Ask Catwoman; Ask Chris

It’s readers and fans that make Cat-Tales what it is. I love hearing from them in the forums and social media, and occasionally even Selina gets involved through her Ask Catwoman feature.

Catwoman’s Costume: The First Fitting in Kittlemeier’s Back Room

Most recently, a young reader asked about her costume, her flexibility and training. Catching her in a good mood (eh, possibly creating the good mood by mentioning their own cats), Selina was moved to reply here: Ask Catwoman #15: About her costume, training and origin.

Quite a lot of her answer is familiar to long term readers from her origin story: Cattitude so to give those fans a little something extra too, we made up some new artwork: Catwoman’s Costume – The First Fitting.

And finally, there have been a few questions for me over on Tumblr.  Check out The Continuity Fallacy and if you haven’t heard the Cat-Tales origin story before now (you have), I’ve gone and told that again right here.

Dear Santa, All I Want for Christmas is… Wait, does Barbie come with a latex catsuit?

Goggles aside, Catwoman fans and Cat-Tales fans in particular have three very good reasons to be excited about Anne Hathaway playing Selina Kyle in The Dark Knight Rises. We can’t know what’s in the script, naturally, but there were two recent episodes that lead me to believe that, as far as the actress is concerned, this is a Catwoman we can get behind.

Most of us made the acquaintance of the beautiful 28-year-old actress waaay back in 2001 when she starred opposite Julie Andrews in The Princess Diaries. At the time, Anne told Access Hollywood, “a lot of questions that I used to get asked were, ‘So, every girl when she grows up wants to be a princess, did you want to be a princess when you grew you?’ And I so wish I’d said what I felt back then, because the truth was, ‘No, I wanted to be Catwoman!’ And now I am… That dream came true, for sure.”

That’s it. Game. Set. Match.

She wanted to be Catwoman. The way some little girls dream of fairy tale castles, handsome princes, white weddings and My Little Pony (not necessarily in that order), some of us dreamed of being Catwoman. When modern comics have gone off the rails, it’s because they forgot that core truth: we want to be these characters. Look, up in the sky, it’s Superman! You’re a kid, you’re small, you’re weak. Imagine being able to fly! Imagine being strong enough to pick up a train and hurl it like a javelin! We grow up wanting to be these characters.

Ms. Hathaway has clearly not forgotten. “That dream came true, for sure.” So far, so good.

Now obviously there is only so much an actress can do if the material misses the mark. Back when Tim Burton was making Batman Returns, Sean Young was clearly in touch with her childhood dream to be Catwoman. Her stunts to get Burton’s attention got her a ‘crazy actress’ label and no role, but there is perhaps a better insight into the desire we girls have to become that powerful and sexy feline fatale than there is in what actually hit the screen. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed Burton’s movies at the time, but his Gotham is, by his own admission “a freak show” and his Batman and Catwoman are the very much product of that era’s comics: damaged freaks that no sane person would want to be. His Catwoman’s power, like so much what comes out of the comics origins, is not a natural part of the woman animal. Selina isn’t simply beautiful and sexy and smart and strong because she is born that way. As if beautiful, witty and savvy women don’t occur in nature, her amazing power to make the Dark Knight… rise must be explained with an origin. It is, invariably, a reaction against oppression, exploitation, or abuse.

We’re getting back to Anne in a minute, I promise.

How exactly does a smart, sexy, witty and talented woman react when she’s been misrepresented in the press? When she is not a damaged psycho that can only snarl and hiss, when she has a sense of humor and a playful instinct for mischief? In Cat-Tales, Selina uses her celebrity as Catwoman to mount an off-Broadway show and uses that spotlight to call out the tabloids about the lies they tell about Batman, about Catwoman, and what really goes on in Gotham after dark.

It’s not exactly the same, but Anne Hathaway recently appeared on Conan and vented her frustrations with the paparazzi – seriously – in a rap in the style of Lil’ Wayne.

That’s… Selina!

That’s my Selina. I don’t know what Messers Nolan, Nolan, and Goyer have written for her, but that woman could play the Selina Kyle of Cat-Tales without bothering to act.

