The witch hunt over the “sexualized” Batgirl cover has paid off for some, The Bargirl #41 Joker variant gets pulled.
From Comicbook.com is reporting that DC has decided to axe the Batgirl cover.
DC Entertainment have cancelled an upcoming “Joker variant” to Batgirl #41 following a social media storm that erupted from its reveal last week, Comic Book Resources reports.
The cover, by artist Rafael Albuquerque, depicted a traumatized Batgirl standing beside The Joker, who was dressed as he was in Alan Moore’s acclaimed The Killing Joke.
It was Albuquerque who asked DC to remove the cover from the publisher’s upcoming releases.
So, even if you liked the cover, you are out of luck.
In the words of Rusty Shackeford: Yep
Sad. We have comics that glorify gore and violence. Comics that are literally called Zombie Stripper that’s highly sexualized. Heck it has “risquĂ©” nude covers. Thats basically comic porn. And this, this beautiful, extremely artistic cover is cancelled. This is a damn shame.
Yes it is. I really liked that cover.
Yes.I was looking forward to getting that cover. I guess the Twitter Social Justice Gang wins …again……
figures…even though the majority of people don’ mind artistic freedom the loudest minority get their way……again.
Instead of the long rant I wanted to write, I’ll just say I’m very disappointed Albuquerque and DC felt they had to give in to a loud minority and pull the cover. This was my favorite and potential future value aside, I wanted this for the PC. The Killing Joke is one of my favorites and the art here was fantastic.
Bummer! What’s worse is the PC police (SJWs) smell the blood. There will be more of this unless the comics industry kicks them out like the gaming industry just did.
I’m sure most of the “outraged” don’t buy comics, or even know it was a variant cover.
At this point it seems like the Comic Code authority is back in Twitter form.
Exactly.
Wow!! First Marvel now DC what a shame. I beat it was them crazy people over at BC posting smack about the cover that got it to get cancelled. If Albuquerque pulled it out why even draw it in first place? What a shame DC. One of my favorite covers by a long shot!!!!!!! I’ll just download the picture to my phone before they decide to remove it from the net. lol
this is terrible news ..this cover imo was a instant classic..whats so bad about it?
Agree with all said here…i think it was a great cover and was looking foreward to the purchase. Oh well…
I already went off on the original thread about how disgusted I am that the so-called progressives and censorship won. Now they will feel more empowered than ever and you can be sure they already have bullseye on their next target.
I’ll just say this: a friend in France sent me a copy of Charlie Hebdo that came out right after the terrorist attacks. I have tons of respect for the artists who stood up in the face of actual violent threats. I have zero respect for an artist who bowed down and caved into the hurt feelings of some riot grrls
Ugh. Terrible that an artist and his employer cared that one of their products upset people and had the sensitivity to do something about it. The worst. I miss when we only cared about the opinions of straight white dudes and called it politeness or civility. Caring about other people’s opinions and sensibilities is such a drag.
I’m genuinely sorry you feel that way. I do have to say that we must be making progress if this topic (the cover of a comic book) is considered an issue worth getting upset about.
Yup. It is so much better now that we as a society have labeled everything we disagree with as straight, white privileged oppression. How great is it that we can live in perpetual victim-hood and offense! Anything we disagree with we can easily stamp out. Why? Because we have also amazing changed the definition of tolerance to allow the those who are sensitive to an issue the ability to oppressively enforce their ideals on the world under the guise that tolerance is accepting my point of view that is white, cis-male privileged. All we have to do to get anyone to cave and to oppress any Western ideal of freedom/belief contrary to ours is to simply scream out “WHITE, STRAIGHT PRIVILEGE!”
I don’t get it. So why are people offended by the cover. First off this cover is awesome. Second, Joker reminds me of the Jack Nicholson Joker from the first movie. Joker has done much worse in the comics than what’s on this cover.
The VARIANT cover doesn’t reflect the tone/story on the current Batgirl run. But VARIANTS almost never reflect the issues contents.
The Joker is wearing his costume from “The Killing Joke” in which he tortured Barbara Gordon, shot her in the spine, and photographed her naked body to show her father. It is widely believed that Alan Moore intended to communicate a sexual element to the Joker’s abuse of her. The cover in question seems to very effectively depict the beginning of that torture. Selling something like that offended some people, and I agree that they have a point.
I was really pissed to see this. Then I read the statement by Cameron Stewart (writer, Batgirl) that says:
“Something to clarify, because DCs statement was a little unclear. @rafaalbuquerque did not get threats. People OBJECTING to the cover did.”
This gives me a slightly different perspective on this entire situation.
I’m sure Cameron Stewart wouldn’t call out his hairy legged fan base, he himself was pissed about the cover so now he’s in full mode spin control
It would of been a cool cover to have. But what’s done is done now, no reason for us to get our panties all knotted up over it. Time to move on.. that Jock cover looking even better now.. 🙂
This is a comic book cover, not literature in a school. No one is forced to buy it. If you don’t like it, don’t buy it. If you don’t want your kids to buy it, don’t let them (what a crazy thought). If this was a ploy to draw attention to the comic, it worked. Hopefully DC will figure out a way to sell this cover.
