Happy New Year to fans of Selina Kyle.
First appearance: Batman #1 (cover-dated spring 1940; published April 25, 1940)
Created by: Bill Finger and Bob Kane
Catwoman: Nine Lives of a Feline Fatale (2004) Cover
Happy New Year to fans of Selina Kyle.
First appearance: Batman #1 (cover-dated spring 1940; published April 25, 1940)
Created by: Bill Finger and Bob Kane
Catwoman: Nine Lives of a Feline Fatale (2004) Cover
Last edited by Agent Z; 01-01-2024 at 11:07 AM.
Marshall Rogers sketch.
CatwomanRogers.jpg
Hoping to see her upgrade to a full costume and mask in the sequel .
That movie serves as pretty much exhibit A on the “Executives view things as IPs only, and don’t really pay attention to what those IPs are” argument.
I mean, conceptually, “Make a heist movie where the main thief is a beautiful woman in spandex who makes Cat puns named Selina Kyle” seems easy and simple. But what executives were saying ti each other at the time was something like “People loved the name Catwoman! People love Halle Berry! People live Spider-Man! Just combine those three things!”
Like action, adventure, rogues, and outlaws? Like anti-heroes, femme fatales, mysteries and thrillers?
I wrote a book with them. Outlaw’s Shadow: A Sherwood Noir. Robin Hood’s evil counterpart, Guy of Gisbourne, is the main character. Feel free to give it a look: https://read.amazon.com/kp/embed?asi...E2PKBNJFH76GQP
Here’s a review of some Catwoman comics I posted on another forum, about the oft-discussed Jim Balent era.
Catwoman (Vol. 1) 19-21
Okay, so yes, this is a Jim Balent-drawn Catwoman story - cheesecake was basically the entire reason why he held down that job for so long, but… this is still fairly early on in that comic and in his cheesecake career, so the art’s a lot more competent than it eventually becomes, especially in regards to facial expressions (which Balent was actually very good at, even though his obsession with curves became his calling card.)
And this is also another Chuck Dixon-penned Bat-book, and low-key?… I think Catwoman might have been the Bat-character he wrote second or third best after Tim Drake and maybe Dick Grayson, which is actually high praise considering how prolifically good he was at writing all of them. Plus, sometimes, he had ideas that had the sheer wackiness of Silver Age comics, but fueled through actually logical and modern storytelling.
…Which so what this is: 90’s era professional thief and even more professional smartass Catwoman is hired to steal a screenplay from a massively successful prima donna director, only to find that not only has he staged his entire production on an obscure, hurricane-wracked ruin of a Caribbean island, but a) there is no script and he’s just improvising the whole movie in a blind panic, but also b) he decided to make it a creature feature… and it was easier to just build a 40 ft tall robotic monster with aggressive artificial intelligence than to do CGI, and c) the director has, of course, gone laughing mad and seeks to kill everyone when things go pear-shaped.
Yeah. It’s that good kind of goofy for modern comics.
There’s a strong satirical wit to the entire script that’s razor sharp and genuinely full of deadpan humor, with a cast of characters who also still feel more real than ridiculous. Probably the funniest development is this:
When she corners the director before his breakdown, Selina manages to force him to write *a* script by casually threatening him with her whip - and then he pulls a gun, starts going crazy and she loses the script… so she locks herself in a room and types one out herself to fulfill her contract, looking as miserable as possible… and then that script she forged, of course becomes a $250 million hit in 90’s money, and she gets none of the proceeds.
Like action, adventure, rogues, and outlaws? Like anti-heroes, femme fatales, mysteries and thrillers?
I wrote a book with them. Outlaw’s Shadow: A Sherwood Noir. Robin Hood’s evil counterpart, Guy of Gisbourne, is the main character. Feel free to give it a look: https://read.amazon.com/kp/embed?asi...E2PKBNJFH76GQP