Chris Dee's Blog: Chris Dee's Cat-Tales Blog - Posts Tagged "joker"

On October 27, 2011
Cat-Tales author Chris Dee sat down with Blogtalk Radio to talk about
"Batman, Catwoman and All things Gotham." It was a departure, as the
interviewer/host specialized in "Femslash" authors, while the principle
characters in Cat-Tales are straight. But it was an unusual time, and the
reasons for the interview were clear: Christopher Nolan had wrapped shooting on
The Dark Knight Rises. Nothing was known of the story beyond a few official
studio photos, and a plethora of amateur snapshots and video captured from the
Pittsburgh filming without context. DC Comics had just 'rebooted' their
universe and relaunched all comic titles, although only one issue of their new
Catwoman had hit the stands.

This transcript excerpts portions of the audio interview available at
Blogtalk Radio.  

Part 2

BTR: Are there any fan fiction genres or tropes that you hate?

CD: I'm not really that familiar with ‘the tropes.' I know literary
techniques and conventions, but ‘tropes' as far as individual ones and the
cutesy names they have for them, I just know that they're not to be confused
with clichés, which have a negative connotation. I assume you're not asking
about those but more about the ‘Jump the Shark' kind of thing which are acts of
desperation…

If there's one thing Josh Whedon showed us about those on Buffy, it's that
there aren't many of those that can't be made fresh and new and
surprising in the hands of a competent writer who isn't doing it out of
desperation but is exploring the situation in a thoughtful and dynamic way. And
I think it's probably the same for tropes. What I mean by that is a good writer
can do amazing things with incredibly flawed material, a really bad premise. A
bad writer? Ain't no such thing as bulletproof. There is no character,
storyverse or dynamic they can't screw up. So, if I did know the tropes a
little better, I would guess that it would be less a particular conceit or
literary device that I would be responding to, and more its execution in a
particular series of stories.

BTR: Most long-running comic book characters undergo costume changes
over the years – some are an improvement, some are not. Selina is of course no
exception. But Cat-Tales – Selina orders her purple catsuit on her first visit
to Kittlemeier, and she's been wearing that outfit ever since. You could have
selected any costume Selina has worn since her introduction to Batman. Why is
that the outfit you prefer out of all her comic/film/television incarnations,
and why is it that Selina has never felt compelled to make a permanent change?

CD: The thing to remember is Cat-Tales didn't begin with my sitting down at a
production house saying “We're going to do a Batman series with Catwoman as the
main character, let's see some costume designs.” This began as a rejection of
the comics new direction. So rejecting that change, the natural way to go was to
keep the look they changed from. Simply don't make that left turn at
Albuquerque.

And the reason for Selina to keep it is that there's no reason not to. You
asked ‘why Selina never felt compelled to make a change” – why on earth would
she? If she likes what she has, why would she change it? She's tried a few
things – like the skirted costume – it didn't suit her and she goes back to what
she likes best.

Now, that's her. What I personally like about the Balent is that it
modernizes the original skirted costume, the Classic Catwoman of the
Golden-Silver-and-Bronze Age, while still respecting it. It's identical from the
neck up, same cowl and cat ears, same color scheme, same claws. Updates the
gloves, boots and silhouette – it's a good look.

And of course a mask, as I blogged about just recently, a mask is right for
exactly the same reason the goggles are wrong: It's all about the eyes.

Eyes are the windows to the soul, as the saying goes – and the purpose of a
mask at Venetian Carnevale, at Mardi Gras and at Masked Balls going back
hundreds of years before Batman and Catwoman – is to REVEAL just as much as it
hides. The mask conceals the face but leaves those windows to the inner person
exposed. And the effect – again, this is going back centuries – the effect
psychologically is to release that inner part of you that sometimes you didn't
even know was there.

It's incredibly right for a Selina Kyle or a Bruce Wayne to really discover
these hidden parts of themselves in that way.

BTR: Without giving too much away, has Two-Face's extended story arc,
which began with being healed by Jason Blood, and ended with the story “Vault”,
left him permanently changed? First he was all Harvey Dent, no Two-Face. Then he
became all Two-Face, no Harvey Dent. Now nobody in Gotham seems quite certain
WHO he is. Is this a man who is crazier, saner, or who he was before?

