Gail Simone no longer the writer of Batgirl

[psyshot]

So your choice to replace Gail Simone is....Gail Simone?

It is his list of people who wrote the best batgirl stories, not who should replace Gail Simone.

[Bluebow]

Agreed that Gail showed to be a class act, and just what is up with this Cunningham guy? Gail is bringing in ever increasing sales and is now DC's #1 top selling female solo title, and there was some issue and she even states she tried to find a way to make it work, and this new guy then fires her via e-mail, showing yes, absolutely NO class.

And Gail's passing comment about refrigerators is now making me think this new editor wants the lame killing off of a female support character around #17 or #18, no doubt Bab's mom or former roommate Alysia to be "edgy". Well this makes up my mind for me, Gail's last issue is my last issue as well until this Mr. Cunningham is no longer associated with the Batgirl title. And that's saying a lot with me, as everyone in these parts knows what a big fan of this character I am. He appears to be showing no class in his working relationships and is possibly (we'll have to see this spring) wanting the standard refrigeration of female characters, which Gail has written extensively about and is strongly against.

I hold NO animosity to the new writer coming in, but the editor at large Mr. Cunningham's apparent actions have LOST this paying customer as soon as Ms. Simone's last issue comes out at #16 or #17.

I dearly hope Mr. Cunningham's power play as the new Batgirl editor deservedly professionally blows up in his face when hopefully more readers like myself also drop this title in a solidarity protest for respect towards workers.

I got the impression that the idea of killing off the room mate Alysia was planted quite a while ago, ever since Barbara gave her a set of knives last Christmas and that was the whole point of the making the sandwich sequence in the last issue, to get her fingerprints on a knife that she had bought.

[Etoma]

This is sad and stupid. How in the world do DC hope to attract writers when they treat one of their most vocal supporters this way. DC have a few good writers and only about three whose names can inspire high sales, Gail Simone was one of them. I truly hope she leaves DC, I doubt there's is a reason to stay.

[Scurlogg_Hawkk]

bad chose Dc ................ The gail simone was a perfect fit for the Batgirl series .Why , i don't get it .

[zibeck]

I will probably be dropping this title. Unless the new writer is Bryan Q. Miller, with Babs getting a "spoilery" sidekick.

[Jake Fury]

Maybe the book just changes titles?

[Don Yoyo]

I just hope I like the way she is going to be portrayed by the new writer. I dont know how everyone feels but BQM would be a good choice. I loved Steph under his pen Im sure he can make DCnU Barbara enjoyable.

You and Simone seem to be in synch on that one :

http://gailsimone.tumblr.com/post/37630738068/you-know

[The Great Grape]

We don't know all the details, so..........

On it's surface, it makes no sense. That certain people here or wherever on the net didn't like the title isn't vital given it's numbers. It's not necessary nor possible to please everyone. And there are other routes available to try improving there if DC wishes. Far as we know, this is basically needlessly gambling a portion of sales and momentum for no better apparent reason than slicing and dicing a totally different character.

[Bluebow]

Oracle was a superheroine who was exponentially more powerful than any Batgirl could ever hope to be.

Why is that so hard to get?
Nevermind that Oracle even seemed to be a better fighter than Batgirl when it push came to shove.

And that a Barbara in a wheelchair seemed to deal with it better that a Barbara that got out of one. It will be interesting to contrast how this Barbara deals with meeting the Joker to how Oracle did on their last encounter.

[Ed Sizzers]

AWESOME NEWS!!!

I disagree.

Yes, if this had happened during those first 6 or 7 months of the DCnU when the book was genuinely awful, I would have been pleased at the news (although still not in the manner in which Gail has seemingly been treated). However, month on month, the book has been improving (aside from a little blip with the NotO crossover), with last month's issue being the best of the series to date. It's as though just as Gail was finally getting a proper handle on the book, and the character of Babs, she's been ditched.

And now we face the unknown commodity of new writer. Yes, we could hit the ground running if we're lucky, and get someone who nails it from the outset. On the other hand, we could be back to the poor quality of the Mirror arc all over again. So I'm not celebrating Gail's removal. And I'm not going to make any judgements about her replacement until we know who it is and, more importantly, we see what they can do.

[batGRRRl4ever]

Based on the premature denunciations of some imagined feminist agenda, like this, I wouldn't want to log in if I were her.

The level of trembling anxiety about having to talk seriously about gender and comics in this thread is an excellent example of why it is so hard to make headway on the subject.

No one here is saying to let her keep the book if she wasn't writing well. But there was a roughly normal amount of critique for her book, and her sales were good. usually a writer leaves if the title is selling poorly, if they are writing exceptionally poorly, they have other plans/projects, or if the company is changing direction on marketing certain titles. Of those reasons, only the last seems likely, and the classless way they ended their relationship with her makes it difficult to tell why exactly they made that decision. The discussion of her as a woman who writes comics revolves around this: it isn't that she is one of very few female writers, but that she is a good female writer, and it seems like a shame to cut one of the few female creators who is also good at their job in a field that could use more diversity.

So it isn't about her being treated in a sexist manner, because we don't have enough information yet to make that judgment. Rather, it is an unfortunate turn of events concerning both a female writer and gender equity in the field. Preemptively labeling such concerns as some overblown cry against sexism is both unfair and incorrect.

Well said. There's nothing I can add to that.

We don't know all the details, so..........

On it's surface, it makes no sense. That certain people here or wherever on the net didn't like the title isn't vital given it's numbers. It's not necessary nor possible to please everyone. And there are other routes available to try improving there if DC wishes. Far as we know, this is basically needlessly gambling a portion of sales and momentum for no better apparent reason than slicing and dicing a totally different character.

