Chris Dee's Blog: Chris Dee's Cat-Tales Blog, page 5
April 2, 2017
Cat-Tales: Pearl drops new installment, Part 3: Beginner’s Luck
Teaching Batman to be a world-class cat burglar, it seemed like a good idea at the time, and any minute now we might remember why.
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Pearl Part 3: Beginner’s Luck now available on the Cat-Tales website and mobile-friendly Cat-Tales.mobi
March 13, 2017
Erwan Le Goupil, The Real Gotham artist welcomed to the Cat-Tales Gallery
Cat-Tales is thrilled to welcome a new artist, Erwan Le Goupil, to the Solo Gallery with his striking Bat-Family Portrait: The Real Gotham. Gallery assistant Sergio C. sat down with the artist for a quick Q&A about his art, and of course a little bit about the Tales…
SC: How long have you been drawing?
ELG: I’ve been drawing, or at least doodling, for as long as I remember. My father was constantly doing that, whether it would be his own cartoons, drawing from photographs or from famous artists, for the fun of it. When he drew me a gorgeous Daredevil piece once, I was hooked. So I started copying my favourite characters, both from European artists and from comic books. Then I started creating my own characters. I didn’t have the patience or the training to actually do comics or stuff like that, so I created illustrations for the stories I imagined. I pushed that to the next level when I started writing and when I discovered Photoshop. My biggest weakness had always been colouring. The digital medium helped me overcome that and so i started creating artwork for my stories and sometimes for others.
SC: What materials do you like to draw with?
ELG: I’m a pretty basic kind of guy on that issue. Pencil and paper is the base for most of my stuff. I usually ink it with Pitt artistic pens. Sometimes I go with the pencil rendering alone. The next step is the scanner and then I colour using both Photoshop and Painter. I sometimes draw directly on my digital tablet, but I still feel more comfortable with a pencil on drawing paper. I do paint over photos when I want a more realistic effect (for a poster-type project), but I still get better result starting on paper.
SC: How and when do you hear about Cat Tales?
ELG: I think I came across this on ffnet for the first time. I was looking for stories about Batman and Catwoman to be able to read on my way to work. I found the stories on this fan fiction site but I quickly found the website and followed the whole thing on there.[image error]
SC: Who is your favorite Gotham City vigilante in Cat Tales?
ELG: Aside from Bruce, I’m going to have to go with Nightwing. His point of view cracks me up and his relationships with Bruce, Selina and Barbara are delightful to read.
SC: Is there any specific story from Cat Tales that is your favorite?
ELG: I have a fondness for “Knight Before Christmas” and the entire arc about Dick and Barbara’s wedding, but that’s because I’m a huge shipper of those two. Aside from that, any kind of story that involves either Ra’s or Riddler is usually in my top stories.
SC: Who is you favorite Gotham City Rogue/villain in Cat Tales?
ELG: While I love Chris’s take on the Joker, Riddler gets the top spot, because his view of things is brilliant and his position as a tweener (for lack of better term) is pretty cool to follow. His relationship with Selina does a lot to enrich his character, too.
SC: Overall what is your favorite aspect of Cat Tales?
ELG: The characters dynamics. The banter, the dialogue, the depths of the personal issues even some minor characters go through, all along the story, is awesome. Chris’ writing is at its best when she follows a new point of view and builds it up enough so that everyone appears alive, at some point. Her story is the deepest plunge in Selina’s and Bruce’s psyche I have read in a long time, but also in Dick’s, Tim’s, and going as far as getting us to care about the waitress in the Iceberg Lounge. That’s certainly no small feat to make me laugh with the director of Arkham evaluating his personnel.
Le Goupil’s Cat-Tales: The Real Gotham is on view in the Cat-Tales Gallery. Additional works on DeviantArt.
March 8, 2017
Cat-Tales Celebrates Anniversary with Book 6 Collection and
It’s Cat-Tales anniversary once again. 16 years since the first chapter dropped on A Girl’s Gotta Protect Her Reputation—and around 5-1/2 years since I stated openly that if I’d had any inkling what that would be the start of, it would have had a less unwieldy title. Also one that omitted the 1970s pop music colloquialism ‘gotta.’ *shrug*
The first anniversary extra will not be a great surprise to those paying attention on social media. I have retroactively cut off Book 6 at Wayne Rises and will be releasing the seven tales beginning with Don’t Fear the Joker starting… right now. The ebook collection is on the website now, ready for download.
