One of the really cool things about comic books is that they’re a ~*visual storytelling medium*~. They’re really special! On the other hand, they still have to follow a lot of basic storytelling conventions, and sometimes…… Well sometimes there is a lack of communication or trust between a writer and his artist, and I get so frustrated by how obvious that is that I want to write “SHUT THE FUCK UP” all over that comic in red sharpie. I wouldn’t even be obstructing any art because it’s all covered by inner monolog thought boxes.
I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me preface this with some context:
One of the comic book stores I go to has a back room that sells Dollar Comics (essentially old single back issues that they sell for a dollar each; they’ve got all kinds of stuff, from old Liefeld junk to the 2009 Power Girl). I go back there practically every week to dig through all the 90’s junk, and sometimes I come up with things I actually want to read. (Sometimes I come away with thirty issues of Harley Quinn what happENED TO SELF CONTROL.) A week or so ago, I got two issues of Batgirl, issue #28 from the original Cass Cain run by Kelley Puckett, and issue #1 of the relaunched Cass Cain run by Adam Beechen. That information is important.
Keep in mind that I have no experience reading Cass Cain in print: what I know about her and her personality, I know from snippets of pages on the internet and lovingly written fan analysis. And that’s all good for drumming up interest, but I never felt possessed to find a trade. Her fans really seem to fall over themselves for Cass though, so when I had a chance to find out why, I took it.
So I own two issues of Batgirl. I read both in chronological succession and… Well, I had some thoughts on them.