Boston Comic Con 2015: Interview with Babs Tarr, Batgirl Illustrator

Babs Tarr has been illustrating Batgirl for DC Comics for only a year now, but already she’s become a notable favorite of ours. We interviewed her at Boston Comic Con about what she’s learned on the job with Batgirl, as well as her Sailor Moon fandom. For the rest of our Boston Comic Con interviews, check out our BCC 2015 tag.

Read the transcript of what Babs Tarr told us below.

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Hi, I’m Babs Tarr, and I work on Batgirl for DC Comics. I’m still new to comics; I just started on Batgirl this time last year, and Cameron Stewart was doing the lay-outs for me for the comics, and I would do pencils and inks on top of it. But since Batgirl #40, I’ve been on my own, so that’s been really scary. So, I’ve been getting a little bit of help on the action scenes. When a character is just sitting around looking really cute, I could draw that pretty okay, but when it’s choreographing a fight, I need a little help. So I’m still learning, but I’m more on my own, and I look forward to a whole issue where it’s just me. So, we’ll see! See how it goes.

Getting to re-invent Sailor Moon, I think, would be fun. I think Sailor Moon: Crystal is kind of garbage, and I would love to basically make that a real thing. [She gestures to her Sailor Moon motorcycle gang fan-art, pictured below.]

Sailor Moon is — one of the reasons I love her so much is because she got bad grades, she’s super clumsy, she’s not equipped to be the leader. She’s full of flaws, and I think that’s great, because I feel like — I didn’t feel like I was perfect, but to see her handle herself well under pressure made me feel like, “Oh, I could do that too! That could be me!” I think it’s really good to see imperfect people struggle to do perfect, good things.

I know at the end of the day, if I’m satisfied with the work I made — I just try to do my thing, and put my blinders on, and draw, and move forward. Of course if [a criticism] is valid, or whatever, we listen and we correct it. But it doesn’t do any good to dwell on it, or address it. It’s better to ignore it. Focus on positive stuff.

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