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Batgirl! [PICS]

 
  

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grant
13:26 / 16.01.06
Here's one list of the contenders (although it seems to be growing too fast to be contained).

And here's Ground Zero - Andi Watson's pitch for a Japanese-style Batgirl.


Now *everyone's* got one.














 
 
grant
14:09 / 16.01.06
Some of the best are on
this page as images.

WARNING: THERE ARE TWO NSFW IMAGES AT THE BOTTOM OF PAGE 2.

The captions are a little creepy, but the art's fantastic. I love the little Batgirl in her pajamas.
 
 
Tamayyurt
14:14 / 16.01.06
I looked at a bunch of them and I really like this one:



So cute.
 
 
Withiel: DALI'S ROTTWEILER
15:04 / 16.01.06
Ergh. Those captions are a little... yes. Ergh

However, I love the knitting Batgirl image very much. She just looks as if she's concentrating so very hard.

(this one was mine - Schumacher films design ethic with the "practicality" of the Batman Begins costume and the colourscheme of the animated version.
 
 
miss wonderstarr
15:14 / 16.01.06
Standing out, is her tit in sharp silhouette

Yeah, that was the first thing I noticed about it too, man.

Some adorable images on that page. I've always had a soft spot for Batgirl... a kind of safe, straight displacement of my crush on Batman, I think. The appeal of Batman -- cool and charismatic but technically powerless -- is also increased when you apply the same dynamic to a younger, weaker, prettier person who's had less training and far less motivation.

That intrigued me about Batgirl -- she almost just seems to do it for the kicks. She never had the primal push that drove Bruce Wayne to devote himself to crime fighting, and presumably she's nowhere near as good at it, not being a millionaire and having completed none or very few of the Eastern disciplines, the FBI academy, the martial arts mastery, the chemistry, the scholarship that made Batman what he is.

She seems a playful kind of character, and those pix capture that in a way you couldn't imagine with Batman or Robin.
 
 
Grady Hendrix
15:18 / 16.01.06
One of the great things about comic books is that for some reason a lot of writers and artists came up with great female characters back in the 50's and 60's and then never maximized their potential. They just never seemed to know what to do with them so they were basically more fun-loving, lighter versions of the male characters (or castrating shrews - but those were the villains, and even they seemed more fun-loving and kicky).

So now there's SpiderWoman (I wish Spider-Girl was better), Batgirl, Supergirl, and a bunch of others all laying about waiting to be picked up and explored and given some heft. It makes me smile just thinking about it.
 
 
miss wonderstarr
15:26 / 16.01.06
That's true, but Batgirl is kick-assier and "darker" than the earlier Bat-Girl and Batwoman... she's lite and to me that is part of the charm, but I don't think she traps men in fishnets and carries Bat-lipstick on her belt.
 
 
Withiel: DALI'S ROTTWEILER
15:34 / 16.01.06
This is true, but what's interesting about the current Batgirl (Cassandra Cain, right?) is that the costume is actually more Batmannish than Batman's. That is to say, it's more stripped-down and creepier - almost insectoid with the big eyes and spindly limbs.
 
 
Yotsuba & Benjamin!
15:53 / 16.01.06
Some of them are hell of rough, but I had fun with mine.

 
 
miss wonderstarr
16:25 / 16.01.06
[a little off topic]

So there's a multiverse worth of beautifully-drawn Batgirls. But has anyone ever written a genuinely good Batgirl? I've read a fair few Batgirl stories, and can't think of a single one that makes the character seem distinct, interesting, individual, convincing. Some of them make her fun, groovy and endearing, but nothing I've read gives me any sense of what she'd be like as a person.

I'm thinking mostly of Barbara Gordon here, so perhaps that's part of the problem -- she was immobilised before someone like Morrison could write her as Batgirl. But there have been out-of-chronology specials -- one by Milligan, I think, Batgirl Defiant? -- and Elseworlds/Hypertime would allow it, if anyone really wanted to give the character a decent shot. I gather she's still around on Earth-Two, in Infinite Crisis.

[/apologies]
 
 
miss wonderstarr
16:42 / 16.01.06


Possibly my fave to date apart from "knitting": Darwyn Cooke style 1950s Bat-sweater girl, with a Miller element in her mischievous weapon. Supports my point -- imagine Batman with a Dennis the Menace catapult.
 
 
Hieronymus
16:57 / 16.01.06
Am I the only one who still likes the classic look, with the animated series colors of orange or yellow on black?

 
 
miss wonderstarr
17:03 / 16.01.06
You know, what would be good is a writing meme where people have to pick their favorite of these Batgirls and do a script pitch or proposal for her (or script, or story). Some of them seem to have such character invested in them: like these sulky, scowly, drop-outs who have nothing to do with costumed cheesecake. You wonder how they got the role of Gotham Guardianette, and what they're going to do with it.




 
 
Sniv
17:08 / 16.01.06
Kovacs - have you read Batgirl: Year One. I thought that was excellent. I'm a bit of a Chuck Dixon fan though (don't judge me, it's what I grew up reading), but the way he handles the character is awesome. She seems... real, somehow. And the artwork is gorgeous, I've never seen a cuter version of Batgirl, but it's not cheesecaky in the slightest, just really cool.

Another neat (recent-ish) BG story I've read is the Batgirl prestige format special DC put out to co-incide with Batman and Robin (ugh). Art by Matt Haley, very nice. Also features her 'first' meeting with Mr J. Also, there was a girlfrenzy special that I can't remember, but I do know it exists!
 
