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This is not a drill: Ngozi Ukazu's Check, Please! webcomic has been optioned for a television show. The writer-artist revealed the big news at Emerald City Comic Con 2026 this weekend. 

If you're not familiar, Check, Please! is the Heated Rivalry story before Heated Rivalry even existed (the book or the TV series). Written and illustrated by Ngozi Ukazu, Check, Please! follows a freshman hockey player named Bitty who joins his college's team, only to become infatuated by the aloof but alluring team captain, Jack Zimmerman. Unlike Jack, Bitty is small and afraid of body checking his opponents (the thing they do in hockey when a player slams an opponent against the boards), preferring to bake pies for his teammates rather than party. But over the course of their time on Samwell College's hockey team, Bitty and Jack form a bond that turns romantic, and the rest is history. 

"So I will say, I don't know [if it will be animated]. Check, Please! has been optioned as a TV series. Hollywood is in a really weird place right now, I'll say that. I honestly, and I know you guys as the readers may hate this, I could go either way on animated versus live action. So I know some people are like, 'It has to be animated! We need to see Bitty's giant big old eyes AND JACK'S ASS," she said, as the room erupted into laughter. 

Ukazu continued, "But all I know is I love working with people, and I think I'm not actually too beholden to my style or my story, and I think someone could really adapt it to look great animated or look great in live action. I sound like a politician. That is my honest answer."

Personally, as a queer man whose adolescence was spent playing on a travel hockey team (I played goalie, duh), I support any and every possible adaptation of Check, Please! 

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