Daily Batman: Year of the Cat

“Year of the Cat” by RealityMisfit06 on the d.a.

You’ve probably heard by now that Anne Hathaway, as I speculated and fervently hoped in the past, has been cast as Selina Kyle in the new Christopher Nolan film The Dark Knight Rises.

I’m reading sassy molassy left and right about how Ms. Hathaway is unsuited to the role because she is “too nice” and wholesome. I guess you just don’t know her like me, fans of Havoc, GQ readers, the FBI, and the Vatican do.*

I predict this beautiful, complex, and plenty dark actress will prove the doubters wrong. Yes, I’m biased, because I’ve said before that she’s one of the best and most interesting actresses out there today, but even I am prone to take the long view when it comes to my number-one all-time favorite comic book character, so I hope my defense does not get dismissed out of hand.

I further add that she has merely been cast as Selina Kyle, and we have no idea in what direction the character will go in this particular film, as Nolan is slowly developing his own universe in his Batman movies — and, as a final warning to those who are up in arms about this casting choice, you think all people everywhere in the world were in unanimous excitement when Michelle Pfeiffer was cast in Batman Returns? Was there unilateral rejoicing at the decision to put Halle Berry in the Catwoman movie of which it’s best I just stop speaking?

Of course not. This is an iconic character. There will always be rumblings of discontent, no matter what. All I can say is, remember how you felt when you first heard Heath Ledger was tapped as the Joker? Misgiving-less? I wasn’t: I thought it was an inexplicable and potentially terrible decision. And how do I feel about that choice now? How do you?

Exactly.

Give Nolan, and the lovely and talented Anne Hathaway, a chance.



*The Vatican?? What am I talking about? Answer: I’m talking about taste in men almost as historically bad as that of your hostess. Read all about the sad affair. Saw her mock herself on SNL for it, though. You have to really respect a good sense of humor.

Daily Batman: Ladies on the go

Selina Kyle by Tim Sale, via laurenmoran on the tumblr.

I have often thought what a melancholy world this would be without children, and what an inhuman world without the aged.

(Coleridge.)

Finally have some time to sit and wool-gather today after being on the go a lot in the last week or more, planning some stuff for later this week, seeing to things for my daughter and grandmother, and spending time with friends. Though I have been busy and a little frazzled, I can at least take comfort that it’s been for some of the most worthwhile of causes. And my daughter and grandmother do give me good laughs. Just picturing us walking through the grocery, with each one with a hand on either side of the cart as we squeeze down the aisles, makes me smile. My grandmother likes to throw chips and bodice-ripper novels in the cart, and my daughter is famous for slipping in candy bars and coloring books. I have to watch them like hawks. In a good way.

All in all, I may feel like I’ve been gone over with a rolling pin — but I am not unhappy to feel that way.

Take-two Tuesday — Daily Batman: Catwoman and Batgirl, the Naked Truth

Batman Confidential, No. 18. “The Bat and the Cat, Part 2 of 5: ‘Insanity Claws!'” by Fabian Nicieza and Kevin Maguire (Aug 2008).

Finally finished up that comic I mentioned buying and starting around a month ago. Things have been hectic lately and I kept forgetting it was in the garage. Like I said, I jumped in mid-series, but I think I can provide a little backstory you will enjoy to explain this panel.

As this issue begins, Batgirl (Barbara Gordon) is hunting down Catwoman (Selina Kyle) because she suspects Catwoman stole her father Jim’s notebook, which doubtless has sensitive personal information, drawings of dalmatian puppies in sunflower fields, and confidential case notes and grocery lists in it — Gordon loves dalmations.

The intrepid Spunky McCheeseball manages to run the kitteh-lady to ground by following her to a scandalous private club meeting. It turns out to be the Gotham Hedonist Society, where everyone goes around nude but for masks and indulges in safe, supervised, kinky insane sex with multiple partners. (Are you surprised in a city known for disguised superheroes and villains that this would become a fetish?) They let Little Red keep her hood but make her lose the clothes. Rules are rules!

She gets the notebook away from her target, and, after some naked wrestling, escapes the club and sadly dresses again, thus ending the one interesting and unpredictable thing she has done for me so far. Luckily, good ol’ loveable Catwoman stalks the drippy gingersnatch to a junkyard and steals the notebook back.

