Chris Dee's Blog: Chris Dee's Cat-Tales Blog, page 30

Gallery Spotlight: Catwoman Loot

It’s those darn pearls again – Catwoman: Loot, another Anya Uribe winner from the fan art gallery.

Who are you pretending to be?

Texts from Catwoman

Followers of this blog have probably seen the new TV Spots for The Dark Knight Rises by now.  I decided to have a little fun with the fact that Selina seems to be stealing Bruce’s Lamborghini, which not only dovetails into all the fun I’ve had with a certain purple Lambo in Cat-Tales since it was introduced in Short Tales(has it really been that long?  Yes, yes it has), it was also a reason to dust off and re-trumpet last month’s Texts from Catwoman fun.

Remember this one?  So did I, but when I went looking for it, I discovered something intriguing as I scrolled down the page.

The Catwoman We Deserve

Brazen?  Was that my billing?  I thought I was “Section Deleted.” -Cattitude

Seriously, the more we see of Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises, the more  it looks like we’ll finally be getting “The Catwoman We Deserve,” heck maybe even the Bruce and Selina relationship we deserve.

 

 

The Dark Knight Rises is Christopher Nolan’s third and final installment of his Batman trilogy, starring Christian Bale (Batman/Bruce Wayne), Anne Hathaway (Selina Kyle/Catwoman), Tom Hardy (Bane), Gary Oldman, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, and other Nolan alums Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Marion Cotillard, to be released by Warner Bros. July 2012

Gallery Spotlight: Catwoman

Here is another little gem of a pencil sketch I had to showcase from Selina Enriquez Gallery on the Cat-Tales site. Entitled simply “Catwoman,” I find it’s the Bat-Details that make it for me: the batarang–and the perfect little heart-shape formed by her fingers and hand underneath as she holds it, the bat signal – and that delicious little curl of hair falling down between the curve of her back and the lamp of the signal, and oh yes, that caped figure in the distance. It’s an absolute poem to Bat + Cat and Gotham After Dark

The Licorice Scene

There have been quite a few pivotal Batman/Catwoman moments in Cat-Tales, quite a few Bruce/Selina moments, and even more where the line that separates the masked persona from the inner person blurs to the point it’s hard to say who is talking to whom.  Favorites differ from reader to reader, but one thing we all share–yes, I include myself even though I write the things–is that after 10 years and 60+ stories, it’s not always easy to remember when a particular scene occurred.

Consider… Batman and Catwoman’s relationship began to change after the stage show in CT#1: A Girl’s Gotta Protect Her Reputation.  By CT#2: Normal, he sent her a note inviting her to a rooftop meeting, in costume but off duty, so to speak.  There was speculation about what exactly happened in between, but it wasn’t until some time later that we got to see it in a flashback.  It’s a great scene–but when was it?   It’s easy to remember where it falls in the Cat-Tales timeline, but in which actual story was it told?

“Want some licorice?”

“What?”

I pulled a small packet of candy out from the pouch where I stash my lock picks.

“What do you expect me to say when you had been standing back there watching my ass and now you tell me it’s not fun or exciting?”  I looked up at him and offered the package of licorice.  “I figure they’re going to be at this all night, so I brought a snack.”

He grunted—which meant no. I knew that from the 500 other offers he’d grunted no to over the years.  So I took a piece, put the packet away, and returned my attention to the alley.

“That big crate’s got to be a Monet,” I pointed out.  “Water lilies.”

He grunted again—which either meant he didn’t think it was a Monet or else that particular grunt was subjective.

“You sure you don’t want any licorice?” I repeated, just to nail it down about the grunt.

“Do you like Monet?” he asked.

This may sound strange, but I could feel a pulse in my lower lip.

He asked if I liked Monet?  Batman asked.  Batman did.  Batman “That’s far enough, Catwoman/The easy way or the hard way/There are laws against breaking and entering” asked if I like Monet.  It was on the tip of my tongue to say “No, I like what I could do with the $3 million the Monet will fetch in Amsterdam.”  I opened my mouth to say that, but… I felt this pulse in my lower lip.

That’s not supposed to happen.  It’s a very odd sensation.

Okay, that’s enough.  If you want to know what happens next, you’ll have to go read it.  Point is, I always thought of it in terms of the MoMA roof where it takes place or the Van Gogh that’s discussed.  I recently found out fans looking for it call it “The Licorice Scene.”  See, if you site-search Cat-Tales, there are far too many mentions of the MoMA and Van Gogh to search through.  But it’s the only mention of licorice.

(Psst. I’ll save you the trip to Google.  CT 40: Perennials)

Gallery Spotlight: Remembering Mother

This gorgeous pair of images entitled “Remembering Mother” make the perfect Mother’s Day Spotlight.

Readers know from Selina’s origin story Cattitude that her mother was a ballerina. This moment in the Backstage Series depicts a moment when Selina would have been rehearsing the Cat-Tales stage show from A Girl’s Gotta Protect Her Reputation. Being alone in a dark theatre, finding a pair of ballet shoes…

Don’t you love how the quiet dark moment bursts forth into this wonderful burst of color and movement.

Gallery Spotlight: Batman Chest Armor

This Batman Chest Armor by Ramesese is inspired by Batman Begins. It has gorgeous lines that draw the eye around the surface, creating a far more interesting aesthetic – to my eye at least – than the armored plates on mesh in the later films. It also has an absolutely gorgeous texture, like all Ramesese pieces featured in the Sculpture Gallery on the Cat-Tales website.

Me-ow.

The Hour of the Wolf

A few of the last chapters have been proceeded by a video trailer, or a teaser of some kind.  In this case, I don’t think anything more is necessary than reminding everyone of where we left off…

The Riddler’s head tilted at a too-casual angle as his lip curled into an offhanded smile, giving the impression that his next words were a complete afterthought:

“Oh, by the way, are you at all aware that Bane is back in town, working with Falcone?”

A silent beat while the name sunk in, and then with the specter of the hulking steroid case still hanging in the air…

“Selina ever tell you about their history?  Ta!”

It wouldn’t be nice to keep you waiting too long after that, so let’s get right to it:

Cat-Tales: The Gotham Rogues – Part 7: The Hour of the Wolf on the Cat-Tales website, and mobile-friendly mirror Cat-Tales.mobi

 

Gallery Spotlight: I look nothing like Harry Potter

Poor Selina had to do some things in String Theory that may be Standard Operating Procedure for a comic book crisis where the fabric of time-space is fraying and only the title character can stop it, but it’s not SOP for a catburglar and there’s no pretending it is. The crisis of infinite time-wimey peril it’s really, really not her thing, as this poser portrait in the 3D fan gallery (and her own in-story observation) illustrates.

Gallery Spotlight: They’re called tits, fanboy

I’m fairly sure this was the first of the parody motivation posters that became a staple in the Cat-Tales forum.

Dedicated to all those fanboys (and sadly a few fangirls) who bought into the idea that big tits meant shallow and sexist characterization and small tits, no matter how demeaning and insulting the portrayal, was brilliantly complex and a giant step forward for women in comics.