Papercutz announced the November 28th release of School for Extraterrestrial Girls Book Two: Girls in Flight by Jeremy Whitley and Jamie Noguchi.
With their former school compromised, exposing Tara, Misako, Summer, and Kat, to possible danger from unknown alien forces, they all must relocate to a new hidden school–The School for Extraterrestrial Boys! Located on a hidden island in the arctic north, the new campus has a mysteriously warm summer climate, a beautiful lake, and dozens of sinister mysteries! The girls are staying in what appears to be summer cabins on the lake while going to school in the mysterious castle where the boys stay. This is all under the watchful eye of the boys’ headmaster, Headmaster Stokes—an arrogant man with an unknown agenda and an obsession with Tara’s people. They may still be in school, but this will be a semester full of blossoming romances, learning to love themselves, and trying to survive the mysteries of both this terrifying island and boys! Romance, magic, and near-death experiences are all part of a regular school day at the School for Extraterrestrial Girls.
In a press release, Jeremy Whitley said, “School for Extraterrestrial Girls, for us, was an opportunity to play in this fun space of BIG sci-fi (aliens, different worlds, different species) and at the same time ground it in very real feelings of coming of age. Tara is a kid who’s had her whole life set out for her by her parents and has done what they said without question. She’s bookish, studious, and ambitious. However, when she spontaneously combusts in the middle of class one day, her whole world is turned upside down as she learns that her parents aren’t really her parents and they’ve been hiding from her the fact that she’s actually an alien her whole life. She’s given the choice of being sent back to her people’s homeworld or learning how to be “a good earthling” at the School for Extraterrestrial Girls. For Tara, that isn’t even really a choice. She’s lived her whole life on Earth and has no idea what would await her on her home planet, so she has to join the school.
Obviously, in a lot of ways this is not so different from choices that real kids face about their lives all the time, it’s just on a way way bigger scale. She also begins developing these relationships with her classmates that are strained by who they are and where they come from, but all the more intense because of where and how they’re forming them. Not unlike normal high school, they’re incredibly different people pushed into this high-pressure situation and trying to make relationships with others while they’re still figuring out who they are. Added with Jamie’s fun, colorful, Tokusatsu (“Tokusastu” is a Japanese term for a live action show or film that uses practical special effects. Godzilla, Power Rangers, Ultraman, and Kamen Rider are all examples of tokusatsu that influenced Book 2) influenced art, I think it’s a fun and light read that will really stick with the people who need it.
This series is really important to us, because we get to do the best of both worlds. We get to have the high drama of high school right alongside the giant aliens and monsters. And that, I think, captures the feeling of what it’s like to be in high school better than the real thing. At some point in their time in high school, everybody feels like an alien.”
