Batman, Catwoman and All Things Gotham: An Interview with Chris Dee, Part 1
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.
BTR: Chris, I think it's clear to anyone who's familiar with your
work that you primarily identify with Catwoman. Where did you first encounter
her character, whether it's comic books or the original tv shows or one of the
movies? And what was it about her that you were drawn to?
CD: Well my first glimpse was Julie Newmar in the 1966 TV series, and the
initial attraction was certainly the sheer fun that she had being bad. She was
who she was, she wanted what she wanted, and she was going after it. She
obviously reveled in the power she had from her own sensuality. And there is
just nothing sexier than that confidence: you know who you are, you like
who you are, so you be that 100%. Women who are like that are just
incredible to be around. They are more alive, and that intensity of life and
passion is just contagious. You want some, so you want them. It's woman and
cat: this is me, and I'm not toning it down for anybody. You can't handle it,
you better go someplace else and find what you can handle.
BTR: Chris, how did you first become inspired to write fan fiction?
Did you have any grand ambitions when you started, or would your younger self be
surprised at the volume of work you've written since then?
CD: No ambitions at all. I wouldn't even say I was “inspired” to write. It
just looked like fun and I wanted to see if I could do it.
You know, these are superheroes – we all want to BE these characters when
we're kids. “Look up in the sky, it's Superman.” You're a kid, you're small,
you're weak, you're powerless. Imagine being able to fly. Imagine being strong
like Superman. We want to be these characters, and the modern comics sometimes
forget that. They'll “reinvent” as nothing that any sane person would ever want
to be. Even before all that started, there were places the franchises thought
they couldn't go: Lois could never find out Clark Kent was Superman, for
decades. Batman and Catwoman could never get together because-“What then?” The
natural reluctance to give up a formula that worked for the uncertainty of what
lies ahead.
Fan fiction let us cross those boundaries that – they've done it since, but
at the time –comics thought they couldn't, or wouldn't. It gave us the freedom
to take control of the lives and destinies of those characters who we wanted to
be, and to finally get the stories that we wanted. To scratch that itch.
I think one of my favorite passages in the climactic kiss in (Catwoman's
origin story) Cattitude is when Selina realizes this incredible part of
her that comes out when she wears the mask, that comes out as Catwoman, and it's
not just “being Catwoman” but being Catwoman with him – because Batman
is part of her story and if you don't get that, you're kidding yourself. She
says that she is not waiting for him to make a gift of that part of
her. She's taking it. And that's the real liberation of fan fiction: We
don't have to wait – and hope – for someone official to make a gift of these
characters as they're meant to be. We can take them. And I don't know
how people writing Battlestar Galactica feel about it, but I'm writing about a
thief, so that attitude is a perfect fit for me.
Anyway, my first fanfic was called “The Morning After” – and I wrote it, like
I said, as a lark – because it seemed like a fun thing to try. I had this idea:
Dick (Grayson) having come into Gotham as Nightwing, it's early morning and he
decides to grab a few hours sleep at the manor before heading back. He goes in
through the kitchen, no Alfred, but there's a hot brunette there making
breakfast – dot-dot-dot—Hey, I know those legs. That's Catwoman!
So it's a very short piece, just setting up that one gag. The nature of the
thing, it's internal. It's all about the internal monologue and Dick's point of
view. Prose had never been my medium. I wrote plays, which are dialogue-driven,
which are mostly external. So it was something completely new for me. It was an
exercise just to see if I could do it. That was the ambition.
BTR: Certainly you were inspired by Catwoman's solo title during the
Balent era… What was it about those issues, not to mention that purple
body-hugging catsuit, that symbolized the best of Catwoman for you?
CD: The Balent era was very nice, but I would go back a little further and
say the Len Wein and Doug Moench eras in pre-Crisis. That's when we really saw
Selina emerge from an occasional appearance like any other major villain to a
supporting character who was present for full story arcs.
The Volume I comic was hobbled terribly in the beginning by Denny (O'neil,
the Batman editor at the time) not wanting to let anyone use Gotham characters
or acknowledge Selina was even in Gotham. It didn't last, but the first years
of the series, Jo Duffy and Chuck Dixon come to mind, were just wearing ankle
weights, God bless 'em.
But what we did see, what is absolutely infused right from the beginning of
Issue #1, once again, is that fun factor. Selina breaks into this mansion during
a party, takes off her costume –p.s. it can't be that hard to get in and out of
– and in the dim light, in a towel fresh from the shower, she pretends to be the
host's wife. And she has him put the jewels around her neck. That's daring and
sexy and wild-for-its-own-sake. It's not practical, it's not even being
a very good thief. It's just pure feline logic – and it's fun. It's the fun of
being bad and getting away with something. The love of mischief that's just
being a cat.
