Now this is the post I was searching the Zatanna picture for and it's all about girls who love comics. Yes, we all know that guys love comics and I won't reduce it to the old cliche that comic readers are mentally little boys who want to live their power phantasies through the exploits of their four - coloured heroes. That's just something people who don't understand comics came up with. Much more it's about following the example or the idea these demigods represent and to accept the great responsibility that comes with......well, you know the rest. Living la vida loca. Anyway, guys love comics and another thing guys love is dressing up as their favorite comic character. And not only that but showing themselves like that in public. That's right. And we're damn proud of it !
What some people may not know is that girls can be as great comic fans as their male counterparts. They may not read as much comics as guys do and they may not take as good care of their collection. But most of them also have their favorite comic character even if they haven't read a comic in years. And some like to dress up as them.
Now I'm not talking about those fake pictures you can find of the net like Beyonce as Wonder Woman and whatnot.
No, I'm talking about real persons investing a lot of time to look like the comic characters they love. Which nowadays is called COSPLAY. Cosplay is a word that comes from the japanese subculture and is short for costume play and is used when otakus ( japanese mangafans ) dress up as comic characters.
Of course women needed a new word for doing what male comic fans were doing for years but which had no special name and was just referred to as " that guy who lives with his Mom acting weird again ". Well, cosplay sure is shorter and mothers are not likely to freak out when their daughters are just harmlessly cosplaying. Instead of walking around in scantily clad costumes.
The real reason for this post is that I came across two comic girls ( I'm not happy with the term geek girls - when will the world learn that people who don't read comics are the real geeks ? ) who really excell in the area of cosplay. The first one is Meagan VanBurkleo and I found her on DEVIANTART where she goes by the name of VirtualGirl6654 and has a gallery with some photos of herself as Zatanna. And that's when we finally come full circle.
Because the reason that I was searching for the Adam Hughes covers is that apparently Meagan is a big fan of Adam Hughes ( it's true : women like Adam Hughes' art ) and likes to recreate his covers. And on one picture she recreated the variant cover of issue 51 of CATWOMAN - or better the part with Zatanna that is shown on the wall and of which it was almost impossible to find the original. I found one that's very small but at least you can see the picture. Here's the original :
And here's the recreation.
Quite impressive. But it doesn't end here. No, Meagan also recreated the cover for issue 51 ( if you remember I also had to look for this one ) :
Again, here's the recreation.
But Meagan wouldn't be a real fangirl if she wouldn't be prepared to take it one step further. So here's her own take of the cover.
By the way, something I learned from her gallery is that the numbers on the card are the numbers of LOST. Here is the link to her gallery where you can find much more pictures of her as Witchblade, Wonder Woman and many other comic characters :
Two clips of Meagan in the flesh
Meagan as Lara Croft
Meagan interviewing Rob Knopf
The second fangirl is someone you may have already heard about because there have been some articles about her. I found her when I was searching pictures of Jessica Rabbit and it seems that Jessica's not only very popular with the guys. Men want her women want to be like her.
Now one of the girls looked familiar and as it turned out I had seen a picture of her as Marvel's favorite catburglar Felicia Hardy a.k.a. the Black Cat.
Well, her name is Ruby Rocket like the cartoon character ( No, I'm not a walking comic encyclopedia.......well, kind of but that's not the point. This is just the first thing I found at YouTube )
and she has quite a wide range of costumes.
I just wanted to mention that Ruby has two Batgirl costumes and none of them are ninja midget Cassie Batgirl. No, one of her favorite heroines is Barbara Gordon the original Batgirl. Right on !
Now I read in one of the interviews I have posted below that Ruby is a huge fan of NEXTWAVE ( yeah, good luck with convincing Marvel to bring back that title ) . Now I finally know who the other reader was. No, without joking at my comic store there were only two guys reading the series : me and the other guy who I never found out. I'm still not one hundred percent sure what to think of NEXTWAVE. I mean, when it was coming out it was just too weird too wrap my head around it. But now that it's gone I kind of miss it. At least Machine Man appeared in the MS. MARVEL book where he was really hilarious - much funnier than in NEXTWAVE.
Which for me was one of the problems of the book. In Ms. Marvel Machine Man worked so well because he was the strange one and all the others were so normal. On NEXTWAVE everybody was strange so he wasn't special. It's like with the X- Men. Wolverine became such a popular character because he was unique to the team and the loner. But if all members of the team would have been Wolverines they would have become boring pretty quick. And NEXTWAVE was just a team full of Wolverines.
I guess that paired with the fact that the book was aimed at a pretty slim audience was the coup de grace for the title. I mean on one side it was clearly aimed at readers who don't like superheroes too much and enjoy the stuff Garth Ennis writes. On the other side they had to know the Marvel universe like the back of their hand so that all the stuff in the comic makes sense. That's really not your average comic fan.
So I'm still not sure what to do with my NEXTWAVE issues when I have to thin out my comic collection. On one side it may have been better if I never heard of the book. On the other side you have to give credit to a writer who manages to turn FORBUSH MAN into a terrifying character. And of course the artwork by Stuart Immomen was impeccable. Maybe I'll just put it to the side and do all the other comics first. Ah, decisions, decisions.
Coming back to the topic of the outfits ( how did we get started on the whole NEXTWAVE rant anyway ? ) it's quite a lot of work. Especially if you keep in mind that Ruby does all of the sewing herself ( except for the Phoenix outfit ). But when I look at the costumes I really regret not being able to go to the ComicAction this year and dress up as a comic character. With my build I could probably make a good Bouncing Boy or at least a decent Bullock.
Now seeing all the pictures you might think that here are not much comic redheads left but I can think of a few right of the top of my head : Red Sonja, Red Monika ( althoug you need a lot of padding for that one ), Painkiller Jane, Firestar, Medusa, Miss Martian, Scarlet from G.I. Joe, Goblin Queen, Rachel Summers from EXCALIBUR ( at least two costumes ), Siryn, Ragged Robin from Invisibles, Caitlin Fairchild, Hellcat, Maxima, Mystique, Spider - Woman, Mera, Ranma 1/2 when in his female form and of course Kei from Dirty Pair. I guess there are a few more but that's just a quick list.
Of course there are other characters like Supergirl, Valkyrie or others that she could pick since it doesn't HAVE to be a redhead. The possibilities are endless.
Here are a few clips of Ruby at the 2007 ComiCon interviewing Adam Hughes
David Mack
Joe Linsner
Michael Oeming
Arthur Suydam
Ethan Van Sciver
Freddie Williams
Billy Tan
The usual assortment of links :
You have seen, there are fangirls out there who are just like normal persons reading and enjoying comics and spending hours to look like the person on the cover. So the next time you go to a convention you might want to dust off your Animal Man outfit and give it a spin. Who knows, maybe you meet your Wonder Woman.
New to the blog ? Everything you need to know about TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN :
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