Forays into the Comic Book World!

Hello everyone!

I think it is safe to say that I have always been a girly girl, I have always been all about the hair, the makeup and the beauty products. However, I have also been an avid reader from childhood, usually leaning towards either classics, modern young adult fiction or fantasy when it comes to picking my books. That being said I had never in my life picked up a comic book, to be honest the thought never even crossed my mind. This is going to sound very judgy of me, but I always associated them with quite nerdy types and just assumed that they wouldn’t be for me. Yeah, that does kinda make me a bad person. I think as a lover of books it is important to be very open minded, by all means don’t force yourself to read a certain genre if you don’t enjoy it, but that is a far cry from ruling it out without even giving it a go! 

At the end of term I always face a long train journey home, which can be exceedingly boring, but this year, as an early christmas present, a friend very kindly gave me a book to read. That book was none other than DC’s Batgirl of Burnside Volume 1 - in other words a comic book. This was my chance to try out this genre and honestly I am so glad I did. I do not understand why I didn’t give them a go before, I love to draw and to read so really it’s the perfect combo. I can’t accurately assess comic books as a whole without reading more, but I can definitely say that I enjoyed this one. 

Apparently it is the first in a new series of Batgirl books staring Barbara Gordon as a Batgirl who has recently moved to a new, very hipster area to start work on her thesis. This instantly appealed to me as I can identify with the character, I am still studying on a very long university course, I am also ginger and, painful though it might be to admit, I am somewhat of a hipster. I liked how the crimefighting element didn’t dominate the storyline leaving Barbara subject to all the normal worries, fears and dramas of uni life. I found her sense of fun very engaging and to put it bluntly she is a bit of a badass! I don’t want to give too much of the story away though, so here is a quick summary: 

New to the neighbourhood, Batgirl is still adjusting to her surroundings when her reputation starts to go rapidly downhill. Somebody is impersonating her and trying to discredit the name she works so hard to protect! Barbara must juggle school work, friendship crises and discovering her mystery life hacker if she wants to save Gotham one more time. 

For those of you who already love comic books then please forgive my former judgyness and if you haven’t already tried this genre, then please do give it a go! Any recommendations are welcome in the comments below :-)

xoxo