Back when the casting was first announced, Christopher Nolan said when we see the movie in 2112, we will understand why Anne Hathaway and Tom Hardy are perf…

Oh wait, I said three reasons, didn’t I?

Sexy. DC Comics is relaunching their universe today and the writer of their new Catwoman comic apparently used the word “sexy” 40 times in an interview. That shouldn’t surprise anyone outside of the comics world. Catwoman = sexy. Everybody knows that. And let’s face it, what we’ve seen of the zip-up biker chick outfit isn’t. But everything we have seen of Ms Hathaway exudes that confidence and good humor, that energy and vivacity that is the essence of sex appeal. I don’t know about still photos, but seeing her interviews of the past few weeks, I think the lady can be sexy wearing sack cloth.

So, Christopher Nolan said when we see the movie in 2112, we will understand why Anne Hathaway and Tom Hardy are perfect casting as Catwoman and Bane. In the former case, he is 11 months ahead of schedule.

Chris Dee
www.catwoman-cattales.com

Article first published as Santa, All I Want for Christmas is… Wait, does Barbie come with a latex catsuit? on Blogcritics.

Believing in even the possibility of a happy ending is a very powerful thing

Comic books and fairy tales.  Stories we revere from childhood that fired our imaginations and at the same time slipped in some principles on how to live our lives, what we can become, what we can achieve.  Some of our parents thought we had to put that aside when we grew up, but since the Baby Boomers came of age, we’ve embraced the idea that this doesn’t have to be kid’s stuff.  From Disney’s Beauty and the Beast to Star Wars, Lord of the Rings to Nolan’s The Dark Knight, we’ve seen that fantasy, science fiction, and comic book stories can be told for adults.  Of course, every good story is grounded in a battle between Good and Evil.  There’s a reason for that.  We tell these stories to prepare us for life, and in real life, that battle between Light and Darkness rages.

ABC’s Once Upon a Time has the potential to bring that battle elegantly and beautifully into the mainstream.  From the writers of Lost, the world begins as we might expect: with a tantalizing mystery.  28-year old Emma Swan finds herself in Storybrook, a mysterious place where some strange rules seem to apply – rules that don’t quite seem to jibe with the laws of nature. In the First Look video…

Okay, a young boy tells Emma it’s all the work of a wicked queen, “She sent everyone from the Enchanted Forest here” and they don’t know that they’re characters from fairy tales.  Sounds kinda cool, I liked The Sixth Sense and Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods.  But none of that is what made me sit up and take notice.  What did it was that moment after the screen went black  and those 4 gleaming words appeared:

THERE ARE
TWO SIDES

And so there are in every genre that touches on those cherished childhood memories.  From comic books to movies, there are those who claim writing for an adult audience means a nihilist and cynical world in which there are no real heroes and no real hope.  Those who cannot dream will always try to destroy yours.  They have been trying to poison our childhood memories and destroy our heroes for years.  Until Geoff Johns’s Infinite Crisis and Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, that divide in the comics world was confined to the non-fictional arenas.  Nolan’s Dark Knight fictionalized it in a battle for Gotham’s soul.  Joker’s view being the cynic’s “When the chips are down, all these civilized people will eat each other”  and Batman believing in the people of Gotham City.  When his faith is proven right, when the people of Gotham decine to “eat each other” as Joker predicted, he asks pointedly “What was your point, that everyone is as ugly as you?”

Will Once Upon a Time take that battle to the next level?  Is this a tale of Darkness and Cynicism versus Light and Hope?

I give you two moments from that FIRST LOOK: 

Trollish man in a cage:
Everything we love will be ripped from
us while we suffer for all eternity.

v.

Girl:
Believing in even the possibility of a
happy ending is a very powerful thing

FIGHT!

Once upon a time Hope fought Despair.  Once upon a time Light fought Darkness.  Once upon a time Good fought Evil.

Once upon a time…  Damn, I’m there.

