Cecil Castellucci is the writer of “Shade, the Changing Girl,” for DC Comics’ Young Animal imprint.

“Shade, the Changing Girl,” is a reboot of a character created in the late ’70s. It’s written now by Cecil Castellucci for DC Comics’ Young Animal imprint. Courtesy of DC Comics

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“Shade, the Changing Girl,” is a reboot of a character created in the late ’70s. It’s written now by Cecil Castellucci for DC Comics’ Young Animal imprint. Courtesy of DC Comics

“Shade, the Changing Girl,” is a reboot of a character created in the late ’70s. It’s written now by Cecil Castellucci for DC Comics’ Young Animal imprint. Courtesy of DC Comics

“Shade, the Changing Girl,” is a reboot of a character created in the late ’70s. It’s written now by Cecil Castellucci for DC Comics’ Young Animal imprint. Courtesy of DC Comics



“Shade, the Changing Girl,” is a reboot of a character created in the late ’70s. It’s written now by Cecil Castellucci for DC Comics’ Young Animal imprint. Courtesy of DC Comics

“Shade, the Changing Girl,” is a reboot of a character created in the late ’70s. It’s written now by Cecil Castellucci for DC Comics’ Young Animal imprint. Courtesy of DC Comics

“Shade, the Changing Girl,” is a reboot of a character created in the late ’70s. It’s written now by Cecil Castellucci for DC Comics’ Young Animal imprint. Courtesy of DC Comics

“Shade, the Changing Girl,” is a reboot of a character created in the late ’70s. It’s written now by Cecil Castellucci for DC Comics’ Young Animal imprint. Courtesy of DC Comics

“Shade, the Changing Girl,” is a reboot of a character created in the late ’70s. It’s written now by Cecil Castellucci for DC Comics’ Young Animal imprint. Courtesy of DC Comics



“Shade, the Changing Girl,” is a reboot of a character created in the late ’70s. It’s written now by Cecil Castellucci for DC Comics’ Young Animal imprint. Courtesy of DC Comics

“Shade, the Changing Girl,” is a reboot of a character created in the late ’70s. It’s written now by Cecil Castellucci for DC Comics’ Young Animal imprint. Courtesy of DC Comics

“Shade, the Changing Girl,” is a reboot of a character created in the late ’70s. It’s written now by Cecil Castellucci for DC Comics’ Young Animal imprint. Courtesy of DC Comics

Cecil Castellucci is the writer of “Shade, the Changing Girl” for DC Comics’ Young Animal line. She’s also a successful YA novelist and indie rock musician. Courtesy of DC Comics

Just a little before Cecil Castellucci turned 4 years old, she remembers falling hard for Batman. Adam West’s Batman. And so when it was time to send out invitations to her birthday party at home in New York City, she insisted her parents invited Gotham’s Caped Crusader, too.

Batman was a no-show – crime fighting usually left little time for social engagements – but she devoured the Batman and Superman comics her parents gave her, and the Tintin books by the Belgian cartoonist Hergé after that.

“And then I had this pillow case that was the Peanuts characters,” says Castellucci, an acclaimed young adult novelist and now the writer of DC Comics’ “Shade, the Changing Girl,” under its Young Animal imprint. “I remember that was the first time I knew I could read because all of the characters had word balloons like, ‘Good grief!’ and I would read my pillowcase at night.

“Basically, comics have been a part of my life since I can remember,” Castellucci says recently amid packing for Comic-Con in San Diego.

But getting there took a little time, as pursuits from performing in indie rock bands such as Bite and Nerdy Girl throughout the ’90s before embarking on a well-reviewed career writing YA novels the following decade.

“I always knew that I wanted to write for young people, because to me it’s one of the most compelling times for a person, because everything is a first time,” Castellucci says. “It’s the first time you’re betrayed, it’s the first time you’re falling in love, and everything feels like the end of the world.

“It’s also like a lot of times as an artist you’re always looking for things that are going to nourish you,” she says. “I found when I was growing up it was very difficult for me to find things that were for my particular niche.”

So in her debut novel, “Boy Proof,” the story revolves around “a boy who is obsessed with post-apocalyptic movies comic books,” Castellucci says. “I wrote the book that I needed when I as growing up that wasn’t there.”

