Dean Trippe, Meme Master

Remember the really cool Batgirl meme that Dean Trippe started earlier this year? The artist posted his rendition of another DC character, Superboy, on his livejournal in late January:



Mike Wieringo responds, both in the comments field:

That's fantastic, Dean...!

Are you trying to start another meme...?

and on his own blog:



Check out a few others:

http://jodycody.livejournal.com/17029.html
http://superleezard.livejournal.com/123574.html
http://rudeboyzach.livejournal.com/255917.html

The Great Curve's own Chris Arrant spoke with Trippe earlier today over at Newsarama:

NRAMA: Speaking of other superheroes, you were one of the instigators of the Batgirl meme that propagated throughout the internet last month. How did that come to be, and why Batgirl?

DT: That was surreal! Well, you have to blame Andi Watson. Andi posted this really solid Batgirl redesign he'd done for a pitch to DC that had been passed on. I really liked the design, so I was showing it to a few of my friends, including Jamie Dee Galey. Jamie posted his own version that night, and I had mine up by the morning. Within a couple of days, our friends had done their own and all of a sudden it caught on like mad. Pretty soon big indie folks were joining in. Bryan Lee O'Malley, Jen Wang, Vera Brosgol, Andy Runton, Dave Roman, Natasha Allegri, Clio Chiang, Joel Carroll, Raina Telgemeier, Dean Haspiel, Corey Lewis, and many more great artists joined in. Jamie kept a master list, and I stopped counting after it cracked a thousand.

We got linked by a ton of big news sites and blogs, including Newsarama, and I know of several people who've even gotten jobs out of the experience. A great young artist, Ashleigh Firth, is now in talks with a major publisher, as am I. It's a really exciting time for artists with online blogs, since the Batgirl meme really helped connect a lot of us together, especially those of us on Livejournal.

As for "Why Batgirl?" it's because she's just an excellent conceptual character. It was the perfect storm of drawing memes. I think most comics folks have a version of Batgirl that they've connected with at some point in their lives. Mainly, I suppose, it's that she's well-known, but highly customizable. It really was a great bonding event for online comickers.