The awesomeness that is Comic Book and Movie Reviews interviewed me about Catwoman, Theatre, Comic Books, and of course Cat-Tales. It was a wonderful meeting Jay who got me to open up about not just my first comics but my first comic shop, the music of Cat-Tales and banana mash lasagna. (Go read the interview. It will make sense when you read it.)
When I had the idea to look back at Cat-Tales year by year, there was never
any doubt which tale I would highlight for 2006
Bruce knew Selina resented being summoned to the Batcave “like a spaniel.” And, since the matter wasn’t pressing, he squelched the impulse to use the intercom or send a message through Alfred. He waited until lunchtime and went up to the manor himself. He thought Alfred was just a little too pleased that he had come up for lunch unprodded (a development that Bruce found annoying), but Selina didn’t seem to notice anything unusual about his behavior. She greeted him with the easy smile that was the norm since their talk after the fundraiser, and they chatted only of non-Bat subjects as they ate. Bruce said he was avoiding the Wayne offices. He denied it was because “Lucius had to be punished” for the disastrous Ashton-Larraby fundraiser. On the contrary, Bruce insisted, he had trained enough Robins to know that what Lucius really needed now was a free hand. He didn’t need to feel supervised, second-guessed and micromanaged because he had made a mistake. He needed to pick himself up, dust himself off, and regain his confidence as quickly as possible.
With that noble declaration, Bruce wiped a crumb from the corner of his mouth, tossed his napkin onto the table, and asked Selina to accompany him back to the cave. She agreed, the easy smile morphing into one of feline curiosity. When they reached the Batcave, she curled comfortably into the chair at workstation two, picked two wing-shaped slivers of metal off the desk, and began to play. Bruce suppressed a lip twitch as she turned the pieces this way and that, trying to work out what they were and how they fit together. Then his whole demeanor changed as he underwent what the staunchest heroes in the Justice League have described as “the most frightening transformation in existence.” His jaw clenched, his eyes darkened, his entire body seemed to become denser, and those with sufficient imagination could almost envision the mask appearing over his stern features.
He sat and powered up his screen, while Selina continued to play with the batwings as if nothing at all had occurred—which to her mind, it hadn’t.
“With all the rogues incarcerated at Blackgate or Arkham,” Bruce began in the gruff Bat-gravel, “I have time to look into another type of case. This is really why I began this work. I never intended to—I never envisioned the kind of costumed criminal element that evolved in Gotham.”
“Hey, hey, hey. Watch it, Stud,” Selina chided playfully. “Remember one of them is sitting in striking distance, and I’ve got one of your, eh…” She held up the two wing pieces pinched together between her fingers to resemble a lopsided batarang. “…What is this thing anyway?”
“They’re components for a new palm unit,” he growled. “They don’t fit into each other,”
“Oh.”
She put them down, disappointed, and gave him her full attention.
“So this is what you really wanted to do before the likes of me showed up and spoiled your evenings with lots of purple, banter, and fun?”
He scowled and said nothing, refusing to be baited.
“So what is it?” she asked gamely.
“Diamonds,” he pronounced with a grunt.
“Ooh,” she sat up eagerly. “That doesn’t sound so dreary after all.Tell-tell.”
He paused, needing a moment to process her enthusiasm. She was excited, which is, of course, what he wanted. But in all the years of study, in all the years of crimefighting, in all the briefings and all the interrogations, the phrase “tell-tell” had never been uttered.
“As you know, Gotham is one of four primary centers of the global diamond market, the others being London—”
“Antwerp, and South Africa,” Selina interrupted with a naughty grin. “Yeah, Bruce, I have a nodding acquaintance with the international gem market.”
He nodded, curtly.
“More diamonds are bought and sold in that one block of 47th Street than anywhere else in the world. Ninety percent of the diamonds imported into the U.S. go through there; a single day’s trade averages $400 million. And most of it—in this day and age—is still done on a handshake. If there was nothing else in this city, that’s a fulltime job for a crimefighter, right there.”