BTR: Which are the characters you dislike the most: the ones who you
consistently portrayed the most unflatteringly such as Talia al-Ghul, or the
ones you have completely ignored, such as Bane - or until recently, anyway? (Transcriber's Note: Bane was introduced in Cat-Tales 64: Comedy of Errors)
CD: Gosh, I'm not sure I'd say I ‘dislike' either. If I don't use a
character, it's either because I don't have anything for them to do, or else I
haven't got a handle on their humanity and can't make them interesting.
The first type: Bane, yes, up until very recently. I didn't use him for
years, because, looking only at Knightfall, Bane is something of a One Trick
Pony. He came to Gotham, he had a plan “I will break you,” it played out … and
that's kind of it. He had no second act… So my thinking was always that if I
brought him into Cat-Tales, I wouldn't have a thing for him to do other than
sitting around the Iceberg like those retired majors in the British period
pieces calling out “Qui Hi” so you know they served in India and always telling
that same story about their glory days (that nobody wants to hear). And I could
do that, it's funny – but I think it'd be a race to see who got fed up first and
killed him. Probably Oswald, because he's still got the machine gun umbrella
from his glory days.
Anyway, the other type that I don't often – Shiva is one – she never shows up
because she's just some fighting skills who we've given a name to. There is no
person there to work with. But that can change at any time. A great line from
As Good As It Gets, the Jack Nicholson movie, the artist played by Greg
Kinnear says “If you stare at someone long enough, you discover their humanity.”
Clayface, your friend and mine Matt Hagen, was a walking gimmick to me. He was
a plot device with legs, up until half way through Book 4. And one day, I just
got a HOOK into Matt Hagen, the actor and how that made him different from other
shape shifters and different from other rogues. Click! Critical Mass. I could
make him interesting, because I had more than a name and a gimmick in my head, I
had a person. And once you've got that, there's life, you know what they'll do
in a given situation – 90% of the time. Because they're alive in a very real
way. For imaginary people, they're still PEOPLE. They make choices based on who
they are, and who they are is the sum of their choices and it's a living thing.
So, if they don't show up at all, it doesn't mean I dislike them. With one
possible exception. It's Victor Friez. And it's not that I dislike him
personally, but he's one of those people who just suck the air out of a room.
He's a downer, and I tend to avoid him because he will weigh down a scene. You
can squeeze some Eeyore comic value out of that occasionally: the guy who's so
grim and dire and gloomy, but you can't go to that well too often.
BTR: Right.
CD: So those are the ones that just don't show up. Now, the ones that are
“portrayed unflatteringly,” I don't know if I'd say I dislike them either. I use
them in different ways than readers were accustomed to, and some of them can
find that a bit unsettling. Wonder Woman, it's not that she behaves differently
in Cat-Tales than she did in comics going all the way back to the Silver Age:
the Justice League is at funeral that's like a New Orleans jazz service crossed
with a Roman orgy crossed with Studio 54. And Batman and Superman, the two
orphans, are a little put off by this. They think it's kind of an odd way to be
burying your mother. And Diana starts giving them a lecture on cultural
diversity – so her behavior is pretty consistent in comics and Cat-Tales. It's
the reaction of everybody else around her that's different.
Talia.... Talia al Ghul, I've said a half-dozen times, is one of the great
comic creations – comic as in ‘ha ha' not comic-books. You've got to use that
and not play against it. If you take her as seriously as she takes herself, it's
like casting Lucille Ball in The Trojan Women. This is somebody who,
escaping from a crime scene in a helicopter decides they're carrying too much
weight and casually orders a couple minions to jump out and lighten the load,
for the glory of Ra's al Ghul. That's not a love interest for Bruce who reveres
life, but it's a great punchline. This hairdo-in-heels, who's only leading the
mission because she's the boss's daughter, says “Abdul, jump” and he does!
If you can't use that - if you don't know to swing the camera around and give me
a reaction shots on the other minions – get out of the way for someone who does.
Because that's the other part of "we want to be these people and live in this
world". You're our eyes into that world. You've GOT to point the camera to
what we want to see, or it rings false.
BTR: How did you settle on Harvey/Two-Face and Riddler as Selina's
closest friends in the Gotham underworld? She really hasn't interacted with them
any more than she has anybody else in the comics.
CD: That's very true, and in fact her relationship with Two-Face was very
antagonistic, as opposed to the friendship they have in Cat-Tales.
