“Moonstruck” is a comic series that has been published by Image Comics since 2017. “Lumberjanes” creator, Grace Ellis, and talented newcomer, Shae Beagle tell a story of monsters, romance, and magical hijinks. Fantasy creatures are living typical, unremarkable lives alongside humans and barista Julie strives to be the most unremarkable of all. Normal job, normal almost-girlfriend, normal… werewolf transformations that happen when she gets upset? Yikes! But all bets are off when she and her centaur best friend Chet find themselves in the middle of a magical conspiracy. We are very lucky to have Grace and Shae both call Columbus home.
1. What are some of your favorite comics? Are there any creators that you would cite as influences for Moonstruck?
GRACE – I appreciate that you aren’t making me choose just one! I have a hard time picking an all-time favorite, but I find myself going back to Fun Home and My Favorite Thing Is Monsters and Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me, among others. I think it’s pretty undeniable that Raina Telgemeier has influenced this book. I try to be a sponge and absorb things I like from all the media I consume, whether that’s comics or movies or plays, so it’s tough to point to one thing in particular.
SHAE – Oh there’s so many to choose from! Some of my recent faves are Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me (Mariko Tamaki and Rosemary Valero-O’Connell) and Bloom (Kevin Panetta and Savanna Ganucheau). As for Moonstruck, I was definitely influenced a lot by shows like Steven Universe, and artists like Jen Wang when figuring out the style of the comic, but I’m constantly incorporating my current influences into what I make!
2. Why did you both choose comics as the medium in which to tell your stories?
GRACE – Ha! Comics sort of chose me, happily. I wanted to be a script writer, and comics was the first opportunity to come my way to make it happen. Now, of course, I had to be ready to grab that opportunity, and the secret to that is to write as much as you can in the meantime, but yes, comics just sort of fell into my lap. But thank goodness it did because I love this medium. The strengths of comics as a form really play into my strengths as a writer, so it’s a great match.
SHAE – Sometimes it feels a bit like I tripped and fell into making comics. I mean I always preferred to read something like manga rather than a novel, but I never saw myself actually making comics until college. Comics became my ideal way to experience and absorb a story, especially as an artist, and so making them just made sense!
3. How did you two come to know each other and work together?
GRACE – Moonstruck originally started as a five-page short for CCAD’s Spitball anthology, which Laurenn McCubbin was teaching while Shae was a student. Laurenn asked me to write a little five-pager, and then Shae drew it, and the rest is history. And now Shae lives in the apartment below mine! So Moonstruck has really touched our lives in some unexpected ways.
SHAE – We actually met through a comics class I was taking at CCAD. Student artists paired up with pro comic writers to make a comic anthology called Spitball, and Grace and I paired up on a little 5-page story called… Moonstruck! The teacher of that class (now our editor, Laurenn McCubbin) saw potential in the story and we all teamed up to pitch it as a series!
4. What is your work process like between writer and artist?
GRACE – We have a pretty good give-and-take, I think. Hopefully Shae doesn’t disagree! I think one of my jobs as a writer is to not just work with the artist to craft the story but to make sure that the script caters to the artist’s strengths. For example, Shae’s art is really sweet and expressive, so I build the story and individual panels in such a way that Shae can lean into the sweetness and expressiveness of their art. I’d like to be as invisible as possible on the page, in a way. The writer/artist relationship should be seamless.
SHAE – Pretty simple usually! Grace comes up with a script, or an idea for a character, and I’ll work up some sketches for those. If she or Laurenn sees anything that could make a page or design better, I keep tweaking until it’s the best it can be. It takes a lot of trust to work together on a story, so when I see a note in the script like, “Here you go Shae, really run free and get creative on this one!” or “I trust your vision on this” it feels really good. (Love you, team!)
5. What was the process like coming up with so many outlandish characters? Do you have a favorite?
GRACE – Chet is definitely the most fun to write! Even though I know that they can sometimes present unique art challenges for Shae, like “how do I put a centaur in a car.” The main characters were pretty much all the product of that original five-page short, so it was a combination of thinking about mythical creatures who could potentially hide the fact that they’re mythical with thinking about how being a mythical creature would impact their day-to-day lives and, therefore, their personalities. So you end up with someone like Chet, who can’t reasonably hide the fact that they’re a centaur, so they’ve got a big personality. As opposed to Julie, a werewolf, who has a little more control over who knows she’s a werewolf, so she’s much shyer about the whole thing.
