Cass and Steph surface... in an art commission!

DC can consign their least-favored characters to oblivion, but they can't stop fans from asking for artwork featuring said characters.  Well, actually, DC probably could demand people stop commissioning art of benched characters like Cass, but I'm afraid Pandora's already opened that box and Cass has flown out.  Now she belongs to the ages (until DC's legal department informs me otherwise).  Of course, Steph scores not one but two appearances because she's been both a Robin and a Batgirl.

What am I babbling about with mixed metaphors and meandering digressions?  Cass as Batgirl in some brand new artwork.  Rich Johnston at Bleeding Cool posted this piece by Nate Snareser just the other day, but I've been back at my job (dressed in Cass-appropriate black, I might add) and too busy to comment until now.  And as one of the only Cass blogs still active on the net, it's my job to have an opinion on everything Cass that comes down the line!

I wish I could post the actual artwork here because illustrated posts provide more "pop" and I like them, but you'll just have to follow the link to look at this snazzy artwork yourself.  It's appropriately epic, with just about everyone who's ever been a Batman, Batwoman, Batgirl or Robin coming at you bolder than love and nearly as bad-ass.  I have no idea who a lot of these people are.  I'm not up on all the alternate reality/timeline versions of all these characters and intense continuity is just not my forte.  But I do know a thing or two about art, and this is some solid work.  Well, I'm not going to critique it or anything.  I'm just going to admire the effort and dedication it took for Snareser to produce this amazing piece.

The comments at Bleeding Cool are a fun read, too.  Nate makes an appearance.  He seems like a truly nice guy and I hope he's getting more of these commissions.  True to Internet form, however, the bulk of the comments are taken up by two posters arguing over whether or not a third party should have posted a negative comment about the art.

Cass and/or non-Cass news for 12/21/12 (or Doomsday as the case may be)

Just doing my daily Cassandra Cain news search and I find but the ever-reliable Jude Terror taking the piss again.  This time it has something to do with Rich Johnston at Bleeding Cool teasing a big DC announcement involving Gail Simone.  Terror jokes it can only mean Simone will be writing a Stephanie Brown book.  Cass gets a shout out.

Man, that Jude Terror is mean!  He's just plain mean!*

*Thank heavens he gives me something to write about here.  Cass news is sparse these days.

Cass lives in the Previews catalog!

Well, in chess piece form.  Yes, it's the fantastic little Cassandra Cain as Black Bat chess pawn we've talked about before.  You know, in the imaginary conversation between this blog writer and you, the blog reader.  Bleeding Cool adds another voice to the pro-Cass din and clamor that even now grows from... oh... twenty people to almost thirty.  What I like about the Bleeding Cool article is how they point out what a great costume she has as Black Bat.

I'd suggest a couple of changes-- ditch the claw-fingers and pull that hair back into a more practical bun to keep it out of her eyes (she's a fighter, for crying out loud and would be very pragmatic about such things)-- but I have to agree.  Wonderful costume design.  Simple and dramatic.  You can hardly go wrong with basic black and the white hand wraps are a nice contrasting visual element it would be fun to draw as blurs when Cass unloads on some poor thug or villain or super-miscreant.  I like to draw Batgirl Cass mask-less, so a costume with an actual face is a plus as far as I'm concerned.

Presto-Changeo! This comic book stuff is strange-o!

Even lurking around the outer rim of the comic book universe provides moments of mystery. Teensy, tiny moments of inconsequential mystery that provide a few moments of head-scratching amusement.  Which then expand like black holes, spinning reason along the event horizon until it’s so stretched out it becomes something entirely different.  Perhaps the beginning point passes the end point and suddenly we’re going forwards and backwards in time simultaneously before emerging on the other side in a reality where Cassandra Cain, Stephanie Brown, Wally Wood and Donna Troy still exist.  Possibly some back issue bin in a store somewhere where comics with their stories are a buck a piece.

Today’s DC-related strangeness:  Someone faked an image from Dustin Nguyen’s Batman: Li’l Gotham.  You know the one—the one where a trick-or-treater dressed like the Stephanie Brown Batgirl had her hair color changed from blond to black.  Which is already a bizarre thing for DC to do.  Leave the hair alone, earn a little goodwill back from Steph fans.  But then someone decided to rig up an image where the Stephian purple costume highlights are also black.  Which Bleeding Cool posted.  Why do something like that?

My guess is someone meant it as a joke, but we’ll never know the truth.  All I can say is, this entire episode isn’t just weird.  It’s beyond weird.  If weird were one of the inner planets, and we were some kind of NASA space probe, we’d be Voyager I.

Weird.  And stupid.  The art's still adorable, though.