Harvey always struck me as a bit of an outsider in the Rogue Community
because he's not like these other loonies. We can look at him and say ‘he's
nuts', but to him, he's still half a good guy who has one of them moved
into half his head. He's one of them superficially, because he doesn't want to
spend all his time all alone—or ‘alone' with only “Darth Duality” for company.
So he spends time with them like you do at family functions with that side of
the family you really don't have anything in common with.
Put Selina into his field of vision, in that environment. She is very
similar. She's not homicidal, she's not that crazy. So they have a lot in
common. They're the relatively sane ones in this George S Kaufman play of nut
farm lunatics.
Eddie is also, for all his crazy,– not particularly vicious. He's all about
the game, and even when the game gets dangerous, there's a playful quality to
it, on his side, that is very compatible with her. Also on his side, as he's
said many times: "O for a woman who can keep up." At the beginning,
I'm sure he wanted something romantic. Look at her. But let's face it, the
majority of those relationships do not last. He's much better off with the
friend he still has after all these years– who is a woman who can keep up,
rather than one really good weekend mumble-mumble years ago.
BTR: Chris, speaking of Harvey, where did you get the idea of pairing
him up with Poison Ivy? Before I ever read your stories, my first image of them
was the Animated Series where Ivy is trying to murder him, before he became
Two-Face. So, it wasn't exactly love at first sight for them. Not to mention
Ivy, everyone knows, pretty much has scorn for all men in general.
CD: It's interesting that you reference that particular episode of the
Animated Series, because that's exactly the episode that inspired the woman who
inspired me to make them a couple. There was “a Bruce and Selina romance novel”
it was called, titled Partners in Crime by Lydia Hunter, and an
offshoot story called Double Vision where Harvey's ex-wife Gilda is
getting remarried and he's melting down bigtime. Ivy somehow gets into his cell
at Arkham and starts pushing his buttons – for fun, for the sheer sadistic
pleasure of it. And it wakes up his dark side. And she alludes to some kinky
games they played in that pre-Two-face period when they dated: bondage, S&M, I
don't know – but he liked it. And she keeps pushing: “You
know what you had with me was much better than anything your plain-jane Gilda
could ever give you...” And he's ready to blow. Rather than being scared when he
finally gets violent, she's turned on. I think just that she got it out of
him. And they wind up doing the dirty on the floor of his cell—and it was just
so right in that it was so wrong. It's so marvelously warped, something we on
the outside are all going to look at and say “Well, that's unhealthy” – but for
these two very strange people, it works for them. It gets them off. And neither
one could tell you why, but there it is.
And for me reading it at the time, it was very much: Y'know, I never
thought about Batman rogues having sex, but given how totally strange they are
in other ways, this seems right on the money. And you know, it's not a
love story, it's not 'white picket fence'. They're on and off over the course
of years, and even when they're on they'll fight, and even when they're off,
they might get together and have a screw. It's strange and volatile and that
makes for some exciting storytelling.
BTR: I did not k now about Double Vision. I of course knew about
Partners in Crime. I will have to go seek that one out. Partners in Crime was
a very good story, I agree.
Now, Chris, Catwoman has been portrayed by several actresses over the
last fifty years. Even if you don't count Anne Hathaway in the next Batman
film. From Julie to Eartha to Michelle to . . . someone who shall remain
nameless, who do you think has best embodied the woman Selina is?
CD: Well, first, I don't have any problem with your mentioning Halle Berry. The trainwreck of a movie got one thing absolutely right: they never said that
is Selina Kyle. They didn't involve Batman. They just made a really bad movie
that happen to use the letters c-a-t-w-o-m-a-n as the title. It wasn't
Catwoman, and it has nothing to do with anything we're talking about here. So I
don't care. It doesn't bother me about Halle.
What actress best embodied “the woman Selina is”? That is a wonderful way to
phrase it…
Julie Newmar, like I said had the fun and the power, that we talked about
earlier.
Michelle Pfeifer I think captured two things: both the vulnerability—which a
lot of people are afraid of, because they're afraid somebody is going to say
"That's weak" or "It's needy". It's not, it's called being human, and P.S. you
shouldn't dilute your story because of what somebody out there is going to say
anyway— But, the vulnerability and also the freeing aspect of wearing a mask, of
having this masked persona release a part of you that doesn't come out
normally. And I think too that that's something actors and performers have a
better handle on that a lot of writers do.
