Seth Green Revisits His Freshman Classmates With A 20th Anniversary Kickstarter Campaign

Seth Green is the former classmate of millions of millennials, whether through his high-school set roles in such iconic TV shows as Oz in Buffy the Vampire Slayer or on the silver screen as Kenny Fisher in Can’t Hardly Wait or Mick in Idle Hands.

The endearing character actor co-created his own cohort of co-eds in the 2005 Top Cow series Freshmen, co-created and co-written by Hugh Sterbakov and illustrated by Leonard Kirk. Featuring a lovable class of undergrads with regrettable powers, the book balances belly laughs and action with academic precision, creating a cult hit in the process. After 20 years, Freshmen returns in a new Kickstarter campaign, featuring a handsome hardcover and new chapter about the (now former) kids reuniting at a reunion. Seth answered a few questions about his original teen superhero team and how they graduated into pop-culture consciousness. 

Can you give us a 101 description of Freshmen?

Freshmen is the story of a bunch of unconnected kids who are taking the steps toward their independent autonomy. They become inexorably joined by their shared experience of nearly deformative superpowers on their first day of college.

Twenty years later, what surprised you the most about these characters?

I'm surprised they're all still alive. We set them up for some pretty challenging lifestyles, and they made it through.

Which Freshman did you relate to the most when you wrote the book? And who do you relate to the most now, revisiting the story (excluding Ray)?

When we started this, I probably felt the closest to Norrin. It was a time when comic books and superhero characters were not treated with the same kind of gravity and reverence that they are today. When we created Freshmen, none of this stuff was vogue, let alone the largest-grossing media globally of all time.

It's very different now. And I find myself a little more closely relating to the Beaver, not in the sense of frustration or exhaustion, but I can't help but feel the weight of all of the knowledge.

I've spent my life trying to learn more and more about people, about things, about how the world works, about how to be happy, about how to make love stay, any of the things that you really need to live your life. And it is heavy. I think that's what the Beaver struggled with the most, this instantaneous, total knowledge.

The Beaver went from being a simple animal to being something that thought and considered and explored and reasoned, and it's a tremendous arc for that character. So I guess that's accurate. When it started, I felt like Norrin, and now, 20 years later, I feel like the Beaver.

You were already immersed in your profession years earlier than the students of Freshmen. (Shout-out to Can't Buy Me Love and My Stepmother Is an Alien, among many other of your first films.) Was there an appeal to going to college that this project satiated for you?

Haha, thanks. I wouldn't say that this satiated it, but I have spent a lot of my time telling stories about this period in life.

The coming-of-age period is so critically important. It's the time when we as humans learn the most, decide the most, confirm the most. It's such an important and unique time. I've really enjoyed exploring it, both as an editor and as a storyteller.

Was it difficult reentering the group's lives for the new 20th anniversary reunion special? How much did the characters occupy your mind in the intervening 20 years?

We think about these kids all the time. I don't think it was difficult reentering their lives. I feel like we've kept these kids really close, and that was the fun thing when Hugh and I started talking about where they would be now or what kind of story we would tell.

It's so organic. They really are so clearly drawn that it's not difficult to imagine what they're thinking, how they're feeling, or how they would react.

What's the most important lesson a teenager about to go to college in 2026 can learn from this endearing supergroup?

It's both up to you and you're not alone. It's all up to you, man. But you're not alone.