Chris Dee
www.catwoman-cattales.com

Celebrating 10 Years

Combining  “Mask for Mardi Gras” with another page of panels from the Graphic  Novel Prologue, this might be my favorite of the posters kicking off  Cat-Tales 10th Anniversary tomorrow.

Why Do We Fall?

Remember this moment? Remember this question? “Why
do we fall, Bruce?”

So we can lie on the floor stubbornly insisting we haven’t?

So we can sit with our aching ass on the cold terrazzo insisting that gravity is a myth?

How about repeating like a politico’s talking points that it’s not the floor at all and we are, in actuality, on Dancing With the Stars foxtrotting with Jennifer Gray?

No. Why do we fall? So we learn how to get up.

I recently saw a piece on the 10 biggest WTF moments in comics. Not surprising which company took home the trophy for the big #1.

In 1998, DC made the mother of all WTF decisions when they opted to change the character of Superman. This character that had stood for 60 years, and had just been killed off a few years prior to show his utter importance not only to comics but to the world, was out the door…

A change of costume or marriage status is one thing, but completely altering everything that established the character as an American icon in the first place is something else entirely.

Several readers marked this as the first pock of the disease which has now consumed just about all the DC characters, the first warning sign that those entrusted to write these characters have no understanding of what defines them or of their iconic significance in the greater world outside their Thursday To-Do list.

But not me. For once, I’m going to stand between DC and the ones throwing stones, because here’s the thing: as soon as they realized the ground had given way under their feet and they were falling into a deep pit with a bunch of angry bats baring their teeth and hissing bat-spittle into their faces, they changed him back. The article itself admits “the explanation to get him back to normal was quite vague, probably a result of the severe backlash of comic book fans and (DC’s) desire to fix the problem as quickly as possible.”

They didn’t tap Wizard to call it a giant step forward in comics, they didn’t embark on a PR campaign to try and convince the terminally stupid that unsweetened lemon juice tastes just like water, they didn’t figure there would be a new crop of gullible half-wits who would be coming along any minute to replace the 80% of their readership heading out the door. They didn’t think up even worse things to do to Superman to punish the fans for not accepting the fiasco. They got up. That’s why we fall. And if we can’t get our asses out of that hole on our own, we scream for help before the rest of the ground gives and we fall farther.

Remember a few weeks ago I said The Reaper is out there, and DC’s attitude that it’s okay to mess things up further/they’ll fix it (or not) next year was horrifically out of touch with the reality that there may not BE a next year? Anyone who thought I was being melodramatic, please turn and wave goodbye to Wizard. It’s gone, as of yesterday. All staff let go. If a new online magazine transpires to replace it, the focus is to be on pop culture generally and the non-comics media where these characters still thrive. Not  print comics.

Do I have your attention now, boys?

Fantastic Four is snuffing a major character today. What makes this different from past fan-inflaming stunts is that it’s the first under Disney. That means if it doesn’t work out (and by “work out” I don’t mean by the comics definition ‘everyone hate it’ but the definition of everyone else on the planet), then those responsible are going to be introduced to a concept that is new to them but familiar to everyone else who works for a living: consequences. You make a bad decision, you piss off customers, you materially damage a company’s assets, there are consequences. I don’t think it’s a bad thing. It’s not going to be a pleasant adjustment. Growing up often isn’t. But it’s pretty much the only choice the medium has if it wants to survive.

Why do fall?  Well, eventually to learn how to get up.  For some though, there is an intermediary step: to learn to recognize the hole, and then to accept that the hole is not the place to be.

On a lighter note, it’s a big week for Cat-Tales. The Dracula spinoff Capes and Bats releases its penultimate chapter today, and there’s a plot twist that absolutely nobody saw coming–but which was right in front of us the entire time. I have to admit, I was floored when I read it. Scared the cat with my gasps of surprise. We’re also less than 48 hours from the launch of a new feature to make life easier for our mobile friends. Work is underway on the new chapter of Trophies, while reviews continue to come in on À Bon Chat, Bon Rat.

Chris Dee
www.catwoman-cattales.com

The Dressing of Cats is a serious matter…

So it’s to be Catwoman and Bane in Dark Knight Rises… Meow!