CD: I can tell you that Harvey has made the same mistake twice now. Which
should please half of him. Healed Harv was not the same as Pre-Two-Face Harvey
Dent, Crusading District Attorney. He couldn't un-live those years he spent as a
coin-flipping bad guy just because his scars were gone. And he ultimately hurt
himself, because in trying to be that Harvey as he remembered him. He
suppressed all his negative thoughts and impulses with the idea that: well,
that's all a part of “Two-Face” who's gone now," until he finally blew. Since
his scars returned and he's back from the Meadowlark Institute, he seems to be
making the same mistake in reverse. He's got the idea that – since the scars are
back, he's Two-Face again, as if he never lived those months as the healed
Harvey. And he's as mistaken now as he was before.

“Crazier or Saner,” I don't know. I wouldn't have any idea how to measure
it. But I'll repeat a quote of Dennis Miller's from a long time ago that he has
all the self-knowledge of Zsa Zsa Gabor.

BTR: On some level, the Riddler has been pining away for his ex Doris
ever since they broke up. Now, being one of the saner Rogues, as opposed to one
of the killers, Eddie would seem to have a relatively fair shot at either
renewing the romance or finding someone new. Whereas someone like the Joker
would probably never find another girl like Harley who would willingly choose to
stay with him. What can we expect to see in the future with the Riddler's
personal life?

CD: What can you expect to see... ho boy, I need to watch what I say here. I
can tell there is about to be a development very soon. And I can tell you
you're right that he's never gotten over Doris.

I would also say that if you look back at their break up, it was very abrupt.
One day they seem to be a happy couple, the next, Eddie's at the Iceberg
self-medicating with scotch and country music. All we heard about what went down
was “crosswords are not the foundation for a lasting relationship.” So, I think
it's fair to say we haven't heard the whole story. There are some hints of what
might have been happening on Doris's side of things. Hints that Eddie the Puzzle
Master—Mr. Hints and Clues— doesn't seem to have ever pieced together or even
tried to. So it's going to be interesting.

BTR: Is it fair that Eddie seems to have become the new “Fate's
Bitch”? On the one hand, there are those who might deserve it more than him –
Scarecrow, Ivy, etc. On the other hand, Eddie at least has the potential to be a
better man. You get the sense that Jonathan Crane will be the Scarecrow until
the day he dies, but Eddie MIGHT be able to put the Riddler behind him. Seen
from that point of view, could he be “Fate's Bitch” because he's the one who
could be better but chooses not to?

CD: “Fair” doesn't enter into it. Bruce didn't deserve to see his parents
gunned down in front of him, Harvey didn't deserve the scarring that made him
Two-Face. Within the storyverse, Eddie drew the short straw because he drew the
short straw.

But that's why he's Fate's whipping boy, not Mine. He's
also been mine for a few years now. And I'd say that's ultimately his
friendship with Selina and his prominence as a character. Most stories are
about ‘the day something happened,” and the closer you are to the epicenter of
the story—the protagonist—the more likely it is that the something is going to
happen to you.

BTR: Roxy Rocket was intended to be the next Harley Quinn when she
was introduced in the second Batman: the Animated Series. Harley was created
specifically for the first B:TAS, where she became so hugely popular that she
was added to the comic books as well. Since then she remains one of the most
loved characters in the Bat-universe. Roxy was meant to be a repeat of that
phenomenon, and it didn't pan out. She didn't appear THAT often, and she never
caught on with the fans. And yet she has made multiple memorable appearances in
Cat-Tales, including the Ivy-Roxy catfight in “An Iceberg Tale” and pretending
to be the Mad Hatter's fiancée in “Something Borrowed”. Why have you used Roxy
as much as you have?

CD: Initially, I used her because there just aren't that many women. And the
rogue Christmas party was something where I wanted a big crowd of people:
A-list, D-list, everybody but Hugo is invited and he crashes. But as soon as she
entered the story , she started doing—like you said—very memorable things. She
gets drunk on high octane punch and sleeps with Oswald. Why waste that on a
one-off. Isn't that exactly the kind of thing where, for years after, whenever
anything happens that's even slightly similar, everybody who was there remembers
– and either they allude to it or there's this loaded silence where everybody's
thinking it and nobody wants to say it “Oh my god, like that time at the
Christmas Party where Roxy and Oswald went into the coat room, and then we heard
those noises.”