Yeah, this book is definitely going to take a hit. Whether one is a fan of Gail's writing or just doesn't like the lousy manner in which corporate chose to not work with and fire a female worker that gave them good product in an industry where female workers are in very short supply, the book is sure to lose momentum.

Gail spent a year on set-up and world building which was JUST starting to pay off in the plot lines, and now it's all going to be scrapped. And for what? An editor that might just want a shock value moment of Alysia to be sliced and diced by James Jr. instead of stellar writing into a female character that kept bringing in more and more readers? If Batgirl is going to just turn into another blood & guts beat em up Nu52 Wonder Woman, then it will be a LONG time before I pick up the solo book again.

Looks like I will be dropping Batgirl to only pick up BOP with #18 for my Batgirl fix.

Oracle was....

My Babs was Oracle...

Blah, blah.....this character has nothing to do with the New 52 Batgirl or this thread for that matter.

[Bluebow]

[QUOTE=batGRRRl4ever;16283242]Well said. There's nothing I can add to that.

Gail spent a year on set-up and world building which was JUST starting to pay off in the plot lines, and now it's all going to be scrapped. And for what? An editor that might just want a shock value moment of Alysia to be sliced and diced by James Jr. instead of stellar writing into a female character that kept bringing in more and more readers? If Batgirl is going to just turn into another blood & guts beat em up Nu52 Wonder Woman, then it will be a LONG time before I pick up the solo book again.

I got the impression that the stabbing of Alysia was on the cards anyway, I suppose that time will tell on that one.

[CaptCleghorn]

Blah, blah.....this character has nothing to do with the New 52 Batgirl or this thread for that matter.

Au contraire, it's Gail's work on Oracle in Birds of Prey that was the catalyst for her affiliation with Barbara Gordon. Without that work and that version of the character, Gail's situation is something else altogether.

[batGRRRl4ever]

I'm hoping this whole thing is because the editor wants to re-cripple her.

That's a fantasy land hope if ever by the "I want the pre-flashpoint DCU back" crowd. Read on from the following article and you will see that the new editor is in fact NOT a fan of referencing that past apparently:

http://www.craveonline.com/comics/ar...d-from-batgirl

We're not sure of the reasons exactly why she was let go, but the final exchange in that Bleeding Cool link is cryptic enough to be unsettling. Mike Nelson jokes that maybe she hadn't put enough women in refrigerators, noting the phrase she coined when arguing against the repetitive abuse of women just as motivations for male heroes, and Simone's reponse was "Funny you should say that."

The new editor who emailed her to let her know she'd been fired, one Brian Cunningham, apparently isn't a fan (or is conveying the wishes of others who aren't fans) of the "recovery arc" that Simone had planned to reveal how the New 52 version of Barbara Gordon emerged from being disabled to taking up the cowl again. "Sadly, the new editor nixed everything we had planned," she stated. "I think it’s very likely that will still be covered, but it will not be in the way we had been building to, which I am very sad about. And those issues are already written, but will not be published, I gather." She'll be finishing out the "Death of the Family" arc currently in progress as her last issue, #16.

There has been noise made in the past that the big corporate comics companies don't like it when any one writer becomes too well associated with any one character, as that apparently makes them less marketable to new readers if they feel like they have too much history to catch up on, and that was said to be part of the reasoning why Simone wasn't allowed to continue Birds of Prey in the New 52. However, Simone's work on Batgirl was a sales success, so aside from editorial malarkey (and much has been made about the current state of DC Editorial, given Rob Liefeld pitching a fit when he left and other writers lodging complaints as well), the reasoning behind this move is unclear.

[godisawesome]

That's a fantasy land hope if ever by the "I want the pre-flashpoint DCU back" crowd. Read on from the following article and you will see that the new editor is in fact NOT a fan of referencing that past apparently:

http://www.craveonline.com/comics/ar...d-from-batgirl

We're not sure of the reasons exactly why she was let go, but the final exchange in that Bleeding Cool link is cryptic enough to be unsettling. Mike Nelson jokes that maybe she hadn't put enough women in refrigerators, noting the phrase she coined when arguing against the repetitive abuse of women just as motivations for male heroes, and Simone's reponse was "Funny you should say that."

The new editor who emailed her to let her know she'd been fired, one Brian Cunningham, apparently isn't a fan (or is conveying the wishes of others who aren't fans) of the "recovery arc" that Simone had planned to reveal how the New 52 version of Barbara Gordon emerged from being disabled to taking up the cowl again. "Sadly, the new editor nixed everything we had planned," she stated. "I think it’s very likely that will still be covered, but it will not be in the way we had been building to, which I am very sad about. And those issues are already written, but will not be published, I gather." She'll be finishing out the "Death of the Family" arc currently in progress as her last issue, #16.

There has been noise made in the past that the big corporate comics companies don't like it when any one writer becomes too well associated with any one character, as that apparently makes them less marketable to new readers if they feel like they have too much history to catch up on, and that was said to be part of the reasoning why Simone wasn't allowed to continue Birds of Prey in the New 52. However, Simone's work on Batgirl was a sales success, so aside from editorial malarkey (and much has been made about the current state of DC Editorial, given Rob Liefeld pitching a fit when he left and other writers lodging complaints as well), the reasoning behind this move is unclear.

Huh. So she might have been fired for trying to realistically deal with Babs' life, which would presumably include fewer people getting stuffed in fridges. I'll be curious to see what major dictation Gail was fired over. Hopefully, it's something not near as stupid as the other executions handed down to Bat-Family members.