“Pfft,” came the unexpected response. “I hate to ruin your plan, Handsome, but I think I see where this is going. And I will tell you gleefully that they don’t need you, and more to the point, they don’t need me. They’ve got a private police force of their own hired by the neighborhood association, something like fifteen individual security firms on top of that, armed guards, x-rays, retinal scans, everything. They’re fine.”
“There are twenty-five diamond exchanges, Selina, how many can you get into?”
“All twenty-five,” she answered instantly. “But I’m me.”
“And within those twenty-five exchanges, there are twenty-six hundred independent businesses. How many of their safes have you opened?”
“I have no idea,” she laughed. “Who counts?”
“More than half?”
“Probably,” she said with a grin. “But again, I’m me. And I have no interest in spending my nights poring over blueprints looking for ways to plug up holes that only I could get through.”
Bruce felt his lip twitch in spite of himself as he recalled his earlier thought:the slightest hint that she might participate in such a loathsome activity as crimefighting was enough to set her off…
“I wasn’t going to suggest anything like that,” he said honestly. “I was just mapping out the landscape, laying out the basic facts of the Gotham City diamond district.”
“Really?” she asked skeptically.
“Really,” he assured her.
“Really???”
“Selina.”
She laughed—a very particular laugh, a rooftop laugh that he hadn’t heard for quite some time—a laugh that nearly always preceded her getting away with something.
“Okay then,” she said at last, “basic facts of the diamond district have been duly laid out in scrupulously correct if slightly anal bat-fashion. What’s next?”
The bat-density seemed to intensify and, when he spoke, his voice dipped again into the deep bat-gravel.
“Talk me through selling a stolen diamond,” he ordered.
“Well,” she smiled, happy (for once) to comply with a bat-order. “As you probably know, every gemstone is unique. Hit it with a laser, it will produce its own, one of a kind sparkle pattern, just like a fingerprint. Any stone important enough for me to take an interest in, that visual signature would have been recorded and logged in an international database.”
“So if you steal my Aunt Elena’s necklace here in Gotham, remove the stones and sell them loose in Hong Kong or reset them into a bracelet to sell in Tokyo, they will still come up as stolen. My goods are returned to me and you go to jail.”
“That’s the theory. So why am I sitting here instead of in jail?”
“Unscrupulous dealers who won’t check the gemprints to verify that any item they sell is legitimate,” he suggested.
Selina made a face.
“Well, I’m sure that goes on, but not on my level. Anything I’d steal is going to be valuable enough that whoever buys it down the line will probably insure it. When they do, that means a new gemprint and oh, look, those stones were taken in Gotham six months ago… Catwoman suspected.”
She grinned, and he considered the problem.
“Recutting into smaller stones would greatly diminish the value,” he noted sourly.
“It would,” Selina agreed. “But that’s not the real problem with it. It all gets more complicated in 1998. There’s fighting in West Africa for control of the diamond mines. Serious atrocities. On his worst day, Joker couldn’t come close to this kind of ugly. Both sides start selling diamonds on the black market to fund their wars, and most civilized countries, wanting nothing to do with these ‘blood diamonds,’ pass laws prohibiting their import or sale. So now all legit diamonds, cut or rough, have to have an ID that certifies they didn’t come out of this process.”
Bruce inhaled slowly, beginning to see the solution. Selina could almost envision Sherlock Holmes savoring a long draw on his pipe.
“How secure is the database?” he asked finally. And Catwoman’s naughty grin widened into the Cheshire variety.
“How secure is anything?” she asked in reply. And he grunted.
“If you have a stone to sell that you’re not supposed to have,” he began, solidifying the thought by speaking it aloud, “you can’t change its gemprint any more than you could a fingerprint, but you can change the information in the database that’s attached to the print. You substitute the visual signature of some lesser diamond, which you can then bury, destroy, or grind to dust for industrial use, for the one on the record of Aunt Elena’s necklace. So the gem tagged on that record as ‘stolen’ will never be found. And you make a new print for your stolen diamond and assign it to a record with an innocuous and legitimate-seeming history.”
