A true renaissance woman, Cecil Castellucci's work spans mediums. The New York-born, Montreal-raised writer is currently best known to comic book fans as the writer behind the latest reinterpretation of the late Steve Ditko character Shade – Shade the Changing Girl and now, Shade the Changing Woman as part of DC Comics' Young Animal imprint, spearheaded by Gerard Way – lead singer of My Chemical Romance. Fitting, since Cecil tells us why making comics is like being in a rock band. She would know since she was better known as the lead singer of Nerdy Girl in the early '90s and later as the solo artist Cecil Seaskull. These days, her involvement in music has turned to opera as the librettist behind the comic book themed Les Adventures des Madame Merveille and her latest, Hockey Noir, which recently came to Montreal and Toronto before heading to Europe in October 2018. If that weren't enough, Cecil is a young adult novelist and up for a “Best Short Story” Eisner in 2018 for Ethel Byrne, a short comic inside Mine! -- a comic anthology benefiting Planned Parenthood. You can also find more of her comics writing in the graphic novel Soupy Leaves Home for Dark Horse and Plain Janes for DC's now defunct Minx line.

On this episode, Cecil tells Aaron what it was like to fall in love in the line-up for Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace and then write about it in the pages of The Secret Loves of Geeks anthology. The two also chat about why the theme of transformation permeates so much of Cecil's work, why for her the creative process is always political and how she is still able to write in the voice of a teenage girl despite the hindsight of adulthood. This episode is sponsored by Hairy Tarantula.

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Cecil's official website

Les Adventures of Madame Merveille preview

Hockey Noir trailer

Hockey Noir preview

Eisner nominations 2018

DC's Young Animal

Soupy Leaves Home

The Secret Loves of Geeks on Inner Space

Nerdy Girl – A Song About Star Wars

Nerdy Girl – Anne Eliot

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