Eartha Kitt was a dancer. (Julie Newmar was too, but Eartha was just...
special.) I'm going to say no Selina at all in her performance but all Cat. She
was the most feline: in her movements, her purr, her timing and rhythm. She was
absolute felinity. And remember, this is 20 years—20 years—before Andrew Lloyd
Webber's Cats made that kind of human-cat movement familiar. She found
that in herself, she invented it. Absolutely extraordinary performance. Also
because following Julie Newmar, back then, I mean HOW? Batmania was a
cultural phenomenon and she was Catwoman. It had to be like going into The
King & I right after Yul Brenner left.
I think Adrienne Barbeau had a wonderfully sexy voice in the animated series…
but you notice I keep picking these tiny little facets and not talking about the
whole performance. And I think it's because the actress who best—what you said—
“embodied the woman Selina is” wasn't playing Selina at all. She was playing
Elizabeth Bennet in the 1995 Pride & Prejudice with Colin Firth. That
actress's name was Jennifer Ehle, and her Eliza Bennet had all the life and the
good humor and the Joy - and the TEMPER, and the vicious streak, the "Don't
you cross me, you arrogant prick, somebody needs to knock you down a peg. And I
hope it hurts, and I hope I get to watch." But for all that, it never becomes
ugly. It never loses that vivacity and joy. She's just that much more alive
than regular people – when she's angry as much as when she's happy – because
it's PASSION on the good side and the bad – There's just that extra 10% of life
that's contagious and wonderful. And bizarrely sexy in the sexless world of
Jane Austen.
Anyway I look at Anne Hathaway, some of her roles and a lot of her public
persona, and I think the potential is there. Of course, an actress has no
control over the script she's given, and if Selina isn't written with the wit
and the class, personality, social background and attitudes she should have
to be a worthy portrayal of the character and a credible match for Bruce Wayne,
then there's nothing a performance can do to save it. But with the right
script, she certainly has that capacity for ‘extra life,' so we'll have to see
what we get there.
BTR: Wow from modern Gotham to Early 19th Century English
countryside, that's not far at all.
Ah, Chris, you haven't been reading much DC Comics in several years.
Their biggest atrocities are frequently lampooned in the tabloid newspaper in
your stories called the Gotham Post. But you do, on occasion, borrow from canon
events. The biggest example of that would probably be Identity Crisis.
The events surrounding Sue Dibny's murder were retold in Cat-Tales with very few
changes. And then there are smaller bits and pieces from the comics that surface
occasionally, like the “new” Tom Blake who first appeared in Villains United.
How do you decide when to use something that happened in the comics?
CD: Most of it is not anything I ponder in any meaningful way. If I've seen
it or read it or somebody's told me about it, it's in my head and it could come
out at any given time. There are basically 3 different types of comic
references. Type One is something that happened in the comics years and years
before I'm writing – that's probably something that was very good or very bad,
because I still remember it after all this time. Kittlemeier was from a
collection of short stories that came out around the time of the Burton movies,
and Poison Ivy greening Bruce and the Wayne Foundation board which is alluded to
in Blueprints, that's a Gerry Conway story from way back in Batman
339. The theft of the LexWing Plans from Luthor's tower in Metropolis – I think
I've gone back to that more than anything –was from a World's Finest Year 8, I
believe. So that's like the early 90s. 1990s.
The second type is something that I referenced almost was happening in the
comics. Like the rooftop kiss in Hush or Tom Blake's makeover, it's usually not
anything meaningful. It's almost always a laugh line. It's just there, so let's
have some fun. One of Selina's great moments of ‘we love her but she's nuts' She
sees that picture in the Post, the new Tom Blake, and what does she say? “Meow
on a stick, who's the beefcake?” – finds out who it is, and screams. It's almost
always for laughs – a quick laugh – which honestly I just did with the reboot
Catwoman #1. For the first time in years I've referenced something in the Post.
It's in the new story The Gotham Rogues – check it out.
Now Type Three is Identity Element, that's my version of
Identity Crisis, in a category by itself. No, scratch that, it's in a
category with the death of Stephanie Brown. But let's talk about Identity
Element first. Half the tale retells Brad Meltzer's story from a Gotham
point of view, and the other half moves forward with the revelation of the mindwipe – that was the biggest thing I had attempted up until that time. But I
felt so much in response to that story, I wanted to explore it, and work through
it, and have these versions of the characters that I knew, who have a maturity
and complexity thatm let's face itm we don't always see in the panels, and
which they don't have the room to go into the way I can in prose. –to
have those characters grapple with these events and these conflicts.