“I salute you, World’s Greatest Detective,” Selina purred softly.
“Thank you for your help,” he said, swiveling the chair to face the monitor. He began typing rapidly into a waiting file, and Selina began to think he had forgotten her entirely.
“Done with me, or should I stay?” she asked finally.
“Oh, I’ll have more questions,” he graveled, his fingers never slowing and his eyes never wavering from the screen. “Give me a minute to modify a few queries and data filters.”
She waited. She picked up the batwing whatever-it-was again, buffed its silver surface, and used it as a mirror to primp her hair. Then she looked curiously around the cave.
“Those bats are watching us,” she said at last.
“Oh, those two,” Bruce said lightly. “They perch lower than the others. I think they’re attracted to the hum of the computer.”
She giggled, delighted.
“You have your own Whiskers and Nutmeg.”
“Selina, do not name the bats,” he warned darkly.
“I wasn’t going to name the bats,” she declared with exaggerated dignity.
“Good,” he grunted. He could bring Catwoman into his life, he could accept her friendships with Riddler and Two-Face, he could overlook her favorite bar being the Iceberg Lounge, and he could even, in time, come to terms with a stolen cat figurine among the curios in his bedroom. But he simply could not tolerate her coming into his cave and assigning cutesy names to the native chiroptera.
“The black one is awfully cute,” she noted.
“Selina,” he growled.
“I’m not naming him,” she insisted. “I just said he was cute. Look at those ears and that broad muscular chest—”
“Gemprints,” Bruce cut her off forcefully. “Whenever I’ve purchased diamonds or had them insured, I receive hardcopies of the gemprints, laser inscriptions, serial numbers, everything. Once you or your fence alters the records in the database, I still have proof that the stones you’re selling in Tokyo are mine.”
“Yes, but your hardcopies are sitting in an acidfree envelope in the bottom of a safe in the bedroom. It’s not connected to anything, nothing searchable will ever see it.”
“No,” Bruce admitted reluctantly. “But it’s a start. It’s a link. The key to most detective work is finding some overlooked link between the person and the deed.”
“I always thought Walapang would be a good name for an animal,” she said brightly. “I hate giving them people names, don’t you?”
“You’re not naming the bat ‘Walapang.’”
“Do you even know what it means?”
“Yes, it’s from Lombardic law: ‘to disguise one’s self in order to commit theft.’”
“You are a freak of nature,” she smirked. “A sexy freak, but a freak.”
He sighed and resumed typing.
“It will take me another seven minutes to modify the auto-downloads, search routines, and data spiders in light of what you’ve told me. In that time, you have a workstation of your own, as noted by the purple wallpaper you’ve installed there. Why don’t you amuse yourself on that and leave the bats alone.”
She laughed.
“You cannot in your wildest fantasies think that is going to work.”
“We’re doing stolen art next,” he graveled with the subtlest flicker at the corner of his lip. “Your workstation is logged into the Museum Security Network.”
“Meow,” she said, swinging her chair around.
***
Read the completeCat-Tales #47: Blueprints now on the CT website or mobile-friendlyCat-Tales.mobi.
Chris Dee
www.catwoman-cattales.com
Thank you for reading. If you are viewing this post anywhere other than The Catitat you are reading a mirror. Please visit the original posting in The Catitat to leave a comment.
After Practical Cats, a reader asked me to summarize my Cleopatra theory as it pertains to Catwoman. With shooting under way on
The Dark Knight Rises, and Batman circles abuzz with speculation on what Christopher Nolan’s take will be, it seemed the perfect time.