Of course that doesn't address why she keeps doing these thing when, as you
said, the animated series really never found her groove. And I think that
actually turned out to be the key, because I used that as part of her character.
She's insecure—why doesn't she have Harley's following? what's missing ? “I'm a
real ROGUE, not just a sidekick, what am I doing wrong?”

And insecurity, it's really a killer. I mean, it can lead people to do really
stupid things, it makes them very easy to manipulate, and both of those are
handy to have around, particularly if you're writing comedy.

BTR: Joker is, let's face it, completely insane. Trying to “think”
like Joker successfully is practically impossible, but you've written several
stories where, at some point, we shift to his POV. What is it like trying to
write from his perspective?

CD: It can be a very dark place to go, but fortunately that's very seldom an
issue in Cat-Tales because there are really 4 or 5 different “Jokers” inside
that one noggin of his, and the really ugly one almost never comes out.

Here's what does: there are scenes that are almost all conversational
rhythm. It's not going inside his head, it's just feeling the ebb and flow of
an exchange. Most often, it's when he's interacting with Bruce Wayne, with
Batman or with Harley. It's like putting them together in a room and letting
them talk, and taking dictation. It doesn't require ‘getting inside his head.'

That Joker is very much like Mark Hammil in the animated series: he's done
terrible things – earlier. But he's not doing them right now,
and he doesn't really get why everyone in Starbucks is freaking out when he
walked in the door and orders a cappuccino.

But the other end of the spectrum is the deadliest Joker: when he is trying
to prove a point. That's why he shot Barbara Gordon in The Killing Joke
– it wasn't for sadistic fun, it wasn't to see the blood flow, he wanted to
prove a point. He wanted to prove that a man like Jim Gordon was no better than
him, that everybody was “as ugly as him,” as Batman says in Nolan's The Dark
Knight – and all it would take was a really bad day to turn any of us into him.

His most gruesome run in Cat-Tales was in Don't Fear the Joker,
grabs a bunch of college kids and torments them – not for sadistic jollies – to
demonstrate that 1) fear is unevolved 2) laughter is highly evolved, which is
why 3) it's hard to make fear funny but 4) he has found a way because the joke
with fear is that we do it to ourselves. The tarantula crawling up your leg
isn't half as bad as the one inside your head.

And I think the key to it is you just have to stay focused on what he's
trying to prove. It's not about whoever's getting hurt or killed, that's
incidental, that's irrelevant, eyes on the prize here, it's the idea that he's
all sugared up on.

And you know, that's something we do all the time as writers. Two-Face stabs
Catwoman in I Believe in Harvey Dent. Now I like Selina and that was
obvious painful for her, but it's no skin off my nose, honey, I'm writing a
story here and that's what's required.

You put poor Ivy through 10 kinds of hell in Reap, and what you did
to Harley is unspeakable. I think that's a good way to look at it. The part of
you that wrote that, that's where you access Joker.

You know it's an old chestnut that nobody is a villain in their own eyes –
and Agatha Christie's Poirot basically said that nobody is insane in their own
eyes. For him, going up against a serial killer that was assumed to be a mad man
came down to: what is the thinking, what is the mindset that makes it sensible
and logical and necessary to kill this type of person in this way.

And that's a good 80% of Joker - but what makes him utterly terrifying is
that at time and with no warning, he can switch to a new idea.

BTR: Hypothetically, if you could rewrite Cat-Tales in its entirety,
are there any storylines or characters which you would handle differently now?

CD: Two things come to mind. If I'd known going in that this would become an
ongoing Batman series, I would really prefer to have Jim Gordon be police
commissioner. That's his chair.

And 2) it would have taken longer for Bruce to reveal his identity. It took
to the end of Book 2 to raise the issue of Selina moving into the manor. I don't
know if I would have taken that long to take off the masks,

but we did fast forwarded through a very interesting period between the end
of the Cat-Tales stage show and “My name is Bruce.” I think I would have slowed
down and enjoyed the scenery a little more.

But then I like going back and filling in those blanks later. So maybe I wouldn't have changed it. I don't know. Coulda-woulda-shoulda.

The full interview is available, in audio format only, on
Blogtalk Radio.