And I felt some pressure doing it, because I really felt that if I'm going to
take on that material, I better do it right. And that's why I put Stephanie's
death in Polishing Silver into that category. There are things that you
just shouldn't do unless you're prepared to dig in and really give it your best.
With Identity Element the source material deserved that respect, and in
Stephanie's case the character deserved that respect.
BTR: Bruce and Selina's relationship is an incredibly strong one,
especially considering their track record with relationships and the way they
danced around each other for years. Even across alternate universes, we've seen
that the two are linked. Did you always think that the two belonged together?
CD: Pretty much. There's a reason all of those alternate realities in
String Theory had Bruce & Selina paired, they're all based on real story
arcs and movies and cartoons and Elseworlds going back 75 years. Golden age,
Silver Age, Bronze, 66 Batman movie, 92 movie, and the one coming up 2012,
Batman cartoon from the 60s, Batman cartoon from the 90s, the new Brave and
the Bold that's still in production. Over and over and over, we come back
to it: Bruce and Selina, Batman and Catwoman – it's where the story wants to
go. And when that happens decade after decade and incarnation after
incarnation, it's because something resonates deep in our monkey brain.
Something about this story draws us in, because we sense there's something in
there for us.
I don't like to over-analyze it too much outside of the fictionverse, but if
I had to guess, I'd say it's that conflict inherent in loving someone, being
attracted to them, wanting to be with them – but damn if there aren't these
trade-offs. And we all wrestle with that. Ever single thing we want means
giving up something else if we pursue it, if you become a trial attorney you
can't also become an airline pilot.
But it's different when it's connected to love, it's a different animal.
Maybe because we grow up with those fairy tales: “And they lived happily ever
after.” Our real lives, and our real love lives, never match that because our
movie isn't over. You meet the love of your life, you get married, it's not
happily ever after, it's more LIFE with all the ups and downs. So maybe the
appeal of Batman and Catwoman is that we know they're like us in that way. It's
not going to be simple. They have this conflict: their inner selves are a
perfect match, their masked personas, not so much. They get together, it's not
“happily ever after” it's more life with all the ups and downs that
implies.
BTR: Well, all that being said, even though Selina has lived in
Wayne Manor for quite some time, and has become close enough to the “Bat-clan”
that she was a bridesmaid at Dick and Barbara's wedding, neither Bruce nor
Selina have ever expressed any interest in marriage. Do you expect the two to
remain partners in unwedded bliss forever?
CD: You know, Alfred has said a number of times that they are
married in every way that matters. Neither Bruce nor Selina are conventional or
would feel the need to conform to some mainstream, pop culture idea of what
“Everybody” is supposed to do. He's old money; she's a cat. If they're both
happy with what they have – which is a de facto marriage – neither would be
inclined to change it.
And the text has come right out and said that Bruce has issues about marriage
“Maybe to me, married will always mean dead in an alley.”
Could that change? Yes, Cat-Tales characters grow and evolve. WILL it change?
Maybe, but not because there's a portion of every fandom that can't conceive of
any story that doesn't lead to “they get married and have children.” The best
thing those folks can do... Clark is your voice in the story. If they can
figure out a way to stop him from lobbying for it, because Alfred – who wants
the marriage more than any of you – is the one person who understands how
bullheaded stubborn Bruce is, and the harder you push him, the more he's going
to dig in and tell you to put the yenta back in the box.
BTR: There had to be at least ONE femslash-related question.
CD: I'd expect more than one, it is the topic of your regular show.
BTR: We don't see much homosexuality in Cat-Tales, although we have
seen enough – a reference to a lesbian group Zatanna once belonged to, or
Richard Flay flirting with Nigma - to know that it's not that you have something
against same-sex pairings. What are your feelings on gay and lesbian pairings,
be they canon, noncanon, or in the case of Harley/Ivy, somewhere in between?
CD: There are gays and lesbians in real life, that should absolutely be
reflected in our fiction. Some are open about their sexuality, some aren't. That
should be reflected too. However, the common statistic is that 10% of the
population is gay, and that's the big figure. When you dig, it gets whittled
down a little, I've seen that it's 10% of men and 5% of women; I've seen 9% of
men and 2-3% of women. I heard a piece on NPR last month that said 3.8% total.
So 10% of the population would be the big number. Let's go with the big number.
1 in 10 characters.
Look at some fan fiction, you would think it's the other way around and the
human race is carried on by a fanatically busy 10% of heterosexuals that keep
the other 90 supplied with new people. I have no problem with gay and lesbian
pairings, as long as it doesn't become that scene in In and Out where the girl
Kevin Kline left at the altar goes outside and screams “IS EVERYBODY GAY? IS
THIS SOME TWILIGHT ZONE EPISODE WHERE EVERYBODY BUT ME IS GAY?”
