# Christina Strain

Christina Strain (born April 27, 1981) is an American comic book colorist, writer and screenwriter. Strain formerly worked for Marvel Comics as a colorist before pursuing a career as a writer. Strain's notable works include; the award-winning Marvel series Runaways, Marvel's Generation-X, the Syfy TV show, The Magicians, and the Netflix series Shadow and Bone.

## Life

Strain was born in Seoul, South Korea, on April 27, 1981. She lived in South Korea for the majority of her youth, as her mother was from Gunsan, South Korea, and her father was an Air Force officer stationed in South Korea. Except for a brief three years living in Illinois, from 1983 to 1986, Strain lived in South Korea for about fifteen years, during which she lived near a military base and attended Seoul American Elementary School and High School Upon graduating high school, Strain moved back to the United States in 1999 to attend Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge where she majored in graphic design.
Strain resides in Los Angeles, California, with her husband Jon Shiring, a lead engineer at Respawn Entertainment, and their adopted son.

## Career

Strain got her start in comics working as a colorist for CrossGen in 2003. She was let go after two months working at CrossGen when the company began having financial problems and eventually went bankrupt in 2004. Weeks after losing her job at CrossGen, Strain began working for UDON and Aspen. Strain worked for UDON from 2003 to 2005, during which she contacted and impressed the Editor-in-Chief of UDON, Erik Ko, who helped her get a job at Marvel Comics. One of the first comics Strain worked on for Marvel was Runaways, which she worked on as an official colorist for about 6 years. Other prominent comics Strain worked on for Marvel include; Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane, S.H.I.E.L.D., and World War Hulk. Additionally, Strain colored several Jay Company exclusive comic covers such as the Grimm Fairy Tales. Strain worked as a colorist for Marvel for 8 years, before she retired at 32 and decided to go to grad school at the American Film Institute. Initially, Strain was interested in 3-D graphics, but after taking a comic-writing class she realized she really wanted to write stories, so she switched her focus to screenwriting.
While she was transitioning to a writing career, Strain collaborated with various artists to produce original works. Strain and Adrian Alphona, who previously worked together on the Marvel series Runaways, collaborated on an art book. Together they published Sweetness in 2011, consisting of random art illustrated by Aphona and colored and finished by Strain. In 2011, Strain met Jayd Aït-Kaci, an artist she long admired according to a Newsarama interview, through a mutual friend. Strain proposed that they collaborate on a webcomic and pitched various story ideas, of which Aït-Kaci liked The Fox Sister the best. Strain wrote the script for The Fox Sister and Aït-Kaci illustrated it, and they published the first few pages of The Fox Sister in July 2017 on their official website. Strain and Aït-Kaci always planned to officially publish The Fox Sister as a 9x12 hardbound comic book, and in 2012 they compiled and published the first chapter of their webcomic.
The Fox Sister takes inspiration from the Korean folklore also called the Fox Sister, and is about a kumiho, a nine-tailed fox demon. On the webcomics official website, Stain describes The Fox Sister as a "Korean Supernatural thriller/dram-edy story" set in South Korea in the 1960s. As of October 2017 Strain has completed writing the fourth and final chapter of The Fox Sister. However, The Fox Sister is officially on hiatus according to the webcomic's website, and as of December 2018, only 17 pages of chapter four have been released. The Fox Sister continues to be available to freely read online.
After her career switch from colorist to writer, Strain began working as a staff writer for the Syfy TV series The Magicians, during its second season. As of December 2018, Strain continues to be employed as a staff writer for The Magicians. While writing for The Magicians, Strain returned to the comic book industry when Chris Robinson, the Editor of Marvel, asked her to write a short story for a Civil War anthology, Civil War II: Choosing Sides. After writing for the anthology, Strain was officially reintroduced to the comic world as a writer when she was asked to write for the rebooted X-Men series, Generation X. Strain was allowed to create her own concept and list of mutant characters for the rebooted Generation X, thus Strain came up with the concept of "lovable losers". Strain chose to feature a mix of original and already established but lesser known mutants, such as Nathaniel Carver created by Strain, and Nature Girl (Lin Li) created by Jason Latour. The relaunched Generation X series ran for a year, from 2017 to 2018 and published 11 issues, ending at No. 87 under the Marvel Legacy relaunch's numbering system .