Go Nuts! Ryan North & Erica Henderson Launch ‘Squirrel Girl’ Series For Marvel
We're big fans of animator, illustrator, and comic artist Erica Henderson around these parts -- her work frequently appears in our Best Art Ever feature, and she's provided several amazing illustrations for the site, including a portrait of her Subatomic Party Girls collaborator Chris Sims for the ongoing Ask Chris feature. We're also rather fond of Ryan North, writer of Midas Flesh, To Be Or Not To Be, and the beloved Adventure Time comic. And, of course, everyone loves Marvel's Squirrel Girl.
So we're very excited to learn via Entertainment Weekly that Henderson and North are joining forces on a Squirrel Girl ongoing series, Unbeatable Squirrel Girl. Now, sure, maybe the world wasn't specifically clamoring for a Squirrel Girl book, and now we're getting one from these creators, it's everything we didn't know we always wanted.
According to EW the series sees Squirrel Girl, aka Doreen Green, balancing college life with cosmic threats. In addition to adding another great female creator to Marvel's talent roster, Unbeatable Squirrel Girl is also the latest Big Two book starring a young woman, with a style and tone that may prove more enticing to an audience of young women than most traditional superhero titles -- joining Ms Marvel, Batgirl, and Gotham Academy on the stands.
Unbeatable Squirrel Girl also follows the success of Skottie Young's Rocket Raccoon in attempting to tap into the appeal of some of Marvel's more implausibly comical characters, although Squirrel Girl doesn't have a movie behind her. Yet. Still, it's nice to see Marvel taking risks on its fringier characters rather than launching another Avengers title. It's surely now only a matter of time before Marvel editor Tom Brevoort stops spending an hour every morning needling Adam-X fans on Tumblr and actually solicits an Adam-X series.
The joke behind Squirrel Girl, created by Will Murray and Steve Ditko, is that she's an unlikely hero who looks sort of ridiculous in her furry mammal costume, yet somehow she proves unbeatable against every dangerous villain or crazed maniac she meets. One may wonder if the gimmick has the sticking power to support an ongoing series, but it's worked pretty well for Batman for the last 75 years.