Anyway, there should probably be a little more gay and lesbian activity in Cat
Tales, simply because Gotham is New York and you'd expect more to be out – and
flamboyantly out – than they would in Grovers Corners, but not a great deal more
than we have. I think we're fairly proportional.
BTR: It's common knowledge who my favorite character in comics is,
much the same as yours is. As one of the most self-destructive members of the
Rogues' Gallery, and one of the least popular among her peers, Poison Ivy has
very little in common with Selina – and both women are probably grateful for
that. Since we talked earlier about the future for Bruce and Selina, do you
think Ivy has any hope left for future romance, be it with her ex-lover Harvey,
her “friend” Harley, or someone else? Is a woman with her attitude and
personality even capable of having a successful relationship?
CD: There's hope as long as she's breathing. For anyone except maybe Hugo
Strange, there's hope. Because characters in Cat-Tales do grow and change and
evolve. The fanfic story you wrote in the Cat-Tales Universe, Reap What You
Sow, began with our crisis, String Theory, where Selina went into
alternate timelines, and in one of those you glimpsed a drastically changed Ivy
who was in a relatively happy and stable relationship with Harley. And what you
did that was so extraordinary was you said, “okay, this is Cat-Tales, and that
means changes aren't just the result of “I want to write a Poison Ivy who's wise
and rational and not a narcissist. In Cat-Tales, the way you can change is a
function of who you are to start with and what choices you make.” So you mapped
out, step by step, the journey she would have to take to become that centered,
giving woman we saw at the finish line.
Now, it's unlikely Ivy will see that specific pattern of change in our world,
but she is in motion – right now in fact, in the current story – and romance
will probably be a part of that down the line. I can't say for sure if it will
be Harley, Harvey, both, someone else, or how it will end, I can just toss this
out there: For where she is right now, Harvey would probably be healthier for
her, because there are limits with him. Harley will put up with anything, with
Joker and with Ivy both, she goes along. She doesn't even register Ivy's
narcissism and tempers because she's used to someone who's much worse, and
that's not good for Ivy. It's good for Harley, Ivy's able to patient with her
excitable puppy attitude. But it allows Ivy to continue with all her destructive
habits.
Now they have that girl power thing going, Thelma and Louise, us vs the nasty
bad abusive men. You can have some fun with that, for a while. The problem being
that, once again, what works short term for a fun tale or two won't always go
the distance. Ultimately you need to do what you did with Reap: you've had your
fun together, now let's see how you handle some challenges—if that brings you
closer together or if you're out the door as soon as the music stops.
The big issue with Harley is always going to be giant Joker-shaped tumor
swelling right in the middle of her psyche. We've seen in Cat-Tales that even
when she hates him, it's there, he dominates her thoughts, and you yourself
explored it in Reap – where even his death wouldn't get rid of it. Ivy keeps
coming in second. And that disappointment is absolutely not good for her. Even
a non-narcissist will start to resent that, and who knows how that bitterness
might manifest.
With Harvey – following the breadcrumbs back – Harv doesn't put up with
anything and everything Ivy wants to dish out. So she exercises restraint with
him – Ivy is not much with the impulse control, but with him, she does it
–because she likes that she doesn't have to green him, so she doesn't want to
resort to that. She's learned the appeal of earning it. Somebody who has sex
with you because they're drunk – or in this case drugged – they're not making
love to you. Ivy is someone who buried that for a long time, I think.
She'd go for the quick sugar rush of validation: a man who's greened will tell
her how beautiful and wonderful she is until she's sick of hearing it. But
Harvey – I should probably say Two-Face because this is mostly that period after
the first affair that I'm talking about – what she had there was not chemically
driven, it was – strange as it might have been – about her. So he is the ‘face'
literally of that phenomenon in her mind. That doesn't mean she couldn't have it
with Harley or someone else, but he's the poster child for it in her mind,
because he was the first.
So, I think she could grow a little more with Harv at this stage, but of
course that doesn't mean she will. She likes liking Harley, despite all the
disappointments when Harley goes back to Joker or took up with Hagen. Ivy
doesn't like liking Harv, he doesn't fit in with her image of herself, but she
does like him anyway. And that is frustrating as all hell for her – and She's
quite interesting that way.