I haven’t put forth any opinion on Anne Hathaway simply because I know enough about actors to know what I don’t know. If it’s a bad actor (Katie Holmes) you can see a train wreck coming without knowing any particulars of the role. In all other cases, none of us out here have seen enough of most actors to know what they are capable of. You watch Mr. Mom, you would never dream Michael Keaton could play Bruce Wayne. You watch The Doors, you would never that dream Val Kilmer couldn’t. So good luck, Anne! I have already mentioned the je nes se qua of Selina, as I see her, is best seen in Jennifer Ehle’s Eliza Bennet. She is about 120% more alive than the rest of us, there is a core of fun, joy, and good humor that makes a perfect foil to the dour intensity of Mr. Darcy…

Now, performance aside, there has been a certain concern raised about her “Complexity” – non comics folks, let me explain. There is a particular idiocy among a certain subset of comics readers that think cup size is inversely proportional to a complex and sophisticated portrayal of the character. A curvy and bouncy Catwoman that men enjoy looking at can’t possibly be a serious, realistic and complex treatment of the character, because of course, big breasted women don’t exist in nature. Fear not, fellas. What you saw in The Devil Wear’s Prada is creative costuming. Anne Hathaway is plenty lacking in complexity.

So, that’s Anne. The first thing most of my male friends and readers brought up immediately after hearing the casting was – no surprise here– the costume. I can certainly appreciate the desire to start forming that mental picture asap, and since it’s going to be quite a while until we learn anything about the production, let’s have a little survey of Catwoman’s looks over the years.

As all Cat Fans know, Selina made her debut way back in Batman #1 as an uncostumed jewel thief known as The Cat. She was modeled after sex-goddess of the day, Hedy Lamarr, looked smashing in an evening gown, and the first thing Batman noticed was her very shapely legs. Her first “costume”consisted only of a full face furry cat-mask, which wasn’t exactly flattering.

Almost immediately she moved to the Classic Skirted Costume which is most familiar to modern fans from The Brave and the Bold cartoon. It is easily her most enduring look, having been the original costume in the 40s, returning in the 70s and remaining unchanged right up until Crisis on Infinite Earths, returning in numerous Elseworlds and other comic appearances since, and now in the Brave and the Bold and its related games and merchandise.

Now that’s the 4-color world. Up until Batman Returns in 1992, her best known look to non-comics fans was certainly Julie Newmar’s from the 1966 series, which the comics promptly copied, changing only the color.

In comics, the “Go Go Boots” look came next. It seems to be universally known as the Go Go Boots Catwoman despite the fact that the ’60s hair and domino mask version is actually wearing the low ankle boot more often associated with the Classic Skirted Costume. Go figure. In any case, like all bad hair and clothing choices of that period, it was quickly changed and forgotten – a lesson the present comics could learn from, god knows. Admit it was the quaaludes, change it back, and move on.

But back to Julie. I always say that a lot of boys became men watching her in that black catsuit, and in 1992 history repeated itself with Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman. The influence of the ’66 look can easily be seen, and the ’92 was in turn inspiration for Dolce and Gabbana interpretation in Vogue.

That bring us, at long last, to the Jim Balent, the iconic look released on the cover of Catwoman #1. This costume drew upon the Classic Skirted Original, obviously, updating it for a more modern flavor while retaining all that connected Catwoman to her Bob Kane, Batman #1 roots.

Batman the Animated Series wisely adapted it, opting (foolishly, IMO) to recolor for their Gotham palette which erred on the side of black.

That brings us up to a present rife with mistakes. The less said of the Halle Berry disaster, the better. The movie was a mistake from start to finish, but more than a few industry watchers have observed that the multi-million dollar fustercluck could have been avoided if DC had admitted the disaster of their Volume II comic. If you put Catwoman on the cover – or the title of a movie – and you do not deliver a Catwoman story or the true Catwoman character within, then you will fail. The Darwyn Cooke goggled costume is a warning sign (Arkham City game designers, take note!) It means “This ain’t Catwoman.” It means you have been taking notes from the comics division which failed because it rejected, ignored, or tried to rewrite the DNA of the character and failed accordingly. Goggles mean you have probably got it wrong. You’re starting with two strikes against you. Even if the look were feline and attractive, you would not want that.

