Disney+ exclusive programs focusing on Marvel and Star Wars characters may be where most comic fans find some of their favorite characters on the silver screen, but Disney’s Television Animation will soon release the Marvel cult hit comic Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur as youth-focused program on the Disney Channel in 2023. Today at San Diego Comic-Con, we got a panel talking about the upcoming show.
The audience was introduced to the panel by moderator Janine Rubenstein (editor-at-large, People magazine and host of People Every Day) and a video foreword by Laurence Fishburne. Executive producer Steve Loter (Kim Possible) discussed how they had a clear vision for the series form the very beginning and quickly got it put into production, knowing the vibe and visual qualities they wanted to adapt from the comic.
Supervising producer Rodney Clouden (Futurama) wanted the show to truly reflect New York. As the city plays a prominent role in the series, they dug deep into the culturally relevant artistic movements that visually speak for the city. The character designs were meant to have line work that was “not competing with the backgrounds, but complementing.” Having the show reflect real New York was important to Clouden; he noted that the grafitti you often see in cartoons “looks like trash.” They wanted the art and backgrounds in this show to accurately look like the walls you absorb when walking the streets of New York. Producer Pilar Flynn (Elena of Avalor) celebrated the fact that much of the creative talent on the show are people of color and from the LGBTQ+ community, helping give it its distinct voice and direction.
Diamond White, the voice actress for the cartoon’s protagonist Lunella Lafayette, was thrilled to speak at a convention for the first time. Diamond scanned the room looking for her mother in attendance while Fred Tatasciore, Libe Barer, and Sasheer Zamata discussed how easy to was to work together with their co-stars, bringing their own cultural backgrounds to their characters.
The action in the show will carefully incorporate music into the beats of the fight. To do so, well-known retro-inspired musician Raphael Saadiq was tasked with crafting the soundtrack to the series. To pitch Saadiq on the idea for the show, Loter met him at a record signing event at Amoeba Records in Los Angeles, signing him on to directing the program’s music by the end of his 30 second pitch.
The series will feature several guest stars Alison Brie, Daveed Diggs, Stranger Things’ Maya Hawke, Jennifer Hudson, Method Man, Indya Moore, Craig Robinson, Cobie Smulders, and Wesley Snipes. With that list of names, Marvel fans should be able to piece together which classic characters we may see incorporated into Marvel’s animated universe, with Loter going on to say that the program is “complimentary” to the MCU, so Marvel fans can expect to see many nods and Easter eggs throughout the series.
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