莫莉·奥斯特塔格

Lee Knox Ostertag (previously Molly Knox Ostertag, born October 28, 1991) is an American cartoonist and writer. His work includes the animated series The Owl House, webcomic Strong Female Protagonist, the graphic novels The Witch Boy trilogy, The Girl from the Sea, and The Deep Dark, and on the series Tales of the Night Watchman. He was named one of Forbes magazine's 30 Under 30 in 2021.

Early life

Ostertag grew up in upstate New York. He attended Bard College and studied illustration and cartooning at the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York City, where he graduated in 2014. He moved from upstate New York to Los Angeles in 2016.

Career

Comics

As a comics artist, Ostertag drew the superhero webcomic Strong Female Protagonist written by Brennan Lee Mulligan from 2012 to 2018, and created the art for the fantasy comic Shattered Warrior written by Sharon Shinn (2017). His first published work came in 2013 and 2014 when he drew two issues of Tales of the Night Watchman for So What? Press, "The Night Collector" (2013) and "It Came from the Gowanus Canal" (2014). The latter remains one of the series' best-selling issues. In 2016, some of his comics appeared in an anthology with other comic artists titled Chainmail Bikini. Two years before, in 2014, Ostertag appeared in the documentary She Makes Comics.

In 2017, Graphix published The Witch Boy, the first graphic novel written and drawn by Ostertag. It is the coming-of-age story of a young boy, Aster, who is intent on becoming a witch in a community where boys are expected to become shapeshifters. Fox Animation acquired the film rights in May 2017, and a sequel, The Hidden Witch, was published in 2018. The third book in the series, The Midwinter Witch, was published in November 2019. The Witch Boy was later described by Daniel Toy of CNN's Underscored as an "emotional, magical story [that] will grab young readers’ attention" which teaches readers the "importance of acceptance and love" while reviewers said that the story of Aster, which begins in the first book, is "parable for gender conformity". Additionally, Aster's tomboy friend, Charlotte "Charlie", who has two dads, is described as not conforming to gender norms, even by the book's publisher, Scholastic. Other works of Ostertag's include the erotic comic Alleycat and the comic How the Best Hunter in the Village Met Her Death, for which he received the 2018 Ignatz Award for Outstanding Story.

Paste described Ostertag's character design as "deft and varied, with a thick, dark line that resembles that of Faith Erin Hicks", noting that he "mostly uses [his] figures' eyes and their body language to convey emotions". A profile by SVA described his work as "consistently featur[ing] diverse casts of characters—multiracial, of differing gender expressions, sexual orientations, and abilities—whose adventures intertwine social justice and superheroes, peer pressure and magical powers", and noted that his "presiding interest lies in queer content in young adult work". Additionally, Erica Friedman of Yuricon, a long time fan of Ostertag, praised his work, How the Best Hunter in the Village Met Her Death, calling it a tale that will resonate with those "who have come through their own dark forests and transformed into their true selves".

In 2021, Ostertag's graphic novel The Girl from the Sea was published. He described it as "teen summer romance graphic novel" set in Nova Scotia, focused on the story of a 15-year-old Korean Canadian girl named Morgan falling in love with a selkie named Keltie. He noted that it is somewhat based on his experience spending summers at Wilneff Island in Nova Scotia as a kid and called the book his "first serious foray" into the romance genre. The Girl from the Sea was a finalist for the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Original Graphic Novel/Anthology.

In August 2021, Ostertag was among a group of creators with whom fellow comics writer Nick Spencer formed a deal with the subscription-based newsletter platform Substack to publish creator-owned comics stories, essays, and instructional guides on that platform.

Animation

In animation, Ostertag has been working since 2014 as a designer for Star vs. the Forces of Evil and as a writer for The Owl House and ThunderCats Roar. In October 2020, he called on Amazon to let him make an animation "centered around Hobbit children in The Shire". In January 2021, it was announced that Netflix was adapting his graphic novel, The Witch Boy, into an animated musical directed by Minkyu Lee.

On December 11, 2020, a project by Ostertag, for Disney Television Animation under the name Neon Galaxy, was registered. In September 2024, Ostertag announced that Neon Galaxy, a series set "in the distant future", was not moving forward at Disney, noting that it had been cancelled a few months prior despite production work for four and a half years and positive response from "kids who saw materials in early demographic testing" and songs by Betty Who. He also noted that it is a "weird, bad time" in the U.S. animation industry, with difficulty in getting series approved, and hoped The Animation Guild can win gains from the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers during negotiations for a new contract, and said that "for now, this is a farewell" for Neon Galaxy while adding "maybe one day I’ll be back." In November 2024, following the leak of the shelved Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur episode "The Gatekeeper", Ostertag speculated that Neon Galaxy was "killed" because two members of the main cast were openly transgender. In December 2025, in response to The Walt Disney Company inking a three-year licensing deal with Sora (OpenAI) for short AI generated videos on Disney+, Ostertag mentioned that Disney's legal department threatened him for sharing artwork from Neon Galaxy to the public.