Stella McDonnell

Stella Ashley McDonnell-Curcwald (born January 7th, 1974 in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory) is an Australian-American animator, writer, producer, director, author, video game developer and voice actress, being known for creating the Good Ol' Magic video game series, the Diary of a Psychopath book series and Urban Legend Private Eyes.

In addition to it, her credits also include the Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies franchise, The Powerpuff Girls, Hanna-Barbera, DC Comics, Collin the Speedy Boy, Mark: Time Janitor, The Mystic Woods and numerous others.

Early life
Stella was born on January 7th, 1974 at the Calvary John James Hospital in Canberra to Mark and Susanne McDonnell. Her father worked as a doctor while her mother was a teacher.

Under construction...

Early career
In 1999, Stella was hired by Cartoon Network to work in some projects by invitation of Craig McCracken, who already saw some of her skills were rather TBD.

Good Ol' Magic
In 2001, Stella began developing her first created project under the working title of Witch Legacy, being inspired by Face Paint mythology and set in a Magipunk world. For further development, she turned to fellow creator Craig McCracken, who she worked with as a writer on The Powerpuff Girls, and asked for advice. Craig suggested that her project should be a "cliché breaker" and should be adapted into modern times. In addition, he suggested that she should try an audition with The Powerpuff Girls cast members Cathy Cavadini, Tara Strong, Elizabeth Daily and Jennifer Hale for the main role. Craig's longtime partner and friend Genndy Tartakovsky also provided some creative input by advising her to not be afraid to imagine and explore darker themes and even death, while retaining its family-friendly focus.

Stella followed those advices and pitched its final draft to Warner Bros. on December 23rd, 2003, originally intending to be made as an animated television series. However, the studio's executives believed it that her project would be more profitable if it was made as a video game instead, similar to Collin the Speedy Boy. She was initially unsure about their condition, but after consulting her husband, who was developing Project Mark by that time, she accepted the executives' offer and started its development under the definitive name of Good Ol' Magic.

Film

 * The Multiple Mystic Woods - writer and storyboard artist (2020)
 * Good Ol' Magic - writer, creative consultant and executive producer (2020)
 * Diary of a Psychopath - writer, creative consultant, executive producer and cameo (2020)

Television

 * The Powerpuff Girls - writer, storyboard artist and director (1999-200?)
 * Tales from the Mystic Woods - writer, storyboard artist and director (2000-2004)
 * What's New, Scooby-Doo? - writer, storyboard artist and voice of Chelsea Wrow (2002-2006)
 * Teen Titans - writer and storyboard artist (2003-2006)
 * Collin the Speedy Boy Chronicles - writer and storyboard artist (2003-2007)
 * Good Ol' Magic - creator, developer, writer, storyboard artist, director and executive producer (2009-2013)
 * Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated - writer, TBD (2010-2013)
 * The Looney Tunes Show - writer, TBD (2011-2015)
 * Legacy of the Mystic Woods - writer, storyboard artist and director (2017-present)
 * The Chronicles of Collin the Speedy Boy - writer, storyboard artist and director (2018-present)
 * Urban Legend Private Eyes - co-creator, co-developer, writer, storyboard artist, director and executive producer (2019-present)
 * Good Ol' Magic: The Adventures of Charlotte - creator, developer, writer, storyboard artist, director and executive producer (2020-present)

Video games

 * Good Ol' Magic series - creator, developer, writer, storyboard artist and director (2006-present)
 * Mark: Time Janitor series - writer, storyboard artist and director (2006-present)
 * Hypnotic Wars - writer, storyboard artist and director (2017)
 * Miranda of the Mystic Woods - writer, storyboard artist and co-director (2018)
 * Creative Nexus series - co-creator, developer, writer, storyboard artist and co-director (2018-present)

Books

 * Diary of a Psychopath series (, 2009-2018)

Comic books

 * The Legend of the Mystic Woods - writer and artwork artist (2007-present)
 * Good Ol' Magic - writer and artwork artist (2010-present)
 * Better Magic - writer and artwork artist (2016-present)

Personal life
She is currently married to Mark: Time Janitor creator Ryan Curcwald since TBD 1997 as they currently have two children: Matthew (born in 2002) and Lucy (born in 2003). She and her family currently reside in Boston, Massachusetts.

Stella has been a longtime supporter of the NFL team New England Patriots, the NBA team Boston Celtics and the MLB team Boston Red Sox.

She is a supporter of the Democratic Party and has endorsed Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 and Bernie Sanders in 2016.

She is an advocate for LGBT rights and often speaks at rallies supporting the influence they gave to develop Charlotte's sexuality, even doing a charity short film featuring some of her favorite strong female creations.

Controversies
Despite her positive reception, she did receive a LOT of controversy for her inappropriate drawings and adult fanfics on Collin the Speedy Boy, The Dinosaur Princess, Howler, etc, and they ended up getting reaction from the other WBIE creators themselves. For example, Maria and Lawrence weren't happy and talked to her about it, since they found them and other artists' work disturbing, and Daniel claimed that what she did was unnecessary. However, out of all of the WBIE creators, Oscar's reaction was the worst. He was so pissed that it almost caused her friendship with Oscar Hamilton to completely break.

The fans however reacted rather supportingly of Stella, claiming she should do whatever she wants to do and shouldn't just get pissed.

Later on, she and her husband Ryan Curcwald revealed that those weren't intended to be published online, but rather "her little secret", as those were leaked across the web by an anonymous source, a fact that almost ruined her career.

Additionally, she was almost fired from Warner Bros. But in awake of Oscar's promise, she kept the job and reconciled with Oscar. Stella learned the kinda-hard way that if she does adult material, then there would be risks.

Despite that, she still publishes fanfics and fanart for other franchises online, even if no longer adult-themed, opting for doing mainly ones with darker themes when aiming for a mature rating. And she kinda still does adult art for fun, but hand draws it instead of on her computer and avoids to publish it online.

Trivia

 * She is close friends with Daniel Wright, Oscar Hamilton, Tarōzaemon Fujiyama, Genndy Tartakovsky, Craig McCracken, Lauren Faust,, Maxwell Atoms and.
 * She and Ryan are often nicknamed "the odd couple" due to their different heritage, their video game series' different tone and their writing style as Stella usually writes dramatic/dark comedies and Ryan prefers to write extremely comedic stories.
 * Most of her projects have been exclusively made for Warner Bros., save for Diary of a Psychopath, whose book series was published by Simon & Schuster and its film adaption is being produced by Paramount Pictures.
 * She is revealed to be fond of fanfiction and she even wrote some related to her works and some other franchises as well, some of them under the pseudonym Mark Rodriguez and others under her real name.
 * Following the adult fanfiction/art controversy, she discontinued the use of the first one.
 * She is the first WBIE creator to be extremely active online as she has a DeviantArt account under the name MagGirl23, a YouTube channel under her actual name and a TikTok account.