Briefly: Cleopatra lived and died over 2,000 years ago, and what’s known about her life hasn’t changed. There is the sensational Roman account, juicy but questionable material dating from a propaganda war with Augustus Caesar, and a drier but more flattering picture of her political accomplishments recorded by the historian Flavius Josephus. That’s it. It’s not like any new unauthorized biographies were unearthed in the 1300s, 1500s, or 1800s to account for the drastically differing images of her. There is only one set of facts from which different ages have formed completely different Cleopatras: from “The Nile Slut” to a childlike innocent, from a murderous man-eater to a savvy politician, from a devoted mother to a tragic “slave to love.” Obviously, they can’t all be right. Obviously, what each era chooses to focus on—and what it chooses to ignore—says more about them than it does the real Cleopatra.
Lucy Hughes-Hallett’s fascinating Cleopatra: Histories, Dreams and Distortions does a remarkable job analyzing each of these incarnations and what they reveal about the eras which romanticized and vilified her. Not surprisingly, it is the spin each age puts on the sexual aspects of her story that is most telling about their attitudes about women in general, and women’s sexuality in particular.
Like Cleopatra, Catwoman is a sex symbol who has spanned many generations and gone through many incarnations. From her first appearance in Batman #1, the draw between male and female has always been the distinguishing feature of Bat/Cat encounters. Tame and subtextual under the early comics code: Batman saw through Catwoman’s disguise in that first appearance by noticing her shapely legs. Amusingly brazen by the time Julie Newmar donned her claws and Adam West’s Batman declared “You give me curious stirrings in my utility belt.” Of course there is more to Catwoman’s appeal that the physical. You can’t throw a batarang in mainstream comics without hitting a beautiful and voluptuous woman. What made Catwoman particularly well-suited to the role as the Batman’s romantic foil was her playful free-spirited disposition. In an era that was finally acknowledging that sex is fun, the Bat/Cat titillation reached its zenith in Batman #324 when Selina awoke naked in the Batcave after her costume had been torn to pieces. Batman tosses her a replacement saying she was lucky he’d kept one of her old costumes in his trophy room, and she responds—just barely covering herself with the sheet—that she “got lucky in more ways than one.”
Approved by the Comics Code. And that’s probably what made it so much fun: the tingle of being bad, of getting away with something a little naughty. It is the appeal of Catwoman, and in scenes like that, the reader got a taste.
And therein lies one of the essential elements of a successful Catwoman portrayal that has often eluded DC Comics. A simple comparison of the merchandise dating from Denny O’Neil’s day as Bat editor, where it seemed to be a mandate that her features be distorted by a hostile snarl, to the turning point when a Japanese company, Yamoto Toys, released a limited edition figurine based on manga artist Kia Asamiya’s design. The sexy come hither pose and naughty grin sold out in days in many U.S. comic shops and was voted The Sexiest Batman-related Action Figure by Wizard’s ToyFare Magazine. After a second equally successful figurine from Yamoto, again featuring the Jim Balent costume with an appealing pose and smile, DC appears to have got the message. Recent offerings of the Balent costume from DC Direct have certainly featured an attractive pose and naughty grin.
But the detour into snarling hostility illustrates how, like Cleopatra, Catwoman has undergone reinvention after reinvention reflecting the insights, fetishes or fears of those doing the re-imaging. Consider her Bob Kane origin from “The Secret Life of Catwoman,” an airline stewardess who suffered amnesia after a plane crash. (Yes, amnesia. It’s a comic book.) In the 1940s and 50s, stewardesses were incredibly glamorous figures. Beautiful, svelt single girls, traveling the world, meeting exciting people and working side-by-side with pilots! It is in this story that Catwoman’s real name is revealed to be Selina Kyle. Selina meaning “daughter of the moon.” Kane clearly gave his Catwoman a glamorous and romantic cache befitting her status as the Queen of the Night in Batman’s world. This Catwoman, despite her criminal activities, was far from evil. She bargained away loot to save Robin from Joker, and on regaining her memory, worked with Batman to bring down a crime boss and ultimately her own criminal brother.