But it’s not feline. It’s based on Aviator Snoopy. I like Charlie Brown, don’t get me wrong. And I like his dog. But Snoopy the dog has nothing to do with Catwoman. So there’s that.

There is also the fact that they look markedly unattractive and bee-like. Jim Lee is the only artist on record who can make them kinda-sorta not nauseating, and he a) had scenes like this to work with, b) got them off her face every chance he could and c) is Jim Lee. Let’s face it, most of you aren’t. Nuff said about the goggles.

What the Nolan movie will do? We’ll have to wait and see, but there is a rich history to draw from. It should be fun seeing what they come up with.

Oops, almost forgot the Cat-Tales news!  A new tale has begun! Trophies from the Latin tropaeum, a prize, memento, or monument to an enemy’s defeat. Of course in the Batcave, it might mean something else.   We’re also just days away from a lifting that “Beta” tag on the iPhone front end, and making the catverse much more accessible to mobile readers (Yes, that means you Android and Windows Phone people too.)

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.

How to Succeed in Comics Without Really Trying

Had a few comics-related conversations over the holidays, and particularly their similarity to theatre. Comic books, like stage productions, cannot show elaborate cinematic scenes. They suggest, and the audience (or reader) fills in the rest from their imagination. Panel 1: close up on a Bat-glove, fist cocked. Panel 2: DEMON minion lying on the floor. You don’t SEE Batman attack (reminder if you haven’t seen the Arkham City trailer, you haven’t seen CGI Keysi Shakespeare the way it’s meant to be played), you create it in your own mind, and that folks, is why fanboys are more INVESTED in these characters and these stories. We are more possessive because they truly are OURS more than something we only see in a movie or on television.

Because of that similarity, and because theatre has had to reinvent itself for thousands of years to keep entertaining in a changing world, the modern comics professional can learn a lot from the theatre world. The big one to consider today is literally the difference between a theatre that failed in the last 10 years, and one in the same city that kept its lights on and is still performing shows. The philosophy is simplicity itself:

Look on every single performance of every single show as your one and only chance to win over someone in that audience and make them a lifelong theatre goer. Someone out there has never come to the theatre before, and what they see and hear and experience tonight could be so overwhelmingly magical for them that they are hooked for life.

Look on every single performance of every single show as potentially the last straw for someone who has seen one bad show too many.

Remember The Dark Knight? That movie brought people into comic shops for the first time. They were looking for Batman. If what was in the comics DELIVERED what they wanted, some of them would have come back. (And maybe some comic shops that have closed in the last 2 years would have weathered the storm, but that’s a question for another day.)

But it doesn’t take a movie. It doesn’t even take a cartoon. SOMEONE is be walking into a shop for the first time EVERY DAMN DAY. Every issue of every comic is a chance to win them.

Every issue of every comic is also a chance to LOSE them. There is a misconception out there that because fanboys howl and complain, because they have always howled and complained, that it’s fine and even desirable, to anger, disappoint and insult them. And it isn’t necessary to master or even understand the basic tenets of storytelling because a bad story will pass the time for the next 6 months as well as, or better than, a good one. There is a reason it is writers with roots in or ties to other media who are having exponentially more success than the hacks: because they understand real readers and audiences. They know that those hundred guys on forums are not representative of anything. The vast majority of readers you never hear from either way. They like it and they buy again, or they hate it and they don’t.

Things can be bad enough for long enough that the most vocal and committed fans decide enough is enough. We’re seeing that happen in increasing numbers, but those are the extreme cases. Every issue of every comic IS a chance to lose one of those diehards, but it is also infinitely more probable it will lose a hundred casual readers. Particularly when the actual goal is to cause maximum offense. It’s not okay to know something is wrong but wait until next year to fix it. Every single issue of every single comic is an opportunity to win or lose. And like life, you simply don’t know how many chances you have left. The Reaper is out there, folks, and there are major titles whistling in the graveyard, acting like it doesn’t matter, they’ll fix it next year. It really doesn’t seem to occur to them that there may not be a next year.

