Its the same good old Batgirl, but not really.
Shes been crippled, gone through rehabilitation, and hit the ground running.
Her work is never done.
Enter Burnside, Gothams most hipster neighborhood, full of social media and start-up obsessed young people.
Barbara wants to hit the books, finish her Masters, and have a bit of a normal life.
You know, like a normal twenty-something.
But as we discover in the excellentBatgirl#35, things arent that easy… How did you guys approach modernizing Batgirl while staying true to her character?
CS:Barbara Gordon had always been associated with computers and technology.
Also, we are trying to steep this a lot.
So [social media is] a natural thing to put in.
It was an unusual angle for it.
You dont really see social media in comics.
Its very interesting to see.
Social media actually becomes a fairly significant part of the story.
Barbara has had a dark past.
She has recovered from being crippled.
InBatman Eternal, shes dealing with her dads incarceration.
What are her concerns in your run of Batgirl?
They seem very different.
BT:Shes trying to get away from all that with her move to Burnside.
Shes just trying to figure herself out because shes been fighting crime since she was sixteen.
CS:In the New 52 continuity, shes been Batgirl since she was a young teenager.
Then she was injured and had her time in the wheelchair, and then went back to being Batgirl.
So shes never really had a normal life.
Now, shes just trying to find the correct path for herself.
That means trying to have a normal life.
Thats something, though, that she is inexperienced with.
That are separate from crime fighting.
That are a new set of challenges that she has got to deal with and absorb into her life.
Our ultimate goal is to move her past all the darkness and the trauma.
She can have a dark past, but it doesnt have to define her present or her future.
We want to bring her to a place that is ultimately healthy and optimistic.
It seems that DC doesnt often let young characters in the Batman family be young people.
BF:I dont think that is a directive for us.
I dont think we sat down and talked about it at all.
CS:It is something that we just felt was appropriate for the characters.
Theres also a tendency in comics in general to draw characters looking older than they are meant to be.
But its all about trying to portray them in a more accurate and honest way.
What was the thought process behind the design of the new costume?
I wanted to turn it into something that was more light and upbeat.
The costume had to reflect that.
After a lot of experimentation, I came up with a look that was satisfying to me.
BT:I thought it was really great.
I just noticed some things in the jacket and some details.
He had this great leather jacket.
I added some stream lines on it, some zippers, and the collar went up.
[The collar] has a little snap to match the snaps he already had on the cape.
I was just riffing off what Cameron did and adding my own flavor on top of it.
CS:Every single one of her suggestions was on point.
BT:He kept them all.
CS:Every single one was like wow!
I was happy with it before but now its perfect.
CS:We do it with all of the character design, actually.
She revises it and we jam on it.
So every character in the book is a mash-up of the both of us working together.
Thank you very much, Babs Tarr, Cameron Stewart, and Brenden Fletcher!
Batgirl#36 is out on Nov. 12.
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