Brenden Fletcher, Cameron Stewart, and Babs Tarr have given Batgirl quite the makeover. Moving to Burnside, we've seen Barbara settle into a new home with new friends and a problems. Now that she's had a chance to settle in, we're about to see what Burnside really has to offer. We had the chance to talk to the creators to find out what's coming up for Batgirl.
COMIC VINE: What’s next for Batgirl?
BRENDEN FLETCHER: Awesome stuff.
BABS TARR: We’re just going to keep on kicking ass and taking names.
CV: I mean is she settled in Burnside? Is she still adjusting?
BT: She’s not moving.
CAMERON STEWART: Our whole first arc is about her…we had the giant tonal shift, obviously. We had to make sense of that in the narrative. It was all about her trying to figure out who she is and did she want to live this life of darkness or did she want to move towards the light, and so on. The whole first arc was about that.
BF: Finding balance.
CS: Once that arc is resolved, yes, now she’s found her balance. It’s almost like issue 41 is going to be like our real beginning. After we’ve dealt with the set up for it, we can move full steam ahead and not have to worry about all the narrative balance that we had to establish.
BF: And in order to make that work, we kind of had to cordon her off from the rest of the Bat-Universe. We had a lot of heavy lifting to do. Now that’s done. Now you’ll see aspects of the Bat-Universe coming back into Barbara’s life in a stronger way.
CV: Is there still going to be a struggle balancing her new personal life with being Batgirl? Like she’s in a relationship…
CS: Is she though…?
[laughs]
CV: Is she going to have time for a relationship?
BF: That’s always going to be a struggle but I think we can say there’s always romance on the horizon.
BT: There better be.
CS: We really like doing that slice of life stuff. It’s really fun. I think it really rounds out the character. I like doing the superhero action stuff but I really enjoy doing the out of costume. I would do an entire issue of her out of costume and we could get away with it. And then do an entire issue of her in costume. I think the balance is what’s interesting.
BF: And playing with that and pushing it forward.
BT: It’s fun to see someone try to balance their superhero life and their social life with the two like butting heads. She already has schoolwork and a social life and on top of that, having to deal with saving Burnside every other day.
CV: How do you approach the visual aspect of redesigning characters and the look of everything.
CS: I usually do a first pass at it and Babs makes it better. Particularly when it comes to clothing, fashion, and that kind of thing.
CV: Do you spend a lot of time doing the detail on the outfits.
BT: Fashion is my passion.
[laughs]
I really like it so I don’t really mind. It’s important to me. I know our readers and I know it’s important to them. It’s fun so I try to put extra care in every kind of costume.
CS: It’s authentic. It feels authentic.
BT: Even with their everyday stuff, I’m like, “What would Babs wear? Her style is this and Dinah’s is this.” It makes them feel more like real characters. I know when I’m reading another comic and the building isn’t thought about and it takes me out of the story. You don’t want to feel that. It’s not a chore at all. I love it. If I could just do costumes for everybody, I would.
CS: We have like a private Pinterest board where we have clothing inspirations.
BT: I even have individual ones for every character, like everyone’s style. I have an intern pulling stuff for each character. I’m like, “This is so and so’s style.” When I need dress them, I flip through and put an outfit together and put it on the page. It’s fun.
CV: With Batgirl embracing the public attention, are we going to see Batman come and say, “You’re not supposed to do that”?
CS: I think she’ll learn that on her own. It’s already sort of blown up. When we conceived the story, a big part of it was always the life cycle of internet fame. You have this kind of rapid rise, you get extremely famous, and then there’s a backlash. I think she’s learning that maybe this isn’t the best way to approach her crime-fighting career. So Batman probably doesn’t need to say anything. She’ll figure it out on her own.
CV: Will we see new villains? Returning villains? A mix?
BF: A…mix? But, if we’re going to speak to anything, we’re bringing a villain into the New 52 or whatever post-New 52…post-Convergence…we’re bringing back a villain. It’s a Batgirl villain you haven’t seen…
CS: Probably an unexpected one too. I think people might speculate, “Oh who could they bring back?” but I think this one…
BF: They’re not going to guess!
CV: One that we haven’t seen in the New 52?
BT: Yeah.
CS: I think it’s one that fits in very well with what we’re doing and I think it’s one that Babs is going to kill on the design front.
BF: But we’ll also see new villains as well. Because we love making up new villains.
CS: It’s fun to do that. All the villains in the firs story arc were new ones but we have a lot of fans who want to see the characters they’re familiar with.
CV: Like…?
CS: That would be telling.
BF: [cough] Darkseid…
[laughs]
CS: As Brenden said, it was really necessary, in our first arc, to really separate her from all that so we could establish the new status quo. But now we’ll start to inch her back into the rest of the Bat-Universe. So there’ll be more of the stuff people want to see.
Here's the solicit for BATGIRL #41:
BATGIRL #41
Written by CAMERON STEWART and BRENDEN FLETCHER
Art by BABS TARR
Cover by CAMERON STEWART
THE JOKER Variant cover by RAFAEL ALBUQUERQUE
On sale JUNE 24 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T
Retailers: This issue will ship with two covers. Please see the order form for more information.
There’s a new Batman in town…and that spells bad news for Barbara Gordon! She’s already got enough upheaval in her life, with her roommate Frankie in on her biggest secret…and now she’s looking to get even more involved in Batgirl’s business!