Dickens December and Movie Millisecond: Shutting out life

Sabrina (Billy Wilder, 1954.)

In shutting out the light of day, she had shut out infinitely more; that, in seclusion, she had secluded herself from a thousand natural healing influences; that, her mind, brooding solitary, had grown diseased, as all minds do and must and will that reverse the appointed order of their Maker.

(Charles Dickens. Great Expectations. Chapter 49.)

Oh, Miss Havisham. You are a thousand times more interesting and poignant than Pip. I’ve never liked Pip. What’s to like?

Photographed by Heather Lucille on the flickr.

When I read Great Expectations, the kind of picaresque adventures of Phillip Pirrip are all well and good, but, at the end of the day, it’s Miss Havisham that stands head and shoulders above the rest of the characters as a literary creation that surpasses the book that contains her, just as Heathcliff and the witches from Macbeth do in their respective stories. The image of her wrapped in her rotting bridal garments like a shroud, decaying in the gross crypt that Satis House has become — that’s what I look forward to seeing the handling of in screen and theatrical adaptations. I could give two craps about Pip. It’s all Miss Havisham, and her redemption. Yes?

Daily Batman: It happens — Catfight edition

It happens: Liberated negative space — it is a Thing! Black Cat v. Catwoman with a little PSA-war action.

Catwoman has herpes. The Bad Kind!

Black Cat gives rotten head.

Meow. Hey, have you got Something Special on your mindgrapes? Be cool: Say it with spray paint!

Sketches by super-neato-terrific Adam Hughes, on whom my neverending artcrush knows no bounds.

Daily Batman: Startin’ the year with a bang

CBR’s Kelly Thompson has named Kate Kane, Batwoman, the #1 Female Comic Character of the Decade.

Art by J. H. Williams with color by Dave Stewart. Kind of a Kahlo-influenced Dia de los Muertos sugar skull vibe, somewhere between a prayer card and an xray, gruesomely awesome and totally apropos genre of art especially given her gal is Renee Montoya. This cover art + me = Total. Love.

The rest of the list is singularly amazing as well. It includes Cassie Cain as Batgirl, honorable mention for Det. Renee Montoya as The Question —Kate Kane’s sweetheart— and a shout-out to Detective Deena Pilgrim from the Powers world (I have always favored the idea of Retro Girl better than the actuality of Deena and her unmasked heroism, personally, ever since I shut myself in the bath one day following a fight with my husband and read Who Killed Retro Girl? until the water got cold, and I continually peruse Powers in the hope of seeing Pilgrim take on that intriguing mantle one day, but so far no go).

Renee Montoya, formerly one of Gotham’s Finest, now The Question.

Additionally, Thompson gives a glowing enough account of a “Micchone” heroine from Walking Dead that I’m actually willing to give a zombie comic a spin, so give the article a read if you’ve got some loose bills left over from Christmas folding money and are looking for new things to read.

“Hurt me.” And I thought I had Daddy Issues? Cropped from a scan by scans daily’s gallery from Batgirl 49-50 when Cass done got fired.

Super fat-bat-thanks to Peteski, aka nevver on the tumblr, who is always hooking me up to badass shit that brightens my day.