Barbara Randall Kesel (born October 2, 1960) is an American writer and editor of comic books. Her bibliography includes work for Crossgen, Dark Horse Comics, DC Comics, IDW Publishing, Image Comics, and Marvel Comics. Biography Barbara Kesel initially entered the comics industry as college student after writing a 10-page letter to editor Dick Giordano regarding the portrayal of female comic book characters and Giordano offered her a writing job. Her first published comics story (credited as "Barbara J. Randall") was "He with Secrets Fears the Sound...", a Batgirl backup feature, in Detective Comics #518 (Sept. 1982). After receiving her college degree in drama studies in 1983, she became an associate editor at DC Comics in 1984 and was promoted to editor the following year. In 1988, she wrote a Batgirl Special and then co-wrote, with her then-husband Karl Kesel, a Hawk and Dove miniseries, followed by an ongoing series that ran from 1989 until 1991. As a solo writer, Barbara Kesel scripted the licensed Dungeons & Dragons series Spelljammer in 1990–1991 and an adaptation of the D&D novel trilogy Avatar in 1991. She became an editor at Dark Horse Comics in 1991 and later was part of Team CGW, responsible for most of the design and creation of the setting and characters in the Golden City location. In the second half of the 1990s, she also wrote for Image Comics, scripting all seven issues of Savant Garde, the miniseries Shattered Image with fellow writer Kurt Busiek, and issues of Stormwatch and WildC.A.T.s. For Marvel Comics, Kesel wrote the limited series Ultragirl (1996–1997) and (with Karl Kesel) the Captain America/Citizen V Annual '98. Kesel also returned to DC and wrote the Alpha Centurion Special (1996), several Superboy issues (1997), and the 'Girlfrenzy!'-oneshot Superman: Lois Lane as well as the Elseworld's Finest: Supergirl & Batgirl one-shot in 1998. She worked as both a writer and an editor at CrossGen from 2000 to 2004 where she scripted the series Meridian, The First, Sigil and Solus as well as issues of CrossGen Chronicles. In 2007, Tokopop released the first volume of Legends of the Dark Crystal, an OEL manga based on Jim Henson's film The Dark Crystal, written by Kesel. Volume 2 was published in 2010. As of 2008, she was part of the book packaging company "The Pack" with Lee Nordling, Brian Augustyn, Gordon Kent, and Dave Olbrich. The same year, Barbara Kesel