 
Aertho
17:18 / 16.01.06


Not sure about the story, but I did like the cover design for all those GirlFrenzy titles. Anyone know who made them?

 
 
Yotsuba & Benjamin!
17:20 / 16.01.06
Not sure about the actual art, but that's definitely Rian Hughes on the 1s and 2s.
 
 
Aertho
17:22 / 16.01.06
That's probably what I mean... now that I look closer, the art is drawn by all sorts: Nauck on Secret, Jimenez on Donna, etc.

This Rian Hughes chap is someone I'm supposed to look into.
 
 
Shrug
17:57 / 16.01.06
These two are great.



 
 
miss wonderstarr
18:25 / 16.01.06
I don't think I've read Batgirl, Year One. When did it come out and in what form? I recall a pretty good one-shot Batgirl solo (fat comic, rather than graphic novel) around 1997, and I did also read that Girlfrenzy one but it doesn't seem to have left much mark on my memory. All my comics from that period are in boxes and files, so I'd have to dig thru them.
 
 
Just Add Water
19:10 / 16.01.06
Those are cool.

Anyway:

Batgirl in a dark room. If she steps outside a circle on the floor, a bomb will go off. So she has to tie her boot to her cape and and fling it out in order to flick the light switch.

Anybody know what I'm talking about?

I believe it was from the seventies, and not issue-length. She was real sexy in that episode. I'm not sure who did the art, I want to say Neal Adams, but I don't think it was him.
 
 
Just Add Water
19:53 / 16.01.06
Ooh, found some scans - the first two ones on this page are from the comic I was thinking of.

Now I want to say the art is by Gil Kane?
 
 
grant
20:00 / 16.01.06
They're still coming -- and they're starting to redo each other.


This cartoony design


became elaborated as


this:


(clicky for bigger versions)

She looks like one of my ex-girlfriends.
 
 
grant
20:49 / 16.01.06
And this one looks like Jenny Everywhere, but has her own backstory.

Keen hanglider!

So here's a pair of questions:

1. What should DC learn from this?
and
2. What will DC learn from this?
 
 
Aertho
20:58 / 16.01.06
The first is a fucking essay, best answered by Meludreen, or perhaps more thoroughly by the tag team efforts of Jack Fear and Solitaire Rose.

The second is nothin'.
 
 
Just Add Water
20:58 / 16.01.06
Wow, that last redesigned one is really, really good.

Just to end my own threadrot, I found this about the comic that I asked about upthread:

Detective Comics No. 406
December 1970
Story: “The Explosive Circle” (7 pages)
Editor: Julius Schwartz
Writer: Frank Robbins
Penciller: Gil Kane
Inker: Vince Colletta
Feature Character: Batgirl
Supporting Character: Commissioner Gordon (last appearance in BRAVE AND THE BOLD #93; next appears in BATMAN #230)
Intro: Shelley Simms
Villains: Mal and his gang (first appearance for all)
Comment: This story continues in the next issue.
Synopsis: Trying to learn the involvement of an activist author with a bombed building, Batgirl finds herself trapped in a basement whose floor is laden with mines.

Detective Comics No. 407
January 1971
Story: “One of Our Landmarks Is Missing” (7 pages)
Editor: Julius Schwartz
Writer: Frank Robbins
Penciller: Gil Kane
Inker: Vince Colletta
Feature Character: Batgirl
Other Character: Shelley Simms (last appearance)
Villains: Mal and his gang (last appearance), Slavin (first and only appearance)
Comment: Story continues from last issue.
Synopsis: After Batgirl manages to deactivates the mines, she goes on the trail of Mal and his bombing gang, and finds them in cahoots with a profiteer.


Sorry.

Now for more Batgirls.
 
 
Jack Denfeld
22:55 / 16.01.06
 
 
Spaniel
07:19 / 17.01.06
True art.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
08:28 / 17.01.06
I'm sorry, but how lovely was the Batgirl-in-jammies pic? Jammie-Batgirl awwww.
 
 
grant
13:50 / 17.01.06
Very, very lovely.

I'm also quite partial to this one:

It's like Moebius inking a Keith Giffen pencil or something.

What I think DC should learn: we need comics that are keen. Poppy and juvenile.
 
 
miss wonderstarr
15:29 / 17.01.06
DC should take the twelve best designs and get their top talent to write & draw a one-off comic inspired by each Batgirl, to be published one a month from Nov 2006, then collected in a deluxe edition in time for Christmas 2007.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
15:44 / 17.01.06
I don't think that's a good idea - I'd hate to see any of these Batgirls and Batwomen sexually assaulted.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
15:44 / 17.01.06
That's if you're going with DC's own definition of "top talent".
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
16:00 / 17.01.06
Could do as a nice spinoff to the big Bizarro collections...

Actually, that reminds me of the Batgirl story in the first one. She saves a bat from dissection!
 
 
miss wonderstarr
17:31 / 17.01.06
I don't think that's a good idea - I'd hate to see any of these Batgirls and Batwomen sexually assaulted.

Don't worry -- we'll be in the new post-Infinite Crisis "lite" age by then, and these Batgirls will have bat-kitties, miniature cities... all that rainbow glory.
 
 
olsen
16:07 / 18.01.06
Hey grant,

Thanks for getting these Batgirl images going over here.
The stupid firewall at work won't let me follow all those livejournal links.
 
  

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