BTR: Granted, Harley Quinn is delusional, and judging from her
boyfriend, her judgment is atrocious. Still, her obsession is centered on the
Joker, and she's not a total masochist. So why do you think she considered
Poison Ivy her best friend? Yes, they've been friends ever since “Harley and
Ivy” in Batman:The Animated Series, but you've never considered yourself bound
to canon. Why do you think she turned to a woman almost completely lacking in
people skills, a woman who has never hidden her utter disdain for Harley's one
true love, rather than one of the more “normal” women in the underworld like
Selina or Roxy?
CD: Harley is a born follower. She gravitates to dominant personalities and
follows their lead. In that first “Harley and Ivy” episode, Joker's not around
and Ivy appears as this very forceful woman, very dominant personality. She's an
alpha dog. She says “What the hell is wrong with you, letting him treat you this
way” And Harley latches onto it instantly, and it's not the merits of the idea
because she doesn't retain it – a couple episodes down the line, she'll be back
with Joker. It's not “Hey yes, I deserve better than this” it's just the
forcefulness with which the idea is presented to her.
Until Joker shows up and says “Where's my drycleaning” I'm afraid it's very
much the way the love triangle is described in Death on the Nile, where Simon
says his first fiancé Jackie is like the moon and his new wife is the sun. When
the sun is out, you just don't see the moon anymore. Something that we've seen
in Cat-Tales is that Harley doesn't seek Ivy out when she splits with Joker. If
Ivy is there to say “Come” she will. But if she's not, she can hook up with
Hagen.
BTR: Speaking of Talia, the last time we saw the Demon's Daughter,
she seemed to be out of Bruce's hair in a manner which benefits herself, Bruce
and Selina. And it happened because Talia finally showed a little backbone, and
made tough choices instead of taking the easy way out. Why did Talia prove able
to evolve? Did you believe she was truly capable of it, or did you just want her
out of YOUR hair as well? Is there any chance we'll see her or her father the
“hairdo” again?
CD: Talia is probably the most interesting case of Babylon 5's influence in
Cat-Tales. This was a show that began only 6 episodes into Season 1 with G'Kar,
who had been a stock bad guy, saying “no one on this station is exactly who they
appear.” And by the end of season 5, they made good on that. Some changes, like
G'Kar's, are akin to what you put Ivy through in Reap. Every bit of
growth is bought with pain and sacrifice. Some characters… it's less 'change'
as it is peeling back layers of an onion. This other side of them that's
revealed was always there, it was just hidden.
Talia has elements of both. She comes into the series completely delusional:
“Batman loves me, this I know, cause his eye-slits tell me so.” She can ignore
any reality that doesn't suit her, no matter how much evidence contradicts her
view of things, and she can make up anything she needs to in order to support
her view. The thing is, no matter how much you deny reality, it's still there.
So it can outlast you. It keeps moving in that unacceptable direction. Not only
does Bruce not love her, he loves somebody else, who he is getting closer and
closer to. You can only keep relabeling the toxic mortgages for so long, and
eventually it pops—the hedge funds collapse and Bear Stearns is selling at $2 a
share—Guess what? Global financial crisis. Well done.
Talia had so many failures – LexCorp was the final straw – she hit critical
mass, it was the reverse of a psychotic break. There got to be too much reality
to block out, the sheer tonnage of it was too much and she couldn't do it
anymore– and she lucked out that at that exact moment, Greg Brady came into her
life. Here is this great guy, incredibly patient, used to Joker-crazy, so as
psycho as she is, it doesn't faze him. And he has this wonderful perspective: if
your dad's going to be having a hissy for a while, don't be there. Blow him off
and let's go camping – way out of cell range. You missed the message and you'll
find it when we get back. Denying reality didn't work. Here's this guy showing
her a way to navigate it, and that does work.
And in his eyes, she can see someone she would never see in her father's or
Bruce's – or the mirror's. Somebody who wasn't this colossal failure, Who wasn't
a complete disappointment. She likes the view of herself Greg gives her, and
that gives her a direction to move in. If she can be that woman that he sees,
she can like herself or at least despise herself a little less.
Will we see her again, I don't know, I thought about bringing her and Greg
back for a storyline at one point but it didn't work out. Ra's has been back
once or twice since then. Probably yes on all 3, but I can't be sure.
BTR: In addition to the Cat-Tales themselves, you've also maintained
a website with message boards, a chatroom, fan art and video clips. More
recently, you created a virtual visitor in the online environment Second Life,
and your stories can now be found in both PDF and e-book format. Has all of this
been leading to some kind of ultimate goal?
