Moon Girl & Devil Dinosaur Creators Dish on 10th Anniversary, Tease Devil Girl and Moon Dino

It’s celebration time for Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur. The fan-favorite duo featuring the smartest person in the Marvel Universe and her larger-than-life T-Rex have a 10th anniversary coming up. So what better way to celebrate than with a giant-sized one-shot that reunites two of Moon Girl’s co-creators, writer Brandon Montclare and artist Natacha Bustos. As an added bonus, there’s an additional story in Moon Girl & Devil Dinosaur 10th Anniversary Special #1 by writer Justina Ireland and artist Luca Claretti that pushes Lunella Lafayette’s legacy in a surprising way with the debut of Devil Girl and Moon Dino.

ComicBook spoke to Brandon Montclare and Justina Ireland about the upcoming Moon Girl & Devil Dinosaur 10th Anniversary Special #1. We asked Montclare about developing the concept of Moon Girl 10 years ago and how he and Moon Girl’s co-creators addressed pairing her with Devil Dinosaur, how they came up with storytelling ideas for the two of them, and what he has in store for Moon Girl’s 10th anniversary in the one-shot.

As for Ireland, she provided more details on Devil Girl and Moon Dino, including their real names and Devil Girl’s connection to Moon Girl. We can also exclusively reveal interior pages for Moon Girl & Devil Dinosaur 10th Anniversary Special #1 by Natacha Bustos and Luca Claretti, as well as a Devil Girl design sheet variant cover by Anand Ramcheron.

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ComicBook: Brandon, can you take readers back 10 years ago when you and your collaborators got the Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur assignment, and what went into those early conversations when everyone was coming up with the Moon Girl concept?

Brandon Montclare: I’d done a few small projects for Marvel, but my first really significant writing work was the creator-owned Rocket Girl at Image Comics. Moon Girl co-creator Amy Reeder was my collaborator on Rocket Girl. And Moon Girl co-creator Natacha Bustos drew a short story I wrote for Strange Sports Stories at Vertigo. Looking back: I think a big part of our success is due to the fact that Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur is big enough of an idea for each of the three co-creators to bring their own ideas to the page. We come from three very different backgrounds–both in life and in comics. And the mix just worked!

The initial conversation with Marvel went very quick! Editor Mark Paniccia liked Rocket Girl, and asked if we had anything similar that could work at Marvel. We had a meeting to discuss available characters/titles–and we preferred to do something with a more obscure property. The idea being we’d have more creative control and could bring some new ideas. Mark’s first suggestion was Devil Dinosaur–which in my mind was cool, but Amy had zero interest in a story about a t-rex eating cavemen. But as soon as he said Devil Dinosaur he followed up with the idea of adding Moon Girl–taking the name from Devil Dinosaur’s old supporting character Moon Boy. And the idea was so great, we never discussed any other title. Of course, we brought it to modern Marvel Manhattan; we made Lunella Lafayette in the mold of classic Marvel scientist-turned-hero. We thought it’d probably last six cool issues… but the rest is history.

Moon Girl gets the majority of the attention, but Devil Dinosaur is also deserving of top billing. What did you find challenging and exciting when exploring their relationship across multiple issues?

Jack Kirby is a fourth creator on the title in two ways. The first is obvious: his nine issues of the 1970’s Devil Dinosaur. The second is his (equally obvious, when you think about it) influence over the Marvel Universe. For my part: I definitely wanted to imbue Moon Girl with all the marvelous Marvel-y stuff. Character-wise: a superhero who’s still the underdog because she has feet of clay. And all that other stuff. Plot-wise: plenty of interaction with the other characters of the Marvel Universe. In fact: a theme that goes through all 47 issues of the original run is Lunella Lafayette finding her place in this world.

I want to say that Devil Dinosaur isn’t just window-dressing or eye-candy. But a fiery t-rex IS great eye-candy! It’s comic book gold in a red wrapper. Character-wise: he’s the contrast to Moon Girl. Big vs Small. Brains vs Brawn. Confidence vs insecurity. All of the “challenges” of a book with a main character that includes a dinosaur are also sources of creative ‘excitement.’ How are you going to fit a 30-foot t-rex into the sequential storytelling, panel after panel? How can you develop a conversation when one of the duo can only growl? All of these things are hard to bring to the page… but solving these problems through a story is what makes writing fun.

How did you tackle celebrating Moon Girl’s 10th anniversary in a way that celebrates the character and also pushes her forward for a new generation of fans?

There have been great creators pushing Moon Girl in new directions. Cool things I would never have dreamed of wind up in new comics. There’s the cartoon which is a new take. For my part: the very best reason to create a new character for the Marvel Universe is that they will get swept up in this never-ending story that’s lasted through decades… and brought to you by thousands of writers and artists. And editors and colorists and letters and behind-the-scenes office folk… and the fans as well. I’ve written a lot of pages of Moon Girl… and whatever developed on those pages, is only because there were readers who came along for the ride.

For the 10th Anniversary special: it’s probably safe to say my script is in a lot of ways back-to-basics. Because as much as a character grows, great characters keep an identifiable core. Because Lunella has always been 9 years old, I thought it’d be fun to let her turn 10 in the comic the same way she’s turning 10 in the real world. But readers will probably find it very much the-more-things-change-the-more-they-stay-the-same. BUT… I can do that (not just because I’m the co-creator!) because the second story in the 10th Anniversary Special is a wild new “Devil Girl and Moon Dinosaur” story. Which, as the title promises, mixes things up!

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Justina, you and Luca Claretti get to introduce Devil Girl and Moon Dino, with the former being billed as Lunella’s descendant from the future. How far into the future do Devil Girl and Moon Dino hail from, and what can you tell us about their story?

Justina Ireland: Devil Girl, aka Artemizia, and her Moon Dino, Skrex, live in the distant future on a place known as the Savage Moon. The moon was rumored to have been created by Artemizia’s Great-Grandmother Lunella after a huge cataclysmic disaster on Earth known as the Descension. The people of the Savage Moon live in harmony with augmented dinos, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t adventure to be found on Earth. Unfortunately, it also comes with a side of trouble…

Is Devil Girl the smartest person in the Marvel Universe in her future, or does she have another unique qualifier all her own that also follows in Lunella’s footsteps?

Artemizia would probably think she’s the smartest girl in the known universe because she’s full of unearned confidence but her older sister Luz would most definitely disagree. And while Artemizia is smart and devoted to those she cares about just as Lunella was, she has a brashness that is all her own.

Moon Girl & Devil Dinosaur 10th Anniversary Special #1 goes on sale April 2nd. Let us know what you think about the one-shot, Devil Girl and Moon Dino in the comments below!