The next origin revealed that the amnesia story was a lie. Selina Kyle had been married to a rich man who beat her. When she left him, he tried to ruin her. Her first robbery was stealing back the jewelry he’d given her and, titillated by the thrill, she continued. The attitudes expressed by this version of Catwoman are not at all difficult to decode, for the author puts it right in the text: Selina tells Batman she made up the amnesia story to get out of the life of crime because “I was thirty years old and I didn’t want to die without love… without children.” That Selina does marry Bruce Wayne and has a child with him: Helena Wayne. While modern sensibilities may kneejerk at the notion that every woman must pang for motherhood, I submit that the root idea that all humans, both men and women, want love is a timeless and valid one.
Things took a bit of a turn when the in-your-face feminism of the Sixties sent the comics boys into a tizzy. Consider the mentality of a writer who had the Green Lantern’s girlfriend become evil Star Sapphire for 5 days each month. How does such a man respond to images on the news of women shouting for equality and burning their bras? Well, Catwoman donned go-go boots and snarled about “The Battle of the Sexes” and how “No man would ever tame her,” and that same writer gave Batman a new enemy/love interest, a submissive Asian who “was good company even when she was quiet.”
Yeah. Seriously. Amazing, isn’t it?
The Catwoman of Tim Burton’s Batman Returns is of a period that lost the most fundamental “Look, up in the sky” aspect of superhero comics: the wish fulfillment of a child, the adventures of characters we would all want to be if we could. To fly, to be strong, to swing across the city on a silken Batline, to have exciting adventures in a world of larger than life color… In the spirit of remaking all the known characters as damaged human beings that no sane person would ever want to be, Selina was a meek, repressed, overworked secretary whose boss killed her. All of her ‘empowerment’ was a reaction to oppression and victimization, but it should be noted that this is not really a gender attitude. The men in Burton’s world fare no better.
Of Frank Miller’s Year One and subsequent comics based on its Catwoman origin, all that any enlightened reader need do is look at the body of Miller’s work. The sheer number of prostitutes, rapes and castrations paint a vivid portrait of the man doing the writing and his attitudes, but just in case anyone doubts, Rob Bricken has taken the trouble to map it all out in 6 Hints that Frank Miller Might Have Issues with Women. What all this says about Miller is – well, it’s Miller. It doesn’t have to represent the rest of us. We don’t have to be the generation that was so terrified of women’s sexuality they had to demonize it. It was DC who let this guy with obvious issues about women’s sexuality define a woman’s icon. It is DC Comics who refuses to remedy or even admit that error. It falls to other media to do so.
Mr. Nolan, I’m looking at you. The 21st Century is eagerly waiting to see what “Our” Catwoman will be.
Chris Dee
www.catwoman-cattales.com
Article first published as Catwoman and Cleopatra: Inkblots of an Age on Blogcritics.
It’s hard to believe it’s been 10 years since Chapter 1 of Cat-Tales 1 was posted on the Internet. It wasn’t Cat-Tales #1 back then, it was just A Girl’s Gotta Protect Her Reputation. If I’d known it was a founding stone, I probably would have gone with a shorter, punchier title. One without the word “Gotta.”
It is also Mardi Gras, and in that spirit I say Laissez le bon temps roule because today merely kicks off the Anniversary celebrations. Nothing is confined to these 24 hours but the ribbon cutting. There will be events and extras all year long. Today’s:
Chris Dee will be appearing at the Second Life Visitor’s Center for book signings throughout the day. Yes: BOOK SIGNINGS. Today’s offering is a 10th Anniversary edition of the Graphic Novel Prologue, exclusive to SL residents.
Harvey said he’d brought the rum balls.
He failed to add that he/Harvey had gotten into a bit of a spat with he/Two-Face in the making of said rum balls, the former insisting they were too moist and adding more flour, the latter that they were too dry and adding more rum, until each was the size of a golf ball, weighed half-a-pound and contained a full shot of rum.”