It’s a new year, and I wanted this entry to be an optimistic one. I want to offer more encouragement to those pros out there who honestly do seem to be trying to fix this. I know things that have been breaking for 20-plus years can’t be fixed in a day, but unfortunately, that’s what’s required here.

There’s another theatre principle: the miracle. It’s 30 minutes to curtain, the paint is still wet, they’re finishing off the second act costumes with a glue gun, the props table fell over, breaking the decanter we need for the first scene, the leads are having a shouting match in their dressing rooms, the fire marshall is seizing all the pyro earmarked for the end of the first act, and the ASM is locked in the costume loft. But the show goes on because even though it is f-ing IMPOSSIBLE to overcome all that in less than half an hour, we dig in and do it, because we gotta. Because we give a damn.

So maybe, just maybe, this can be an optimistic entry after all. All you guys need to do is dig in and give us a miracle. If it sounds like a lot to ask, look at your cousins in theatre who’ve been doing it for just over 5,000 years.

Chris Dee
www.catwoman-cattales.com

West Coast Sunrise

Back when Disney bought Marvel, I said “Now we got us a fair fight,” and almost immediately afterwards, I retracted it. Because Disney has always been integrated and focused when it comes to synergy: getting the movies, the toys, the theme parks, the music CDs and the TV shows working together and feeding into each other, which leads to more toys and DVDs and games… Hell, Disney was the first movie studio to embrace television while the others were running scared. Walt used it as an outreach to build interest in his nascent Disneyland project at a time when other studios were still clutching at Cinemascope, Technicolor and 3D to win their losing battle against change.

I said “fair fight” because with the Disney buy, Marvel now had that same corporate synergy muscle as DC did with its parent Time/Warner. I retracted because while Disney has historically known how to use that muscle, TW has not. Well, the Times maybe are a-changing.

There were a couple tantalizing developments in comics news this month. Arkham City released 2 trailers—that was very smart because, while the game is quite a ways out yet, people are shopping for new computers and game systems now. The timing also perfect in order to remind everyone at this festive time of year when our credit cards are out how much we like Batman. Meow.

The interesting thing about the Arkham stuff is the subtextual (and in some cases brazenly textual) thread running through the audience reactions: as long as it’s not from the comic book division, it’s probably good. As long as it’s not comic people behind it. If it’s Nolan or Rocksteady Studios (Arkham Asylum) or the new cartoon The Brave and the Bold or even that live show in the UK, it’s assumed to be fine. It’s assumed to be Batman. If it’s from the comics, the default is that it’s bad. If it’s not, the default is that it’s okay.

Whew.

Okay, moving on to the second development: Conan O’Brien paid a visit to the Warner Bros lot which is only a few steps outside his studio… and is the home to DC Comics.

*Jim Aparo look of astonishment.*

What’s that? It is? The Warner Brothers lot is the home to DC Comics? Heeeey, it is. Because “DC Comics” is now DC Entertainment, and the last few months have seen an overdue flushing of New York positions and reassigning everything except the comics themselves to the West Coast, under the Warner Bros part of the company in practice as well as in name. A part of the company that… how to put this delicately… knows what it’s doing. Didio’s merry band came up with “Superman walks across America in a hoodie” and “Diana gets a new outfit.”  They were the last major comic company – scratch that, they were the last comic company – to go digital.  Alterna Comics got there first. You could get Jesus Hates Zombies on Android and iTunes while DC was still running plays from that 1972 playbook of theirs.

Team Coco paying a visit to DC Comics home on the Warner Bros lot is huge because, to paraphrase one of those non-subtext critics, the DC whose home is on the West Coast is able to achieve a cross-promo spot on Conan to chat with an animator, drop the names of the Big 3, and plug The Green Lantern. Welcome to the 21^st Century, DC. Most of you are going to like it here.