SHAE – I’ve got soooo many sketches of “background” Blitheton residents (the fictional town Moonstruck is set in) and Black Cat Café regulars, but a lot of the time I’m coming up with them on the spot if I’m trying to populate a space. I try to pull from all kinds of folklore and mythical creatures across cultures, so I’m pretty frequently researching what those characters would look like and how I can adapt them to our world. But my favorite to draw just has to be Chet! I love drawing an over-the-top expressive character, having them emote with their whole body, horse-half and all.
6. The two of you have been working on this series since 2017 with issues being released roughly every month or so. How demanding is it to have those deadlines met each month?
GRACE – Incredibly demanding. So demanding that we switched to a different model, so now the book only comes out in five-issue volumes. We still have demanding deadlines, but they’re a little more spread out now, which I think is ultimately better for the book because it means we can take our time on it.
SHAE – Oh, so demanding. I have so much respect for creators who can get a whole issue out every month, it’s an incredible amount of work. Going straight to trade makes things a little easier, but it’s still a lot.
7. For the large group of creators that would be interested in getting their book published, can you tell us about what that process was like?
GRACE – Getting a book published is different for everyone, and it’s different for every book. There are two main things you can do if you want to get a book published: One, don’t wait for someone to tell you that you can write something, and two, write a lot. It’s like I said earlier, you have to be ready to rise to the occasion if an opportunity comes your way, and the best way to do that is to be constantly improving as a writer in the meantime. Besides, if you’re writing all the time, you can publish things on the internet, which is a fantastic way to make opportunities happen for yourself, since you never know who’s reading your work.
SHAE – It’s different for everyone, but for me the thing that held me back was feeling like I had to do it alone. Some people do like to handle every aspect of their book, but I figured out I’m much more comfortable and productive working collaboratively. I don’t think I’d be where I am without the help and support of Grace and Laurenn and all the people who saw the potential in our story. I guess my advice is to keep improving and sharing your work, keep looking for opportunity and making opportunities for yourself!
8. I know that you worked with Laurenn McCubbin, a professor from CCAD, to be your editor. Can you tell us about the importance of having a good editor?
GRACE – An editor can make or break a book, to be honest. You need someone who isn’t directly doing work on it to keep the whole thing at arm’s length and tell you when something isn’t working, which Laurenn has absolutely helped me with. Not to mention that an editor needs to make sure all the trains are running on time, which is basically a job in and of itself.
SHAE – Editors (Laurenn especially!) are incredible and do so much important work that so often goes unseen. A good editor wants your book to be the best it can be, and keeps everyone involved on track to that goal, even if it takes a good kick in the butt every now and then!
9. It’s apparent that the main characters in Moonstruck identify as members of the LGBTQIA community. How do you think their representation impacts your story?
GRACE – Moonstruck was always going to have a diverse cast; it wasn’t even a question for us. One of the main things I was thinking about when I was building out the world of the book was “what would it be like to exist in this world as a magical creature if being a magical creature wasn’t what this world was built for,” which is similar to thinking about things like gender, sexuality, race, ability, or other marked traits. But it’s not the SAME as those things, which is also fundamental to the book insofar as it puts you, the reader, in a place of privilege as a human and forces you to empathize with a minority without the real-world preconceptions about any particular real-world minorities. I should also say that Moonstruck is a book where the characters will never have to worry about homophobia because, as a lesbian, I think it’s important to be able to imagine a world like that.
SHAE – Sometimes I think about why it took me so long to get into reading comics, and I think it had a lot to do with lack of/hard to find representation, way before I was even aware of it. Being able to bring my experiences to this story and be a part of some pure queer joy is an absolute dream. Moonstruck is exactly what young me would’ve loved to have in their life, and adult me is so proud to be a part of it.
10. If you’ll permit me to steal a question that you ask many of the creators from the “Well Met by Moonlight” section of your books, “If you could be any magical creature, what would it be and why?”
GRACE – Oh boy, this question is much harder to be on this side of. Werewolves are cool, but I don’t think they have any particular powers I would want. I’m starting to really see the appeal of being a vampire, to be honest. Especially if it’s a Twilight-style vampire! There are literally no drawbacks to being a Twilight vampire. I don’t mind aging, but I also wouldn’t mind being immortal, and you don’t have to kill anyone. Think of all the stuff you could see and learn and do! There’s also obviously a great argument for being a witch, but that feels like a cop-out to me. So I’m joining the Cullen coven, I guess. This is not where I thought this interview would land!
SHAE – I would LOVE to be a shapeshifter, and I don’t care if that’s just the trans experience talking. How cool would it be to be literally anything you wanted? A form for all occasions? This also just works out for me as a person with 500 favorite animals. I’ve thought about this a lot.