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From Don’t Fear the Joker (“A terrifyingly Brilliant Idea”) to Wayne Rises (“We were faced with a Batman in love. And wow, all that sizzling sexual tension you could cut with a knife!”) the Complete Book 6 Collection is now available for download.
Like all Cat-Tales ebooks, it is packaged for kindle/mobi and the universal epub format. Files are downloaded in a zip folder, and we recommend the free e-library management program Calibre to pipe it into your devices, convert to other formats, and organize your collection.
The print-quality pdf will be along in a few days.
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Also in the next few days, a new artist coming to the Cat-Tales Gallery. Look for a beautiful one-shot of the Gotham Heroes from Erwan Le Goupil.
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And finally—“Because YOU asked for it” as the comics used to say—Cat-Tales will be rolling out a Google-powered onsite search for beta testing in the next week. Readers who want to participate and have not yet signed up, follow and tweet to Cat-Tales to receive a link.
February 14, 2017
Teaching Batman to be a World-Class Cat Burglar – It Seemed Like a Good idea at the Time
Part 2 of the new Cat-Tales: Pearl has dropped, and it picks up right where we left off. Selina is attempting to give Bruce a new cover identity, a more upscale chap, a thief on her level, who can move in criminal circles–and the high end art and jewelry circles–where Matches Malone wouldn’t make it past the doorman.
Today the lessons begin, and, well, the author herself puts it this way:
“I have to be honest, it was hard finding a tagline/description for this that didn’t call Bruce a pain in the ass.” – Chris Dee
Cat-Tales: Pearl is free to read on the Cat-Tales website and mobile-friendly mirror Cat-Tales.mobi
January 11, 2017
New Cat-Tale Teases the Catwoman Heist Readers Have Been Waiting For
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The World’s Greatest Detective marrying the World’s Greatest Thief. There are only a few ways this story can end. All of them involve a heist… Cat-Tales Pearl begins today on the main Cat-Tales website and mobile-friendly mirror, Cat-tales.mobi.
June 14, 2016
Knight of the Mirrors released as Ebook
Knight of the Mirrors, the Batman-Superman story that explores how the Man of Steel would react to a Hollywood blockbuster akin to BvS: Dawn of Justice, is now available as an ebook and print-quality pdf.
April 21, 2016
Cat-Tales Top 15, Part 4
It’s Part 4 of Cat-Tales’ Anniversary Countdown, and a steamy moment certain fans have been waiting for with less than a Zen Master’s patience has finally made the list.
Cat-Tales Top 15 Moments (Part 4)
April 18, 2016
Cat-Tales Top 15, Part 3
Counting down the Top 15 Cat-Tales moments. It’s Part 3, have your favorites shown up yet?
March 30, 2016
Breaking News: Batman/Superman Tale Concludes
Lex Luthor built an AI housed in a supercomputer-intersect to control the world’s news. Now, it’s in Joker’s hands. Have a nice day.
The story concludes in Knight of the Mirrors 8: Breaking News.
March 28, 2016
What Would Superman Do About Batman v Superman?
NMK Inc and Knight of the Mirrors explore how Superman might react to Hollywood churning out movies like Man of Steel and Batman vs Superman. The Iconic Superman Page‘s Michael Critzer has a more direct analysis.
” The insults and mean-spirited comments directed toward dissent are the most damning evidence of how the film truly inspires people to behave.”
Or, as the incomparable Ron Marz put it
“My twitter feed indicates that those who are really invested in Superman killing people are rude assholes. Must be a coincidence.”
Spurious versions, fundamentally wrongheaded premises, can, and often do, prevail from time to time, but eventually the character, Superman himself, Tulpa Superman, will–somehow, somehow–resist and reverse that meddling, reconstituting himself in the world as he means to be. ~Alvin Schwartz (paraphrased by Tom deHaven)
In my research, I divide superheroes into two archetypes from a mythological perspective. Some are aspirational, and some are cathartic/motivational. The aspirational heroes, the pure ones (think Captain America or the traditional Superman and Wonder Woman), exhibit an unrealistic standard of purity and goodness. They always do the right thing, and in their stories, there always exists a way to do that right thing, no matter what. The example they set is unrealistic, but that’s not the importance of their role in cultures. The aspirational heroes are essential. They cause us to believe in better versions of ourselves and in a better world, so that even if…
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