Now then, Cat-Tales update. Well first, I do apologize to all those who rely on this blog for Gifts to Make Your Catwoman Purr for not finding out about nOir Jewelry’s Long Claw ring until a reader informed me. Then again, might be for the best. Now you’ll have something to exchange after you return that iPod-Docking Toilet Paper Dispenser.

The holidays are always a slow season for the tales, so I took advantage of the lull to roll out a few updates. Support for Social Networking is much improved. You can now share, tweet, stumble upon, email, and otherwise distribute individual tales, selected spinoffs, as well as the CT Collection as a whole. Selina decided to answer some reader letters in Ask Catwoman, Random Equinox finished his spinoff Don’t Fear the Z, and oh yes, if you missed Christmas in Gotham, the Cat-Tales Visitor Center will be decked out for the holidays until January 5^th.

Chris Dee
www.catwoman-cattales.com
cattales.yuku.com

You’re a fine one, Mr. Grinch

I never watched Glee, but I was in the room recently when a friend was watching the latest episode on Hulu. On headphones, I didn’t hear a thing apart from the occasional laugh, muted. Then there was a loud one. I looked up and saw this…

I didn’t have to watch the show, I knew EXACTLY what they were doing. That’s The Grinch That Stole Christmas, fondly remembered Dr. Seuss Xmas tale from all our childhoods. Later my friend talked about “how well they did it” and how they “did the whole thing” – from a character wearing the reindeer antlers and dog ears pulling the sleigh to plucking the ornaments off the tree.

Friend: And just when you’re thinking “There should be a Cindy Lou Whoo”…

I mention this because there is a misconception out there among some big names in comics that people are “bored” with the very elements that MAKE THE STORYVERSE WHAT IT IS. That’s why there is a wail of protest every time they announce the next big stunt that will fuck up the comics for another year and postpone the return to what it is SUPPOSED TO BE. Because these core things they are changing are not repetitive and boring, they are ritual and reassuring.

Bruce Wayne is Batman. Joker is his nemesis. Catwoman is his adversary/love interest. Jason Todd is dead.
Last year, next year and always.

If you don’t want to do that, don’t write Batman.

“Keep Christmas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine.”
“Keep it?” repeated Scrooge’s nephew. “But you don’t keep it.”
Last year, next year and always.

If you don’t want to do that, don’t perform A Christmas Carol.

“Face it, Tiger… you just hit the jackpot!”

Last year, next year and always.

If you don’t want to do that, don’t write Spiderman.

“It doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.” “Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.” “Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope.” Nobody is looking for reinvention here. They got it right the first time, and that’s why these stories last.

When it’s right, don’t reinvent, recapitulate:

Here endeth the lesson.

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.

You Are What You Eat

Had some interesting responses to the last blog Please Drink Responsibly, so I decided the central idea was worth revisiting from a wider perspective than writers or comic folks.

Briefly: you’re only as good as what you take into your system.  If you do anything creative, then you’re drawing on your imagination in a very special way and it is not a good idea to poison it.  Well duh, it’s never a good idea to chug poison, right?   The disconnect seems to be in recognizing the imagination can be poisoned and that these things are.  Consider an athlete who ate a steady diet of Big Macs and smoked two packs of cigarettes a day.  Would you be surprised when he failed to win a marathon?  Would you be surprised if he fell down dead at Mile-18?  Of course not, because we all get that an athlete is using his body to do what he does, and we all get that the cigarettes and junk food are not good for the whole air in/air out/blood pump/muscle flex process.  Problem is, few of us see our imaginations that way and far too many of us act like it doesn’t matter what we take into it.

