The Owl House is about weirdos, misfits and the impossible. Created by Gravity Falls storyboard artist and DuckTales director Dana Terrace, the show begins with Luz Noceda (Sarah Nicola Robles) being pulled into the demon world of the Boiling Isle, where she befriends a witch named Eda (Wendie Malick) and a demon named King (Alex Hirsch) on her quest to herself become a witch. However, there's one problem: Luz doesn't have any magic powers.
Although the series bears some resemblance to Gravity Falls due to Terrace's time there and Hirsch's involvement, The Owl House is in many ways different from that predecessor. At New York Comic-Con 2019, CBR sat down with Terrace and art director Ricky Cometa, whose credits include Steven Universe, to discuss what fans can expect from The Owl House and creating its visual style.
CBR: How did the idea for this show come about?
Terrace: Well, I was in a previous job where I was feeling creatively unfulfilled, and I really just needed to make my own thing. And so I started looking into my old influences, stuff I used to draw from in college and high school, and I rediscovered the works of Hieronymus Bosch, Remedios Varo, John Bauer and all these painters from between the 1500s to the 1800s that I just really admired and loved. I love medieval illuminations, and the little monsters in the corners. And I basically just thought, "I'd be cool if there was a cartoon like this." And I started doodling.
One of the things that struck me in the first episode is that tension between weirdness and conformity. Can you guys just tell me a little bit about that? And kind of that idea and why that seems so key to the series?
Terrace: For the first, like, eight years of my life in elementary school, I was the weird kid; I barely had any friends. I used to find roadkill and draw it. Because I was like, "The animal will stay still!" [Laughing] And people thought that was weird. And it wasn't until I kind of left those confines and went to a different school, went to other countries, where I started finding more people who were all weird like me. So I drew from some of those influences.
Cometa: That's just a lot of us too at The Owl House. You know, we all relate to this whole thing where we all think we're weirdos. There's a lot of new people out there who think they're weirdos, but we're all weirdos together. A lot of these stories kind of share that comfort of, you know, hey, you're not alone. We're all together!
Terrace: We're out there!
In terms of the series, what are you most excited for fans to see?
Terrace: I'm very excited for the character development, how we see Eda from Luz, how we see Luz learn from Eda, how we see King react to all of it because he's his own weird little creature. I'm very excited for all the beautiful art we get to see that Ricky and his team have created. And I'm just excited to see how fans react to what the characters go through.
Cometa: I'm very excited for them to see the world. You know, I feel like you guys [turns to Terrace] have written such a relatable character. And you get to see her interact with the weirdness of the world and, you know, what is the demon realm? And what is our version of the demon realm? So I'm very excited to let everyone's witness that.
Yeah, that was something that also really struck me in the first episode was an almost density of the visual [elements] in the demon world. Can you tell me a bit about the design of that and the process of creating and communicating that?
Terrace: I wanted everything to feel alive and lived in. Sometimes when you watch a cartoon, the world feels very empty, and it feels strange and nightmarish, and I wanted this world to feel nightmarish, but full. And there's this one specific Remedios Varo painting of a city -- I forget the name of the painting -- but I showed it to Ricky and basically said, "Give me the feeling of this." And he spun off with the art style.
Cometa: Yeah, like everything that Dana had presented of Hieronymus Bosch and Remedios Varo, all of their paintings was just like this fantasy/nightmare, like realm-ish. And it wasn't like, you know, too scary in any way. It was like a bunch of demons kind of partying.
That classic medieval demon party where everyone's just having a good time.
Terrace & Cometa: Yeah!
Cometa: So we really wanted to flesh a world of that, where it's just compact with, like, everything that could be living, or everything that could be interacting. Yeah, I just really wanted to fit this whole world in the whole setting.
Terrace: And to spin off that, I was really interested in the world feeling literally alive, which is why we have bits of flesh in the background, bones, the trees are red. Everything should feel like blood and sinew, like it's beating.
Cometa: But in a nice wholesome way!
In a way that can't be objectionable! We're fine. Don't worry. I mean, that's something else. Obviously the show shares a lot of DNA with something like Gravity Falls.
Terrace: Sure.
And I think a lot of those elements are stuff that I saw on the show and I think appeal to me and a lot of people of varying ages. But I'm wondering, how are you trying to differentiate yourselves from something like Gravity Falls?
Terrace: Alex has his own... He loves conspiracy theories. He loves secret government stories and stuff like that. And I think aesthetically, we're just into different things. I'm into fine art, old art, witches, magic, all that stuff. So, visually and aesthetically, our shows are different in that way. I think where we're similar is that where we both care about core characters and core emotions for storytelling. So I really think it's going to be a very different show. But we just share similar writing techniques.
Kind of like in the same family.
Terrace: In the same family, but our characters are very different and the world is extremely different.
Absolutely. I could see some of the differences right away, but something that was similar that I wouldn't mind getting you two to speak about is striking that balance between humor that's more for adults and humor that kind of appeals more to all ages. Like, there's a Bad Place joke in the first episode.
Terrace: I like that joke. I think our general rule in the writers room is, if it makes us laugh, put it in! Like, of course, we're not going to get raunchy or weird. This is still a show aimed for kids. So we're going to keep it PC generally, but yeah, if it makes us 20 to 30 year olds in the room laugh, hopefully it'll make other people laugh.
Cometa: As long as we're giggling.
In the first episode, there's very much this idea of, and this kind of ties into more or less my second question, but this idea of pursuing dreams regardless of possibility and playing with fantasy and imagination... For dreams that are potentially impossible, which I think is the thing Luz is dealing with, what opportunities does that present you in terms of character development?
Terrace: It allows us to explore this idea that some things really are impossible. And it's not impossible to get close to that dream, but it might be impossible to get to that true dream. Like, I'm very much a follow your dreams kind of person. But I also live in the reality of, you know, if you got bad eyesight, you can't be a pilot... So you have to find workarounds, and that's okay! You can still find a perfectly fulfilling and wonderful life by finding these workarounds. And as far as going for it anyway, even though you're told it's impossible...
I used to be told a lot "you'll never make it as an artist. You'll never make it as a cartoonist. You know, you should give up and try something more realistic." And I basically said screw you. And I found my own path. And we put a lot of that into the storytelling.
Cometa: Yeah, you can really tell lot of it seems They're all going to have a lot of hard times and a lot of hard work to achieve their goals, but they're willing to try, and we're there for the journey.
Created by former Gravity Falls story artist and DuckTales director Dana Terrace, The Owl House stars Sarah-Nicole Robles, Wendie Malick and Alex Hirsch. The series is slated to premiere on Disney Channel in January 10.