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Hi, welcome to the Blue Heron website. It is a
site dedicated solely to heroines, tough women with spirit, good or bad, who
only exists in comic books and in games. No real life
people here, just fiction based on drawings, paintings and other
artwork. I started with it in October 2002, the first test
version went on line in December 2002 and in January 2003 it
started for real.
Since September 2004 the site consists of three main chapters.
All chapters of the site can be reached by using the index links
you can see at the bottom of each page. All pages in the
chapters can be reached either through the links in the right
hand top corner of each page, just under the banner or through
the index pages.
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First there is the Heroines
collection. Here you will find female characters who play a role
in American comic books or in European strip books. The word
heroine is a bit misleading in this case. Actually the site is about tough women,
women who kill, women who can take care of themselves, women who
won't let themselves be pushed around. And it does not matter whether
they are good or bad, human or vampire. A villain in one town
can be a hero in another. This also goes for characters in
computer games. Each character here will have a number of
pictures from one or more books or games she is in and also some sort of
biography. This can range from a few lines to a whole
page. That depends on what information about the character
can be subtracted from the books. The lady can be a main
character, but she might also be just a side character. This
means that the biography has in most cases nothing to do with
the story of the book. It is just, more or less, the life story
of the character, not of the adventure she is in.
Although the American comic book super heroines are included
here too, the focus is on the more real human European strips.
There are plenty of good websites, databases with comic book
characters. Comic book characters often have immense histories
and the weirdest of backgrounds, which are, because of the long
duration of the series and the many artist that worked on them,
incredibly complex. I always read all the books and play the
games but reading all comics of one characters is just too much.
In that case I usually check these websites databases myself.
Characters in European books are not in so many databases. There
are beautiful and complete sites about strips but not really
about all the characters. Some characters do have their own site
but others make their first appearances here in the Blue Heron.
And that is what this site is all about.
I try to update this collection each month with six new
characters, one of them being a game character. If I have new
information on a character already in here then that is
mentioned also at the update. If you have suggestions for adding
new characters or have information on ancient characters you can
always mail that to me and I make use of that. I have done that
in the past and I will continue to do that.
You can enter this collection either by using the link Heroines
which will take you to the alphabetic index or by using the link
New characters,
witch brings you to the monthly update.
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The second collection consists of a
selection of paintings and drawings
of ladies with swords, made by a wide variety of artists. It is
just a random selection. There are so many paintings like this
that there is now way to get them all here. You can find this
artwork on sites dedicated to pin-ups. It started in the
twenties and thirties with these calendar girls through the
years this art form has broadened its subject to the modern
pin-ups like jungle girls, fantasy characters and out heroines.
There are countless websites where you can find these paintings
and besides that, you can choose from dozens of art books, by
far the best way to look at it.
This selection will not be expanded because, as I said, you can
find it on so many other sites. I shall however change it in the
future. This is the oldest part of the site and when I made it I
chose to only display details of the paintings. Most of these
paintings had a lot of scenery on it and I have just taken out
the character. I probably restore that somewhere in the future,
which shall result in fewer pictures, but better ones and
larger.
This section can be reached by using the link Paintings.
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The third collection, finally, are the figurines,
added in September 2004.
There are
currently about thirty figurines in the collection. I buy them, when they are
not too expensive and not to indecent. They are made of a solid
poyresin material called alabastrite, you cannot bend it. It feels like stone and it is often rather
heavy. They are all (except one or two) made in one piece, they can not walk, sit, change
weapons and they make no noise, except when you drop them. This rules out all action figures
which are popular in toy shops and game stores.
It was
not difficult to decide which one should go on the site and which one
should not. There just are not so many of them. There are, as far as I know, no books about them and no
websites. There are, again as far as I know, only few online shops who
have catalogues to choose from or
order them. They are usually sold in souvenir shops where they sell other things
than the local windmill or wooden shoo or plastic tulip. They often stand
somewhere on a shelf, flanked by a couple of figurine dragons. You'll
sometimes can buy them in shops where they sell mushrooms and marihuana
pipes, on flea markets and fairs.
Sellers say they are made in China from a mixture of stone dust
and some kind of synthetic material. Some of these figurines are beautiful and have very much
detail. Some are naughty, tempting or mysterious or scandalous.
These figurines are often regarded as kitsch and cheap. But somewhere at the beginning of
the creation of them, there must have been an artist, a
painter, a woodcarver, a man or woman who shaped the thing. Well, their
names are not tied to their work. On a number of them you find
an inscription but I do not no if this is the signature a an
artist or just a label from a factory.
So this all I know about these figurines. If any of you know more about
them, who the makers are or how and where they come from, I would be pleased if you would
share this knowledge with me. Needless to say that this section will be
updated when I have new material.
You can enter this section by, you guessed, clicking the Figurines
link
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Another hero |
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February 26, 1932 - September 12, 2003
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