Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Comics, doreen greeley, doreen green, entertainment, marvel, Marvel Comics, New England Comics, squirrel girl, steve ditko, Will Murray

The Woman Who Inspired Squirrel Girl

Many a comic book creator have based characters on friends and family – or people who work in comic stores. The manager of Forbidden Planet in Newcastle was a character in a Swamp Thing annual, Chris Thompson from Orbital popped up in Revenger recently. Kitty Pryde was a art student John Byrne once knew, Al Simmons was a good friend of Todd McFarlane and Peter Gyrich was a Marvel employee…

Well, Doreen Greeley, manager and long-time employee at a New England Comics store is, apparently, the basis for the character Squirrel Girl, who has just started her new ongoing series from Marvel. And whose secret identity is Doreen Green.

Doreen is an old friend of co-creator of Squirrel Girl, Will Murray, who is still a customer at the store. He once said,

"I based Squirrel Girl ironically enough on a [friend] who read comics and was into "critters"—wild animals of all types. Coincidentally, she was big Ditko fan. I think I got the idea because I had a bunch of squirrels running around my roof and sometimes coming in through my open bedroom window and inspiration struck."

Here's the new version.

And the original Ditko version.

Recently, both Dan Slott and Brian Bendis gave the character a higher profile, first in the Great Lakes Avengers, then as a babysitter for Luke Cage and Jessica Jones, and ex-love interest for Wolverine…

Given the interest in the character, I do hope the real Doreen is invited to the movie premiere in 2020.

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