First Principle: anything you do that’s creative comes from your soul – Okay, that’s a big word.  Forget the soul.  But there is a part of you that’s… better.  When you create in any medium, whether it is writing or painting or music, you hook that magical sacred part of you up to the Universe and channel something that is bigger and greater and infinite… Hell, I don’t know what it is, but it’s the reason it’s good to be alive.  Bob Fosse called it Joy.   And when it comes through YOU, you infuse it with your ideas and your emotions and your life experience and everything that makes you who you are.  It makes your story, your song, your sculpture or performance unlike anyone else’s.  And it’s your imagination – the part in all of us that first looked up at the stars instead of down at the dirt – that’s the core where all this happens.  So what you’ve got laying around in there matters.  If it’s Michaelangelo and Mozart and Dickens, great.  You’ve got more options than someone who only has Daniele Steele and Nickleback, but it’s not the end of the world if you don’t have a database of classics to draw on.  What is the end of the world is if you’ve got steaming piles of dog shit in there.

Now, for any newcomers to this blog, I write a metafiction series about Batman, and yet, I haven’t looked at a current comic in at least 4 years.  The reason is that the current output at DC is toxic and I won’t pollute my imagination with it.  This is more than not wanting to give DC Comics $2.95, what economists call “Dollar Votes,” in favor of making more of the same.  It isn’t about money, it’s about poison.

Someone sent me a link a while back to a website that posts scans from the current comics, and I can tell you right now that if I’d followed that link, that would have been my day.  Why?  Because if you step out of your house in the morning into a steaming pile of dog shit, that’s where your focus is going to be for quite some time.  The unpleasantness of the initial experience stays with you—in this case, my anger and disgust at whatever went on in those pages.  That’s going to come out in the writing.  Then there’s the smell that lingers: I would be aware if I used certain characters, alluded to certain ideas or events, everything would have a resonance in relation to their crap.   Now, your story should be your top priority, not an editor’s agenda, the marketing or the merchandising.  The story.  Making anything else a priority is a mistake, making their story the priority?  Hell no!  (We won’t even discuss the practice of, having cleaned off your shoe, going into a forum of people discussing the dog crap as if it’s fine French perfume:  Eau Merde de Fifi.)

Look, there are people out there who thrive on anger and disgust.  I find it doesn’t lead to creative output.  I find it leads to stuff like this:

Those who do create from those negative places, their stuff doesn’t last.  Occasionally, if the timing is just right, it will make a splash for fifteen minutes, but before too long, its popularity wanes and future generations just laugh at the goobers who found it profound or shocking.

It’s the stuff that comes from the good place that lasts:  from a sense of play, loving what you do, loving the characters, loving the process of creation and being excited to share it all with an audience—it’s that love and joy that is infectious.  Love of the characters, celebrating them, holding up the essence of what they are supposed to be, what we’re all supposed to be…  The stories that last have always been about the same things: heroes, redemption, coming of age, going home, the power of love.  We tell the same stories over and over again because they are true, because they are universal, because they resonate in our core.   And that’s where we connect as human beings.  That connection, that’s everything.  That’s why we do this.

The people I talked to after Please Drink Responsibly are not in comics.  They are in another industry that is broken in ways nobody fully understands, but where everyone recognizes that something is profoundly wrong.  Look, I don’t know if any one artist can hope to fix a broken system, but we are all in the business of “making a hat where there never was a hat.”   Who’s to say we can’t?  It starts with making that connection.  And to make it, we’ve got to detox, folks.  We’ve got to stop taking in poisons and polluting our imaginations with the artistic “product” of people writing comics or making music the way Pumpkin the Pekingese takes a dump.  If you’re one of those saying they read/saw/listened to such-and-such “and of course it sucked LOL,” stop laughing.   “Of course it sucked” means you knew better before you took that thing into your head.  You went right past the surgeon general’s warning and you took that poison into your system anyway.  You are what you eat.

All that said, Cat-Tales had a fabulous week.  Electron 29 posted its final chapter, which means it is now available in one complete download as ebook or print-quality pdf.  As if that’s not enough, Book 5 is ready!  That’s the compilation of Cat-Tales #51-59 including fan favorites Riddle Me-Tropolis, Vault, War of the Poses, Armchair Detective, Not My Kink, Do No Harm AND alternate-reality game fodder I Believe in Harvey Dent – all that in one compact ebook download – or, naturally, print-quality pdf.   Just in time for Christmas.  Meow.

Chris Dee
www.catwoman-cattales.com