Daily Batman: Silent as a child’s prayer

Wanted: Santa Claus, Dead or Alive. Frank Miller and Denny O’Neill. DC Special Series #21. April 1980.

Aw. Baby’s first goddamn Batman story. The Dark Knight Returns didn’t come until six years later.

Daily Batman: Inspiration Station — From Boudicca to Selina to Dana Scully (and Bettie in between)

Bettie Page in catsuit. Unknown date. R.I.P., Queenie.

Like Batman, the Catwoman operated outside the law within her own code of morality. She predated the creation of Alfred, the Penguin, and even famous heroines like Wonder Woman, Miss Fury, and Black Cat. Catwoman broke the glass ceiling of the comic industry and raised the bar for future female characters. From their first battle in Batman #1, the caped crusader has uniquely allowed her to escape.

Selina Kyle became a foil to Batman, a reflection of his own dark desires and need for healing, as well a Jungian anima to his animus.

(Fies, Elizabeth. “History of a Femme Fatale.” Catwoman: The Creation of a Twentieth Century Goddess. Batmedia, 2001.)

Fans of different generations of the Catwoman archetype make their own attractions to the character. Obviously she fills a void in comics of complex female characters; women that both male and female readers can relate to and admire. The largest difference between our modern mythology and the fairy tales and Greek myths of yore is the silent exclusion of half of our population.

(Fies, Elizabeth. “Feminist Role Model.” Catwoman: The Creation of a Twentieth Century Goddess. Batmedia, 2001.)

Originally comics were bought by almost as many females as males, so economics does not explain the lack of female representation in the DC universe. Unlike societies that told tales of Hera, Diana, the Amazons, Boudicca, Judith, Matilda, Cleopatra, Inana, Jinga, Queen Elizabeth, Morgan, Joan of Arc, and many other strong women, as a culture Americans lacked the archetype of the Warrior Queen.

(Fies, Elizabeth. “Feminist Role Model.” Catwoman: The Creation of a Twentieth Century Goddess. Batmedia, 2001.)

Gillian Anderson (Dana Scully, The X-Files) in purple catsuit. Jesus wept.

The invention of Catwoman begat a new generation of powerful characters like Wonder Woman, Xena, and Agent Scully that may not have been heard without Selina’s birth in 1940.

(Fies, Elizabeth. “Feminist Role Model.” Catwoman: The Creation of a Twentieth Century Goddess. Batmedia, 2001.)

Daily Batman: Demi-chat, Demi-femme

Demi Moore photographed by Matthew Ralston.

Irena: Some nights there is another sound. The panther. It screams … like a woman. I hadn’t realized how dark it was getting. I like the dark — it is friendly.

(Cat People. Directed by Jacques Tourneur. Screenplay by DeWitt Bodeen. RKO Pictures, 1942.)

I rented this from the library when I was 14 and it rocked my world. Super-hot. Not in a “furry” way — in a just-before-the-censors went nuts way. Sexy dialogue, dark and mysterious clouds coming out of sewers, thick bangs, blondes and brunettes, light bdsm and love triangles. Like, wow! And it’s all at Your Local Library.

The truth about cats and dogs. Simone Simon with a statue of Anubis in a still from Cat People.

Simone Simon, and the picture itself, have developed something of a cult following over the years — this is a coy understatement; there are like just under sixteen hundred blogs I’m sure dedicated to how to most precisely masturbate to the technical prowess of Tourneur’s Cat People — and the popularity of her portrayal as Irena in the film has not left the character of Catwoman untinged. In the 1966 Batman movie, “the Catwoman” (not series regular Jul-Newms, who was washing her hair, but rather your Miss America 1955 Lee Meriwether) poses as a sexy woman from the USSR named Miss Kitka Karenska, employing vaguely the same hairstyle and Romany-rich Eastern European accent used by Simone Simon in Cat People.

I can has intense sexual cult following?

More importantly, after DC’s Infinite Crisis, which-kind-of-but-not-really restored a lot of the retconned into obsolescence storylines that were wiped out in Crisis on Infinite Earths, in One Year Later, Selina Kyle uses the name Irene Dubrovna when she must hide out in the underworld, having temporarily sort-of-retired from her Catwoman vigilante duties due to her pregnancy with Helena, her daughter. (This Helena is not the Helena Wayne of Earth-Two, nor the Helena Kyle of Earth-2, but a Helena in general, of whom what will become — eventually taking up the Huntress mask? tracking down her father for suresies? something else? — it remains to be seen.)

Daily Batman: Bat-plug edition

via Joetace.

I know it’s baffling, dude, but it’s really important to try new things.

Daily Batman: Wild cats

illustration by Jock via the LCS.

Daily Batman: Adam Hughes, the hands-down best Catwoman artist

How about a little kitteh-lady in your life today? Take a gander at Catwoman’s mercurial adorableness in “The Many Faces of Selina Kyle,” cropped (click through to full picture).

Art by the wonderful, talented, good-humored Adam Hughes, one of the best in the biz today.

Adam Hughes, who is totally cool and cute and hilarious and just a warm, generous human being all around besides being a talented artist, did the cover art for Catwoman (vol.2) issues 43-82. He’s brilliant and, from accounts of people’s encounters with him out and about, a very friendly and upbeat guy, which is a cool thing to find in the comics world.

This is from his wiki. He has a wiki entry! That is charming to me. He seems so accessible, I thought only a-holes had wikis.

Everyone is eager to talk about their favorite stuff, but sometimes really well-known artists can be kind of … prickly. And of course comic book geeks, like geeks of any stripe, can be guilty of the exact sort of elitism that made them feel rejected by the “cool kids” and drove them to their esoteric pursuit to begin with. But it seems not so with “AH!” as he is billed in his signature.

Cover to Catwoman 69 (Sept 2007). Dig all the villains like a swarm of pop-ups on the blowup of the monitor behind her.

So what makes a kitteh-lady drawing? More than sugar and spice and everything nice. From Adam Hughes’s description on his deviantart account:

I miss drawing Selina. It sure was fun with her; lots of different moods. She’s the quintessential femme fatale. And YES, I’m aware the she resembles Audrey Hepburn, LOL.

My personal inspiration for Selina Kyle is Ms. Hepburn, circa 1954-57. My favorite face ever.

My personal inspirational cocktail for Catwoman is:

70% young Audrey Hepburn

20% Liz Taylor from CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF

10% Trinity from the first MATRIX film

Super-cute. He’s so great.

Daily Batman: The Bat and the Cat, Interrupted

It happens: I told you they get up to some games.

Earth-Two Selina and Bruce are straight up busted by baby Huntress. Talk your way out of this one, college boy!

Daily Batman: Enter Batgirl

Pencil sketch of Batgirl making a cute squinchy face.

Since this is by Kevin Maguire, I assume it is meant to depict the Batgirl from Batman Confidential, a monthly DC Comics series that has developed in the wake of the Nolanverse re-arousing interest in Batman’s early years. As I have not yet given them a whirl, I do not know Batgirl’s public identity in those stories. Depending on how early it is in Batman’s career, continuity would dictate that it be Barbara Gordon, but, if they wanted to roll truly old school, I guess they could bust out dumbass Betty Kane (I refuse to link to anything that has to do with that). In any case, doesn’t she look so cute?! I just want to pinch her little riot grrl cheeks and giggle together — love this! (I think I am simultaneously a girl and a boy up in my brainspace.)