Damn I was really looking forward to that one
This artwork is all over the Internet now. Are the people that got offended by this artwork going to cancel their Internet because they may see it again and be offended by it? Honestly, I hope they do…..this way the rest of the world can be left alone from their opinions……
This really makes me sick. I was planning on getting this cover plus a lot of the other covers, but guess what now I will not buy any of them. Everybody else that is upset by this should do the same thing. BOYCOTT!!!!!!!!!!
I have seen the replacement cover and it is not good they will sell a lot less then they would have of the killing joke cover the replacement cover is the Joker proposing to batgirl but I find that highly inappropriate because it is illegal to marry underage girls
Would you share a link to the replacement cover?
I will have to find it.
I think this cover was a victim of its own success in portraying the terror and traumatization associated with verbal, physical, or sexual abuse. The Joker painting a smile on her mortified face and posing with her for the observer is a particularly striking note. The image is so effective I’m certain it genuinely triggered awful memories and emotions in real victims and angered their advocates to the point of protest. Situations like this should be evaluated on a case by case basis, not lumped together under political correctness run amok. It is art, but it is also the art of a commercial entity in business to make money first. Deciding not to sell something with this subject matter that turned out to be this provacative, controversial and that reasonably generates real negative consequences for real victims of abuse that see it – particularly as they are beginning to roll out their new DC cinematic universe for broad popular consumption, is probably the right choice. The art is published online for those of you who want to consume it for aesthetic reasons, DC and the artist just decided not to sell it.
Too much politics are involved. It’s a variant cover to a comic. Not the New York Times. It’s provocative, offensive and disturbing. Exactly what’s in today’s comics anyways. Why stop a cover from being printed because it offended a group of people? It simply doesn’t make sense. It not being consistent with the story doesn’t matter either just because it’s a variant. Lego variant covers don’t have Lego characters in the comics. We as consumers should be able to decide what we want to purchase. There’s HUNDREDS of covers out there that are just way more vulgar and offensive. To single this one out is in itself offensive.
First let me say that I completely understand the posture that many comic book fans are taking with respect to what they perceive as outsiders interfering in the art medium that they love. A point I would raise though is that the people objecting to the cover are not necessarily outsiders, and those that are now – DC doesn’t want them to be in the future. It’s not politics it’s business. It’s brand management and consumer relations. It’s responsible sensitivity to the public and its just good business sense. DC makes thousands of editorial decisions every month and the consumer gets no informed say in those either. The aspect to this that people seem to be missing is that this isn’t about censoring vulgar, profance, or pornographic material – it’s about objecting to DC using a cover conveying so effectively the terror and trauma of a women being abused to sell comic books. You have to understand this distinction or you can’t understand what I believe are the sincere objectors to this cover.
The pages of comic panels, storylines, and dialogue that have been censored, compromised, thrown out, or otherwise modified from the creator’s artistic vision by editors and executives over the years to create an end product to sell would fill a football stadium. Batgirl #41 is a product and the company selling it decided that publishing a variant of it with this cover didn’t make good overall business sense. The notion that selling a few more issues of #41 with this cover than with another is somehow a very meaningful monetary consideration in the grand scheme of the DC business model doesn’t hold any more water than the notion that the cover of a variant has to reflect the material inside. Nor does comparing DC’s management of their established and extraordinarily valuable brand to small press publishers who almost exclusively trade on sensational and titilating material, like Zenescope for instance.
DC decided it wasn’t going to gain net readers or net good will by publishing this cover, is already benefiting from the media attention, and has made publically available the cover artwork which is, as another person on the site wrote, an instant classic. They just aren’t selling it. Instead they are essentially doing what publishers and editors do every day, every week, every month and every year, producing a product and managing a brand.
It is art, and is consumer art, but it is now not available for the consumer to make
An informed choice on. That is what bothers me. To be offended is one thing, but to take away another persons choice is entirely different. I assure you people will buy less of the proposed replacement cover than they will of the original. With or without the controversy.
Let’s take a step back for a second. I wrote up a full response analyzing the cover and used it as a response to someone else.
First. The inference of rape is in the mind of the viewer. It is interpretation. The original protester brought up three points all of which were subjective to him. All of which can be easily argued against. I would be happy to post my response if you are interested.
DC should grow balls and back up their talents from shit like this!
lots of chatter about this today. I See some different perspectives but my main concern is where does this stop? If we allow the twitter verse to arbitrate what art is appropriate, they can start taking choices away as they please. Even if you find this cover offensive, what if they came after something you do love next?
I realize not all of the voices are from outside the industry and some of the offended do buy comics. But a lot of the mob out there just want to influence some kind of change with bully tactics. They just need to fake outrage to get someone fired, get a comic book removed, sterilize video games or generally find some away to take away other people’s choices. In fact, one guy’s tweet from the BC article, he was sending outrage tweets to marvel!