-Chris Dee’s Cat-Tales #13: Knight Before Christmas
Harvey Dent/Two-Face’s Rum Balls
(which Chris suggests making with bourbon and without the multiple personality disorder)
2 cups finely crushed vanilla wafers
1 cup finely chopped pecans
1 cup confectioners sugar
2 tbls honey
2 tbls cocoa
1/2 cup myers rum
more powdered sugar to coat finished balls
Combine first 5 ingredients, hand mixing as you go, then begin adding rum a little at a time, hand mixing until moist but not wet. Roll into balls, then roll in powdered sugar until coated.
Chris Dee
www.catwoman-cattales.com
cattales.yuku.com
cattales.wikispaces.com
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Chef Josh Grinker recently blogged a list of “Things Chefs Don’t Want You To Know.” The explanation for #1 (There is butter in everything) began like this:
In every culinary school in America, they hammer home the same three-word mantra to students day after day, year after year, until it’s like a little voice in your brain that guides virtually every culinary decision you will make for the rest of your career: ‘Fat is Flavor.’
Now, this isn’t a cooking blog, and if there are any nutrition proselytizers out there who want to make the case for their fat-free, salt-free, gluten free, lentil and tofu roulade being just as tasty as a deep dish with pepperoni and sausage from Giordano’s, they can lump it. Because there are two key elements in Grinker’s statement which are the gateway to serial success or—in DC Comics’s case—serial failure.
First of all, the three little words are true. I could spend a day perusing the Good Eats clips on youtube for Mr. Science-style demonstrations explaining that reality molecule-by-molecule, but again, this is not a cooking blog. The point is, regardless of what you say on the convention floor, no matter what you put in the press release or tell the columnist from IGN, and no matter what would be convenient for you personally or professionally, no matter what creates a political pain in the ass for you personally or professionally, the bedrock principle on which you base your decisions has to be TRUE. One example off the top of my head: readers like the theme rogues. You can accept that and build your one year arc around Croc, Catwoman, Poison Ivy, Joker, Harley Quinn, Riddler, and Two-Face and be on your way to the hit of the decade, or you can reject it, stage a parade of faceless mobsters and serial killers, and then grouse that grumble that you’re never as popular as that other guy.
Assembling the list of wrong ideas DC has about life, the universe, and everything would be a daunting task, and not necessarily a productive one. Because the second key in Grinker’s statement is that repetition of the founding principle(s) until it becomes an instinct. There are some major figures out there who are so consistently wrong in everything they say and do, they’ve definitely got the instinct mechanism working, it’s just based on faulty base principles.
From “Bruce Wayne is the mask” to the fallacy of Millerism, they have core ideas, those ideas just happen to be wrong. But there are others who have no little voice leading them in any direction. They go from mediocre to pretty good to clinically insane, from really bad to slightly above average to “oh hell, the syphilis got to their brain.” That is the mark of a writer, editor, or manager who is stumbling blind. They have no root principles, so every choice brings them back to square one. They’re a ping pong ball in a wind tunnel, and whatever gusts hit them last will determine where they go next.
Look, things do change in this world. One of the major reasons the Titanic went down is because everything Captain Smith knew was wrong. It was based on based on 30 years of experience, but on that ship on that voyage in those waters: wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. But here’s the catch: other things do NOT change. There is a reason the term is bedrock principles. Some things simply are, they are constants, they do not alter. “You know how you cook a great steak? You slather it in butter, throw it on the grill, paint it with more butter.” Because fat is flavor. The principles of storytelling do not change. Going home. Coming of age. Sin and redemption. The hero. The power of love. They are hardwired into us, just like our taste buds process sweet, sour, bitter, and salt. Can a new voice come up with something startling and creative and unprecedented? Absolutely. Can they invent a fifth taste? No. No, they can’t. Can they make it so we don’t like sweet anymore? No, no they can’t.
Find the true bedrock principles, repeat them until they become a little voice in the back of your mind shaping every decision you make, and you might just rock the world. Insist that fat isn’t flavor… well, enjoy your empty restaurant.
