If you follow my YouTube channel, you will know that I recently launched the first installment of my first original stop-motion animated series, Cleo is the Queen of Space. It's the story of Dorothy King, an 18-year-old student with a hidden past who discovers an ancient sword in the office of her history tutor at Columbia University. Upon taking hold of the sword... well, it's a little too early to be covering that part of the story, but the clue's in the title. It's a New York coming-of-age drama and a Saturday morning cartoon all mashed into one.
In this series of posts, I will be covering the development of the series and documenting my thought process as the story progresses; even with a three-season arc all planned out and ready to enter production, it is almost impossible to predict the direction it will take next. As you will see during this particular post, Cleo's world has seen a huge number of separate incarnations already, through which our hero in pink and black has seen many design alterations and vastly different arcs. With that, I'd like to introduce you to four different yet very similar people who have defined the evolution of this universe from conception to release: these are the Four Cleos. Be warned though: this post contains spoilers for the first episode (above) and the now-non-canon pilot episode, 'Long Live the Queen.'
"The trick is being able to leave your old world behind - and face your future."
Cleo 1: The Prototype
This Cleo is basically just She-Ra.
The very first incarnation of the character came to be when I came across a piece of artwork on Twitter promoting the first series of Netflix's She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. Little did I know that not only would this artwork provide the catalyst for Cleo in my head, it would also introduce me to what is now one of my favourite shows on TV. Upon seeing the modern interpretation of She-Ra, having no knowledge of this character beforehand, all sorts of ideas began to swirl in my head of who she could be, where she could come from and how she became a 7-foot-tall warrior goddess. With that, this proof-of-concept artwork came to be.
Yes, this is just She-Ra with pink hair. But it does illustrate a key stage in Cleo's journey: this version of the character would have, like Adora, transformed into a literal space queen upon lifting her sword. This turned out to be exactly what She-Ra was about, but fortunately for both of us, as Cleo's story developed, I discovered myself wanting to explore the Dorothy side more and more. As the theme of Cleo's identity became more predominant, it suddenly made more sense for her to wear just one face instead of two, blurring the lines between her two worlds. For a while I explored the concept of allowing Dorothy to 'talk' to Cleo, with Cleo being depicted as a tall armoured lady during these interactions, but it soon occurred to me that Dorothy and Cleo should be one rather than two. The prototype was gone.
Cleo 2: The New Yorker
You met this Cleo in the pilot.
This was a pretty bare-bones version of the character. For a force of nature such as Cleo, the best way to let her world grow was evidently to let her loose and see what happens, and as such a very early pilot was written up in which Cleo works in a record store before being chased through a space portal and finding the sword on the surface of another world.
We learn that this Dorothy is in a girl band in which she plays drums, prefers to go by a nickname, and lives in a horrible apartment, but... that's it. There seems to be very little motivation behind her, and we learn very little about her existing life before she picks the sword up. If we don't know what she's leaving behind to go on adventures in space, it turns out there is very little reason to become in said adventures at all. As an exercise in character, the pilot was a great success, but as an introduction to Cleo's world (or even a version of it) it does not serve the viewer well enough. Clearly more work was needed, which leads us into the last two Cleos.
Cleo 3: The Adult
There's a reason this Cleo never saw the light of day.
Experimentation began with a radically different version of the character. This Cleo was in her mid 30s, broke and living in the same tiny apartment that she did when she was 20. Complete with a lifetime's worth of pink hair dye, we would see her teaching guitar to the character that would become Eve, Dorothy's bandmade and roommate in the final draft of episode 1, and coming to grips with the fact that she has halted her life from her early 20s in a desperate attempt to never grow up, Peter Pan-style. Upon learning that Eve's professor possesses a collection of rare historical artefacts, she would break into his office at night and steal the sword, sending her on a journey of redemption self-rediscovery, but there was one glaring issue with this Cleo: she was extremely unlikeable.
There was something rather unnerving about this older Dorothy, and while the redeemed older hero arc may have worked for the likes of Tony Stark, it was clear very early on that this direction was not going to work for Cleo. This version was out, and the question of Cleo's backstory was once again left open.
Cleo 4: The Queen of Space
This is the Cleo you're going to be getting to know very soon.
The final incarnation of Cleo turned out to be a kind of amalgamation of the three. I decided to pay homage to the 'prototype' version by incorporating the iconic pink sweep of hair into Dorothy's 'post-Cleo' look, replacing it with a basic brown ponytail for the majority of episode 1 and giving her two 'forms'. This decision reflects Dorothy's undiscovered potential, leaving her hair behind her like her past, waiting to find her future. I even went to the extent of shooting several scenes twice - once with her brown ponytail and once with the pink mop - in order to keep this element of the story a surprise.
From the pilot, I borrowed Cleo's girl-band and formed the plot of episode 1 around its formation, greatly fleshing out its other members and grounding Cleo in her existing reality before giving her another. From the 'adult,' I took the hidden past, leaving a few clues here and there in the first episode while leaving the rest to be uncovered as Cleo's past and future continue to clash. The entire arc is about respect and compromise, learning to deal with the past and take from it what you need to become the person you want to be, so slowly developing both worlds at once tuned out to be the perfect driver for this narrative.
"The universe is full of stories, and now... it's time you knew mine."
As for Cleo's journey... well, we can take a look at that once we get to know her more. There's a lot to unwrap (so much that I haven't quite got it all down on paper yet) but I hope this series of posts will serve as a worthy companion piece for Cleo's journey from Queens, NYC to Queen of Space.
Next time: Building Cleo's Worlds
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