First, the good news — Batgirl is getting a new creative team as of isssue #35, and it’s a damn good one. The book will now be written by Cameron Stewart and Brendan Fletcher and drawn by Babs Tarr.
Stewart came to fame as an artist on Catwoman and various Grant Morrison projects, with this being his first major writing gig. Brenden Fletcher is a newcomer to the comics scene, but he’s also been tapped to co-write Gotham Academy with Becky Cloonan — basically, it seems like his job is to write the dialogue for these artists-turned-writers who might not have an ear for it. Babs Tarr is also a comics newbie, having come from the field of video games.
DC has made some bold choices here, and they already seem to be paying off, as Babs Tarr’s new Batgirl costume is pretty rad…
Damn — in honor of this awesome new outfit, I’m officially declaring comics actually cool for a day.
Ah, but there’s a dark lining to this silver cloud. Lost amongst all the fawning over Batgirl’s sassy new duds is the fact that previous Batgirl writer Gail Simone didn’t exactly leave the book under the best of circumstances.
Why’d Simone leave the book? Well, Batgirl got a new editor in Katie Kubert for issues #31 – 33, and word is she was pushing hard for a darker, grittier tone for the book, which led to Simone’s departure. She more or less confirms it in this tweet.
As implied by above tweet, Katie Kubert quit DC altogether and jumped to Marvel right around the time Gail quit Batgirl. Mark Doyle now edits the book.
So, should you read the new cool-looking Batgirl or side with Gail Simone? Well, turns out you don’t have to take sides. Gail may have left the series under unfortunate circumstances, but she thinks the new direction looks as promising as we all do, and wants you to read it…
I’m going to give it a shot. What about you folks?
Via Comics Alliance & Bleeding Cool