Meanwhile, the Cat-Tales kitchens are bustling these days. Electron 29: Chapter 4 is out. Compilations of Books 1 through 4 are out in ebook formats for Kindle, Sony, Nook, iPhone/iPad/iPod, and pretty much everything as well as new print-ready pdf editions. Individual Tales 1 through 50 are also available, and several have new covers showcased here, here, and here. The last ten tales (through #60) will be out – both individually and as the Book 5 Compilation – in time for Christmas. New installments of both spinoffs: Capes & Bats by Wanders Nowhere and Don’t Fear the Z by Random Equinox are in the pipeline and may actually be out by the time you read this, and an amazing new artist is soon to debut in the Fan Art Gallery. And oh yes, Batcatfever will kill me if I don’t mention that the forums have been quietly devouring the latest snippets from Batman: The Brave and the Bold.
Chris Dee
www.catwoman-cattales.com
cattales.wikispaces.com
It’s been a while since I logged a general catch-up entry. I’m reasonably sure I mentioned when Armchair Detective and Not My Kink were released for kindle and mobile readers, but so much was happening in that window, putting the finishing touches on the Second Life Visitor Center and working on the pictures for the Cat-Tales Cocktails, they may have gotten missed. In any case, edits are well underway for CT 58: Demon’s in the Details, so that should be released in just a few weeks.
Better still, I got myself a new phone, an Android platform. There’s a Kindle app, so I should be able to test the phone features much better now. For example, visiting the Cat-Tales homepage, I see that not all smartphones will direct to the mobile-friendly menu page, only the iPhone does. The rest of you (who are now the rest of US) can continue to use the iPhone button on the bottom menu until I get an automatic redirect in the works.
Also, the new chapter of Don’t Fear the Joker is out today. I know many readers were expecting this next chapter to be the final one, and I actually did consider it since CH9 is quite short. But not only is it a complete chapter/installment on its own, there is one other non-Gotham, non-story consideration. As forum followers are aware, my A/C gave up the ghost on August 1st, timing that IMO shows a truly Jokeresque sense of humor, and since the coming and going of repairmen is apt to slow down the progress of Chapter 10, I figured it was better to get this out there. All of you can cackle with Mistah J while I keep Cashmere from hogging the sweet spot in front of the fan.
‘Til next time, Ciaomeow as we say in the real neighborhood. And stay cool.
Chris Dee
www.catwoman-cattales.com
cattales.yuku.com
cattales.wikispaces.com
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Whew. Two major projects coming to a head at the same time. Let’s try not to do that again for a while.
First things first: Congratulations to Loren Weisman on the epoch-making launch of The Artist’s Guide to Success in the Music Business. Huzzah! Apparently the after party at Seattle’s famous Tini Bigs was quite the event, complete with – be still my heart – a new signature martini made for the event by one of the country’s great mixologists, Shane Sahr.
As for the book, you know, most creative fields are beset by an Echo Boomer problem: kids coming out of a system where they have been rewarded for participation and not achievement. The result is they hit the real world with no clue what they are actually good at and where their talents are barely adequate. They come in expecting the real world to be set up the way their previous environments have been: designed to help them achieve and to advance them as quickly as possible – or preferably faster. This in the industry of “Don’t call us, we’ll call you.” Surprise, kids! No theatre, no movie studio, no nightclub, no record label, no publisher, no agent, no manager, no anybody anywhere is going to do that, even if you actually have the once in a decade talent you believe you do. Loren’s book is a milestone in actually letting aspiring artists IN on those realities. Instead of talking about them behind closed doors, he talks to them, explaining the facts of life frankly but honestly. IMO, at least half will react like Talia: hysterical scream fits, angry assertions that her deluded fantasy Is, Was, and Always Will Be. You’re a big fat meanie for even suggesting otherwise, all her Facebook friends say so too and so does her mom and so does the Easter Bunny. Elvis lives! In all probably, innocent crockery will die… But the other half, that’s who this book is for. They can and will step up, grow up, and become real artists.