CD: A goal like “The same thing we do every night, Pinkie” ? No. The
internet changes – when we began, a forum & a chat room was what people had to
interact online, it was one central virtual roof where people could come
together around a common interest and form a community. Now we have blogs and
social networks, in one way it's more fragmented. People are running their own
shows on their facebook profiles or creating mini-forums on each blog entry, so
there's less going out to those outside communities. You know how on sitcoms,
there's usually 3 settings: home, work, and a third space. A neighborhood
hangout, a bar, a coffee shop… Forums were that third space. People are spending
most of their online time now ‘at home' they don't ‘go out' as much. So we still
have the public hangout for anyone who wants it – but we also deliver and offer
takeout, offer various ways to take the Tales “home” with you: Mobile-friendly
version of the website, pdfs to print out, ebooks to read on mobile readers and
ipads, facebook page, and so on.
BTR: Selina may be in love with the Caped Crusader, and growing
increasingly close to Oracle, Nightwing, and the other heroes within Batman's
inner circle, but this has not stopped her from being able to look at the world
from a criminal's point of view as well. One example of this is her uneasy
relationship with Batman's fellow members of the Justice League. While Selina
does get along with heroes like Superman, the Martian Manhunter, and Aquaman,
others such as Wonder Woman shall be forever known as “super-schmucks”. Then
again, Selina isn't exactly close to many Rogues either. At this point, would
Selina be more likely to consider herself a “hero” or a “villain”?
CD: Let's deal with the League first. She likes them as individuals, it's
only as a group that they become over-sugared capes. Don't try to make sense out
of feline logic. Remember, this is the woman who stood in the middle of the batcave, with Bruce standing there in civies, and when Hugo Strange's
name was mentioned, she wailed “Oh not the Bruce Wayne is Batman theory again.”
So to her, there is no absolutely no contradiction in rolling her eyes at the
over-sugared capes of the justice league one minute, then turning right around and
inviting Clark, Jonn and Arthur for dinner.
As for how she sees herself, she will never accept a label. She's said a
number of times “white hat/black hat” “hero/villain” if your poor non-cat-brain
can only see it in those terms, good luck, but you're going to get it wrong a
lot of the time, because that's not Catwoman. I'm Catwoman so Catwoman is
whatever I decide to do at any given time.
BTR: Talia was not the only unlikely character to achieve a degree of
rehabilitation in Cat-Tales. Azrael, aka Jean-Paul Valley, was initially
portrayed as a blundering fool, considered a joke by most Rogues. Most of all by
Selina, who despised him for thinking he could replace Batman. And yet we've
seen him grow into a more positive light since then. What made you decide to
give “Pheromones” a second chance?
CD: I didn't. I gave him more screentime, and I'm afraid he used it
to prove he's a born loser who can snatch defeat from the jaws of any victory.
But he does it in a rather appealing way.
The way it came about, that extra screen time, was we had String Theory,
which was the Bruce and Selina relationship across multiple timelines, and that
was quite enough of them for a while. Saturation. So I sent them away for a
story to focus on a number of secondary characters. Jean Paul was one of them he
start an affair with Huntress—which he bungled. Settled for ‘friends with
benefits' and walked away from that. Why? Because he won $11,000 at internet
poker. He's just one of those people who, whenever they've lucked into a good
thing, something inside them is compelled to sabotage it.
But what's interesting is, unlike Victor, he doesn't suck the air out of the
room. He's very sympathetic. I'd put him in the category of the PC in the
Macintosh ads. “I'm a Mac” “I'm a PC.” You know the system is rigged and he's
going to lose every time, but he never gives up and he's really quite lovable
for it, as he sets himself up to fail over and over and over again.
BTR: Some of your original characters became almost as popular as the
heroes and villains. From Raven the Iceberg Lounge hostess, to Moira the Lexcorp
receptionist, from Arkham Asylum's Dr. Bartholomew, to everyone's favorite
bartender Sly, which original character have readers responded to the most?
Which do you like writing the most?
CD: The fan favorites by far are Selina's cats,
Whiskers and Nutmeg. Nutmeg's even got some fan mail at the “Ask Catwoman”
address. So in fairness to the others, let's talk about favorite human
characters.
Sly is the most popular and universally loved. I mean, he ‘stares down
Two-Face to enforce the Iceberg's happy hour policy. He'll go toe to toe with
Joker to enforce an ad hoc “no beating Catman with a crowbar in front of TV
cameras” policy,' what's not to love?
Francois de Poulignac, on the other hand, he's the most popular among people
who want him to come back so Bruce can punch him in the face.
I think my favorites – after the cats, my human favorites – have to be
whoever I'm working on right now.
Continued in Part 2
The full interview is available, in audio format only, on
Blogtalk Radio.
