María Alejandra Botín

 (born July 11th, 1964 in Buenos Aires) is an Argentine-American animator, writer, producer, director, author and video game developer, being known for co-creating Dusk Hunter and The Dinosaur Princess with Lawrence Christensen, as well as The Executioner by herself.

Early life
María was born in Buenos Aires on July 11th, 1964. Her father was a doctor while her mother was a teacher.

In 1980, she and her family moved to Fresno, California and soon met Lawrence while in college.

Both attended CalArts since they showed an interest for animation and art in general.

After graduation, they worked together to make a comic book series.

Career
In 1988, María and Lawrence released through Dusk Hunter, a comic focusing on a young adult man who is an explorer out to find artifacts that are connected to the supernatural. Following its success, Universal Cartoon Studios acquired the rights for an animated television adaption in 1994, premiering on Fox on October 7th, 1996.

The Dinosaur Princess
In 1996, inspired by the Jurassic Park trend and several wild people media, María approached Lawrence with a project originally named Project: Dinosaur Tarzan. Her original plan was to make the protagonist a grown man, but Lawrence suggested that being a woman instead, since he was inspired by some projects he was a fan of, including Shanna the She-Devil. María accepted his idea with a condition: as long she is a preteen to attract younger audiences and to make it different. One of the reasons she opted for that was due to considering that the female characters in their previous work were rather busty and sexy. Since their next project was to be more child-friendly, she wanted to appeal less to fanservice and appeal more to beauty without showing TBD.

In the same year, both were in talks with Universal to make either a television series or a video game based on their pitch, with its executives ending up to decline it due to the fact they own the rights for Jurassic Park and The Land Before Time and they were unsure about the idea of making another franchise where dinosaurs exist. Due to that, they decided to pitch to other studios, including Disney and Sony, with Warner Bros. showing a larger interest on it thanks to the success of Collin the Speedy Boy.

The series' co-creator Oscar Hamilton, who was a fan of Dusk Hunter, met with the duo and gave some suggestions for their pitch, including the addition of an animal companion and an unique gameplay feature. By that time, both also were thinking of making her a princess since they were fans of Disney and added it to their pitch, officially naming her Kitrina and their project The Dinosaur Princess.

Warner Bros. greenlighted their pitch on January 19th, 1998.

Post-The Dinosaur Princess
After The Dinosaur Princess becoming a success, in 2015, María pitched to Warner Bros. a film series, being described by her as "What if Batman and Doctor Manhattan had a baby and it was the Punisher". They ended up accepting it as the series is called The Executioner.

Television

 * Dusk Hunter - co-creator (1996-1999)
 * The Dinosaur Princess - co-creator (2005-2010)

Video games

 * The Dinosaur Princess series - co-creator, writer, storyboard artist and director (1999-present)
 * Creative Nexus - co-creator (2018)

Personal life
María Alejandra is openly bisexual and is married to actress Adriana Davidson since January 6th, 2010. The couple currently lives in Seatle, Washington.

She previously dated Lawrence Christensen from TBD 2002 until TBD 2007. Despite no longer being dating, they are still good friends and she admitted that he was the best first love, yet, she's over him.

When asked about her sexuality in 2013, she affirmed that "I don't care if I'm with a man or with a woman, what I care about is if they truly love me".

Trivia

 * She is known for working on both live-action and animated content.
 * She is close friends with Lawrence Christensen, Stella McDonnell, Oscar Hamilton, Ryan Curcwald, Daniel Wright, Seth Carter, TBD.
 * She has a rather active presence online, especially on Facebook, Twitter (as DuskMari), Instagram, YouTube (under her real name), Twitch and DeviantArt (as MariQueen).
 * Much like Ryan Curcwald, she is an avid fan of comic books and some of her favorite characters include Batman, Doctor Manhattan, Punisher, Superman, Iron Man, Spider-Man, the Riddler, TBD.
 * Maria revealed that if Kitrina, the Dusk Hunter and the Executioner fought against each other, Kitrina would likely win due to the fact that she is able to use dinosaurs to protect her and has TBD.
 * However, this is rather controversial due to the fact that the Executioner is one of the most powerful superheroes in her universe and the Dusk Hunter has supernatural relics.
 * This is likely due to considering Kitrina her favorite created character.
 * When Good Ol' Magic came out, there were rumors that Maria Jaxon was named and modeled after her, with those being confirmed to be true by Stella.