Anyway, book release. Despite that excitement and the next phase – testing – on the infamous TBA that ate Tokyo, I did manage to complete edits and roll out the kindle and mobi for Cat-Tales #54: War of the Poses. Even got a few chapters done of CT55. Speaking of CT#55, it appears that Christopher Nolan appeared at something called WonderCon not too long ago and surreptitiously waved the checkered flag on a viral for his upcoming flick: Inception. That set off a slew of new visits to our Dark Knight viral sites. So CT-readers, if you missed out on the alternate reality game the first time, just a heads up that those websites are still out there for your vicarious Gotham-living pleasure.
And finally, yes, writing is ready to resume on Don’t Fear the Joker. It was a good weekend for Laughing Boy, which is to say, a crappy weekend for Gotham, but what can you do. That’s the way the clattering teeth clatter, HAHAHAHAAAAAAA!
And, since I am several weeks behind sharing goodies from the mailbag, check this out: a “Kodak Moment” doesn’t begin to cover it.
Chris Dee
www.catwoman-cattales.com
cattales.yuku.com
cattales.wikispaces.com
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Three words: Chapter 4 – Racecar!
Yes, chapter 4 of Don’t Fear the Joker is upon us, with both couples returning to the Wayne Manor and Ha-Hacienda after the events of Chapter 3. There’s been all kinds of speculation, but as soon as I get this posted… well, you’ll see.
Speaking of the chapter release, it was time for a new update of Cat-Tales news for the little SitePal widget, and I had a bit of a time recording it. You might not think it if you open the window, but apparently it’s Springtime out there. At least as far as the pollen index. Just enough to give me some oddball congestion in my one ear over the weekend. Honest to god, felt like I just took a long plane ride and forgot to swallow. So I’m really not sure how bad my voice sounded. I do know it’s not the best time for plants to be getting on my bad side. I mean, there’s a chapter 5 that comes after 4, and a chapter 6 that comes after that. The title of the story is Don’t Fear the Joker. You hear what I’m sayin’, Pammy?
Okay, moving on. It’s hard to imagine there could be something more besides coming back from a hiatus with a shiny new Joker chapter, but if you check your calendars, you’ll see April 1 is coming up. And it seems that since the first year that Gotham After Dark became the Metropolis Tourist Bureau, there’s a small, deeply disturbed following wondering what will happen next. Not to worry, SDDFs, I found a few minutes to whip up something appropriate for the message boards.
And finally *checking the time* work will resume on that pesky TBA just as soon as the chapter is launched. Which is why I can’t dawdle making this morning’s entry more amusing. Ciaomeow, everybody.
Chris Dee
www.catwoman-cattales.com
cattales.yuku.com
cattales.wikispaces.com
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Finished the book cover (MEOW!) and as promised, a normal Cat-Tales schedule has resumed.
First, it’s quite true that a good editor is above rubies, and mine kept quietly working while I was running around calling down the wrath of the righteous on photoshop filters. The result is that the proofing edits on Short Tales were ready just as soon as I came up for air. And that means Cat-Tales #53, the shiny newly proofed trio of short tales which introduced The Z and Selina’s Lamborghini, is now available for kindle & mobi as well as the printable pdfs. Again, I meow.
After that, work resumed on Don’t Fear the Joker, natch. No ETA on Chapter 4 at the moment, but only because Joker and Harley are… well, you can probably guess.
Twitterfeed HarlQuinn13
HarlQuinn13: Helping Puddin’ test the Easy Bake Oven trap
HarlQuinn13: Test flopped. Giving porcupine a decent burial
HarlQuinn13: Going out to White Castle
Work on the TBA is still on hold. I want to get the next chapter in the can before I worry about any outside projects. Happily the fan gallery artists and other extras folks are patient. The folks I owe emails to, eh… well, I’ll get there.
So that’s it for now. First major hurdle of the year, CLEARED!
Chris Dee
www.catwoman-cattales.com
cattales.yuku.com
cattales.wikispaces.com
Thank you for reading. If you are viewing this post anywhere other than The Catitat you are reading a mirror. Please visit the original posting in The Catitat to leave a comment.
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