I can’t do much better for an introduction to Babs than the first page of the comic:
“And so came Babs… raven-haired, suspicious-minded, wielder of an okay sword… fair of face yet shit of luck, a wanderer, a mercenary, a goblin-stomper and a dragon-dodger.”
Out this week from Ahoy Comics, Babs is a new sword & sorcery comic created by Garth Ennis and Jacen Burrows. The team has previously collaborated on Avatar Comics’ Crossed and The Chronicles of Wormwood, Marvel’s Punisher: Soviet, and last year’s indie horror/police drama The Ribbon Queen.
Ennis is best-known at the moment for his 2006-2012 superhero parody The Boys, which was adapted into the currently-running Amazon TV show. Before that, Ennis built a reputation with comics like Preacher, Hitman, and a long run on Hellblazer.
Most of Ennis’s best-known books are action, horror, and/or historical fiction, but he’s branched out in recent years to virtually every genre there is. Babs is Ennis’ first fantasy comic, as well as a comparatively gentle comedy.
I should note that the word “comparatively” is doing a lot of work in that sentence. This is an Ennis/Burrows collaboration, so we only have to wait a few pages for our first evisceration. On the plus side, the worst of the violence so far is reserved exclusively for leprechauns. It’s a victimless crime.
Issue #1 introduces us to Babs, a broke mercenary with a bad reputation, a magical sword with a bad attitude, and a horse that might be smarter than she is.
When Babs pummels a bar full of bitter goblin incels, they set out to seek revenge. Meanwhile, Babs has problems of her own, not least of which is her uncomfortable scale-mail halter top.
Ahoy’s PR team let me read Babs #1 ahead of time and send in a few questions for Ennis. The following interview has been slightly edited.
So as of now, Babs is an ex-princess swordswoman against a bunch of mediocre dipshits who’re [spoilers for issue #1 redacted]. What else do you have planned for the series?
Undead army, crappest knight in the realm, wizard with a peculiar method of spell casting, ship full of saucy elves sailing the seas of sex.
A careful reread will reveal that Babs never actually qualified as a princess, and that there’s nothing mediocre about the dipshits’ dipshittery. They do in fact take Olympic gold.
Babs is a piss-take on Red Sonja and the greater “wandering mercenary” archetype. Out of all the various sub-genres of fantasy, why’d you start with this?
It began with the title, really. Babs the Barbarian. Seemed like a winner.
For that matter, why Sonja and not Conan, who’s been much more in the forefront in the last few years? Was it just for the sillier outfit?
I find Conan pretty boring and humorless, a giant “pituitary retard” (thank you, Bill Hicks) wandering around scowling and being grim. Somehow I could see a woman having just enough self-awareness not to take all the genre nonsense too seriously, but not a man—or not an oaf of the Conan variety, anyway.
It’s worth noting that I find Red Sonja pretty lifeless too. The comparisons with Babs go no more than skin deep.
I was looking around online, and saw that you’re generally not a fantasy fan except for Hawk the Slayer, which in turn is what led you to Babs. Out of pure curiosity, what is it about Hawk that passes muster, compared to the rest of the field?
I probably saw it at just the right age. But I think in a genre that generally takes itself far too seriously, Hawk succeeds with a certain naive charm. I should say that there are other sword & sorcery stories I like, such as Sláine in 2000AD, Stormbringer, and The Hobbit.
I like Lord of the Rings as well, at least until about halfway through when Tolkien convinces himself he’s writing Great Art and all the thou and thy stuff comes in, the hobbits become halflings, etc.
What led to the notion of the “incel goblins” as antagonists? Just a natural follow-through from the concept of internet trolls?
They seem the type. Orcs and goblins and crawling things in caves. Gollum would be the most obvious example.
I’ve noted that in the last decade or so, you’ve been branching out to make comics for virtually every genre besides superheroes, such as romantic comedy (A Train Called Love), space/cosmic horror (Caliban), children’s books (Erf), straight-up crime (Red Team), and now fantasy. Is there a genre you haven’t hit yet that you’ve got plans for?
Not sure there are any others, are there? I’ve also done westerns, horror and a ton of war stories. Going to be plenty more of the latter.
In your recent work, you’ve made a real effort to write more stories with female protagonists: A Walk Through Hell, The Ribbon Queen, arguably A Train Called Love (Valerie seems more central to that book than anybody else), and Marjorie Finnegan. I’m curious what, if anything in particular, spurred this.
I just like writing women. Sometimes I think Sigourney Weaver casts a long shadow; you didn’t often see women survive movies like that in those days, and I saw it at an impressionable age.
The comics I was reading had some good female characters too, like Judges Anderson and Hershey, Purity Brown and Durham Red, and in particular Nina Petrova. They were the kind of women who didn’t need men to help them.
