in the main comic. It might make you curious about hockey. 😅 The original comic is free to read online or can be purchased wherever you buy books. The chirpbook was bought (along with the “Huddle!” sketch zines & some other merch) through the main website. Very cute, sweet, adorable comic & chirpbook. 💜
Dorzuciłam się na kickstarterze, więc dostałam najpierw wersję elektroniczną AND LET ME TELL YOU, tyle dobra tam jest. Imię Shitty'ego. Amazing. Komiks gdzie Jack przeskakuje zaspy, aby iść do Bitty'ego. SMS-y Jacka po pocałunku. Cudo. Czekam na wersję papierową!
But seriously, this is such a fun companion piece to the comics. I read this out in public areas a couple times and had to contain my giggles. Fellow fans/readers of the comics will definitely enjoy this. I honestly look forward to rereading the entire comic (for the 3rd? 4th? time) and reading this Chirpbook in conjunction with it.
The only "critique" or issue really is that there are quite a few time stamp errors in the tweets that don't make sense. Like, some tweets I'm sure are meant to read as "a.m." and not "p.m." and visa versa. So there's some continuity issues. Does it inhibit me from following along or lessen my enjoyment? Not at all.
Okay, I just absolutely love Eric Richard Bittle and the Chirpbook is a great collection of most of his Tweets (noteable missing ones: Jack's impulse cowboy hat, more glimpses of the team in the science credit class, Jack's Q&A). I did expect more illustrations, but the ones I got were really nice and OH of course, the text messages.
If you're a Check, Please! fan, the chirpbook is absolutely worth a read-- if not for the after-graduation texts, then for the reveal of Shitty's first name. This is an adorable behind-the-scenes look into Bitty's life at Samwell. Reading it definitely lifted my spirits and reminded me why I loved this series so much in the first place.
I love everything Ngozi Ukazu does, and I love that she compiled all the tweets from Bitty's twitter into a book. It's a good supplement to the comics and gives an excellent insight into the characters and how they act off screen.
Like a giant group hug in the middle of a celly followed immediately by an epikegster where you see Shitty's full-on naked ass because he's mooning the Lax House. I don't think anyone who enjoyed Check Please will be disappointed with the tweet journey of Eric through the events of the comic.
This made the story 3D. Reading everything before this you see Bitty’s world from the inside, but what did it look like from the outside? Well here it is, in Bitty’s Chirpbook. Ngozi Ukazu lovingly wrote these silly characters with big hearts, lots of fun and a wonderful found family.
While this book is full of material of the Check, Please! universe, it is not required reading to enjoy the antics of the hockey team. But it sure is fun.
Re-read June 2023 in honor of CP's tenth anniversary!: The tweets really do enhance the experience of Check, Please! I definitely recommend it to fans. It was really fun to follow along with them during my re-read of the entire series!
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The Chirpbook is a collection of tweets that Ngozi posted as her character Bitty in "real time" over the course of four years (Bitty's four years of university). The Twitter account was locked as the tweets began to surpass the pace of the webcomic to avoid spoilers, so while much of this book will be familiar to fans of the webcomic, there is a good amount of new material as well. I believe all of the tweets themselves are available in the First Second published editions of the series, but the Chirpbook also includes new content in the form of "photos" that Bitty posted to Twitter, "screenshots" of the SMH groupchat, etc., so it's not only page after page of text tweets. This book doesn't stand alone, but it is great supplementary material for readers who love Check, Please!.
I bought the Chirpbook through Ngozi's Kickstarter campaign, but it's now available through her store as well!