“Boy Proof” came out in 2005, a few years after Castellucci says she had her comic book epiphany, which led, in time, to her entry into that world of writing, too.

“I read this comic book that was on DC Vertigo called ‘Deadenders,’ by Ed Brubaker,” she says. “And I looked at it and went, ‘Oh, this is young adult, this is what I want to do.’ So I started researching how to become a comic book writer, how to submit to Vertigo. And I couldn’t really figure it. But I had this great sense that I wanted to write comic books.”

Castellucci set that dream aside, finished “Boy Proof,” which eventually made its way to Shelly Bond, a longtime comic book editor at DC Vertigo.

“My character Egg (in ‘Boy Proof’) is obsessed with Vertigo comics,” Castellucci says. “Shelly put out feelers. She was putting together Minx, to publish graphic novels for girls.

“I went, ‘Yes! I’ve been waiting to figure out how to get into comics!'” she says.

Castellucci pitched an idea she’d had for a YA novel that just wasn’t working in that format, a story about a girl who wanted to be a guerrilla artist, who saw the other misfit kids around her in school as the coolest kids, even though they didn’t seem to know it. The graphic novel that turned into – “The P.L.A.I.N. Janes” arrived in 2007 and won the Joe Shuster Award – a prize named after the co-creator of Superman – for outstanding Canadian comic writer of the year.

“Once I started, I was like, ‘This is what I’m doing,'” Castellucci says.

Since then she’s jumped back and forth between YA fiction and graphic novels – her latest of the latter, “Soupy Leaves Home,” was published in May by Dark Horse Comics, and tells the story of a Depression-era girl who runs away from home to ride the rails dressed as a hobo.

Then, a year or two ago, Shelly Bond – “My lady of comics,” Castellucci calls her – and Gerard Way, the singer in My Chemical Romance and an award-winning comic creator, too, were making plans to launch the Young Animal imprint.

“They had a one-line log line: Alien passes body of girl who was the biggest bully in her school, madness is her super power,” she says. Inside those formative meetings, someone noted that Castellucci loved young characters and outer space, so they gave her a call.

“I went, ‘What?! These are my two favorite things!'” she says.

The book, “Shade, the Changing Girl,” is a reboot of “Shade, the Changing Man,” a character created by comics legend Steve Ditko, the co-creator with Stan Lee of Spider-Man, in 1977.

“I had a vague idea of the character, but not this deep knowledge,” Castellucci says. ” ‘Shade, the Changing Man,’ it’s a cult character. People who like Shade, that’s next-level cool.”

Working with artist Marley Zarcone, Castellucci reimagined character as the bird-like alien Lorna Shade from the planet Meta, who loved the poetry of Rac Shade, the original Shade, and decides to steal his madness vest from a Metan museum and travel to Earth, where she takes over the body of a comatose teen girl who was the bully of her high school.

“It’s really interesting,” Castellucci says of writing her first monthly series. “When you’re the writer of a comic book, it’s kind of like you’re the Big Bang. You’re the person who starts the universe but then the planets and the elements” – artist Marley Zarcone, colorist Kelly Fitzpatrick and letterer Saida Temofonte – “do what they’re going to do.

“Oh my gosh, writing comics is the best thing in the world, because it’s like you’re in a band and you’re jamming with everyone.”

Cecil Castellucci’s Comic-Con panels

“Superhero Family Feud,” 6 p.m. to 7 p.m., Thursday: Comic book-loving authors including Castellucci and Rainbow Rowell (“Fangirl,” “Runaways”) compete in a “Family Feud”-style game.

“Geeking Out on Secret Loves: When Personal Tales Fill the Page,” 10 a.m. to 11 a.m., Friday: Castellucci and other creators talk about how the personal side of life inspires the professional.

“Into the Past: History and Comics,” 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p. m., Friday: Castellucci and others who’ve incorporated history into their work talk about its influence and power as an inspiration for comics.

-“DC’s Young Animal,” 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., Friday: Writers for the Young Animal imprint run by My Chemical Romance frontman Gerard Way talk about their work that includes Castellucci’s writing on “Shade, the Changing Girl.”