The Mary Sue Interview: The Batgirl Creative Team on Volume One, “The Batgirl of Burnside”
Babs is back in action.
Barbara Gordon’s selfie went viral earlier this year, when the new Batgirl creative team posted their fresh, rad take on the character and the internet was not quite sure what to make of it. Six issues in, and Babs has a brand-new trade #1, full of her adventures in hacking and, you know, being a 20-something in Burnside (like the Gotham City equivalent of Brooklyn).
“It’s a fresh start for Barbara Gordon, for Batgirl,” said co-writer Brenden Fletcher. “We’ve got a new supporting cast, a new energy, a new vibe that’s super fun. You don’t have to have read any Batgirl comics – or any comics at all – before picking up this volume of Batgirl, so this is a great place to start.”
“It’s a perfect jumping-on point,” agreed co-writer Cameron Stewart. “It’s a place that anyone can start and get the whole story.”
“The art’s pretty cool, too,” laughed series artist Babs Tarr.
In case you haven’t seen it, Batgirl got a practical new costume for this run, including a leather jacket, snap-off cape, and yellow Doc Martens. “It’s very much like Babs made it herself,” said Tarr. “She went to the stores around Burnside and decided she needed a new costume, and she just made it herself. So there’s a really neat little cosplay page of her like making her suit. It’s hers. She’s owning it. It’s very much how a young person would put their costume together.”
Stewart, who collaborated with Tarr on the new outfit, said that you can see their whole process in this new volume that were never seen in the single issues. “There’s about 20 to 30 pages in the back of the book that showcase all of our concept art, all the drawings that Babs did of different outfits for the girls, storyboards, things showing the visual development of our version of Batgirl.”
The trio also spoke about how important it was for them to include diversity in the cast of characters; Babs’ friends use leg braces, wear hijabs, and express their individuality through their clothing. “I have a Pinterest board of every girl and they each have their own style,” shared Tarr, after which Fletcher bemoaned the fact that they didn’t screencap them to include in the first volume. “Babs is kind of tomboyish, so I have very comfy but cute stuff for her.” Her new roommate Frankie is a lot more confident and outgoing, so she gets bright colours and more skin-baring cuts. For Black Canary, who jumps in and out of Babs’ life, Tarr was influenced by her leather jacket-and-fishnets costume. “She’s always older than the girls, so I gave her kind of like a Zara-esque kind of mature rocker look.”
And though the first New 52 Batgirl run (by the ever-awesome Gail Simone) trended toward the dark side of the Gotham ‘verse, the new team is looking to slowly move away from that, while still paying respect to the gravity of the previous run. “We thought that the best way to reintroduce her would be to plant her in the real world and see how a 21-year-old in Gotham City – who had gone through all of this turmoil – would try to rebuild her life,” Fletcher elaborated. “There’s a reality to that, watching someone figure out how they can live, and how they can be a superhero. It’s complex stuff,” but, he added, “now we’re just going to have a lot of fun.”
If you read this volume and are curious about what comes next (and trust me, you will be), team Batgirl says that Babs is going to have some exciting but still difficult challenges on the horizon – the first of which is dealing with the fact that her dad, Commissioner Gordon, is now Batman. “So there’s an interesting dynamic between Batgirl and her father,” Stewart said mysteriously. They’ll also be facing Batgirl off against Livewire, in her major New 52 debut with a brand-new Babs Tarr-designed costume; plus, other “old favorite” Batgirl villains, a new love interest, and “some really fun sub-plots that are going to pay off in a big way around October.”
“As a female reader myself,” finished Tarr, “I didn’t really have a lot of comics that I related to. So in a way, I feel like Batgirl fills a hole, something that people were hungry for and didn’t quite have yet.”
You can grab Batgirl Volume 1: The Batgirl of Burnside at comic shops, book stores, and online today.
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