A lively fight and footchase ensues, ending on a rooftop, where the always-misunderstood kitteh-lady reveals begrudgingly that she needs to decode the information in the notebook, which Pippi Purplestocking has discovered is encrypted (thanks a lot, Daddy!), in order to save someone’s life — then promptly gets shot off the roof by a sniper that Batgirl can’t see.

Now I’m looking for the next one in the series. I’ll keep you posted.

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: Leave the past in ashes

Adam Hughes Catwoman cover via hellyescatwoman.

The deep pain that is felt at the death of every friendly soul arises from the feeling that there is in every individual something which is inexpressible, peculiar to him alone, and is, therefore, absolutely and irretrievably lost.

(Schopenhauer.)

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: Movie Moment — Batman Returns

Batman Returns (Tim Burton, 1992). Screenplay by Daniel Waters.

Steamy couchy times with the Bat and the Cat. Who would predict, and what is that like?

SELINA
Well? Was “Vicki” right? About
your difficulty with duality?

BRUCE
If I said yes, then you might
think me a Norman Bates, or a Ted
Bundy type … and then you might
not let me kiss you.

SELINA
It’s the so-called “normal” guys
who always let you down. Sickos
never scare me. At least they’re
commited.

BRUCE
Then you’ve come to the
right lonely mansion.

BRUCE
I … never fool around on the
first date.

SELINA
Me neither, on the second.

BRUCE
So. What’re you doing three dates
from now?

Kicking some ass in the sewers.

All screencaps courtesy youdodoodletoo on the photobucket. Many hearfelt thanks!

Daily Batman: The Long Halloween — “St. Patrick’s Day”

Batman, The Long Halloween No. 6, “St. Patrick’s Day.”

Please note Dr. Isley’s hair is represented here by shamrocks instead of the customary ivy leaves. Erin-go-bragh, y’all!

If you are a mainly Nolanverse kind of guy, you might really enjoy the late 90’s Batman comic arc The Long Halloween, as the events of the arc unfold in the direct wake of series-re-energizing thriller Batman: Year One, which is where Nolan draws a lot of his grittier, more emotionally cordant material. The story is told via episodes centering around the holidays in every month of the year and it runs basically that a fledgling Batman, with the help of Catwoman, pursues a serial vandal and criminal known as the Holiday killer. Carmine Falcone (and daughter Sofia), Salvatore Maroni, the Joker, Dr. Jonathan Crane, the Riddler, Solomon Grundy, Poison Ivy, and many more also appear — even the Mad Hatter.

Jim Dandy to the rescue. That’s my Loo G.

Meanwhile, on the side of right, Jim Gordon and Harvey Dent (who is married to his wife Gilda, as there was NEVER ANY “RACHEL DAWES” in any of the comics, and also becomes Two-Face over the course of the arc in this version of his origin) are looking to prosecute Bruce Wayne as the Holiday killer, even bringing in Alfred Pennyworth to testify against him, while Selina Kyle labors to help Bruce’s enterprises stay afloat during the trial and keep the Wayne family name and reputation clean. Bruce convinces them of his innocence and suggests they strike a pact with the goddamned Batman to bring down the mob’s control of the city’s corrupt public enterprises.

Actually, I’m cheating; this is one of the final panels of the issue just before, No. 5, “Valentine’s Day,” revealing that Ivy has been following Bruce and Selina and plans to control Bruce to get at his monies for the mafia. This just proves you CANNOT trust vegans.

Sounding like all kinds of appealing and tantalizing plot strings? Heck, yes. Check the arc out. The Long Halloween: ask for it by name!

Daily Batman: Wild cats

illustration by Jock via the LCS.

Daily Batman: Now that’s what I call a biker gang

From the artist, the awesome Dustin Nguyen,

Figure’d it be fun to do them chicks on bikes and stuff, like if it were mariocart. this idea actually came from a drawing i did for fun of them in super deformed style over a year ago (i’ll post as soon as i can.)

WAY cramming for SDCC, i am ignoring my family, friends, and loved ones this week until i get shit done.

and before any of you gear heads try to figure out the bikes, realize i just draw them, i dont build them. ivy’s bike is 0 emissions by the way (source)

He also put up some of the steps of making the final product, very cool:

Daily Batman: Boo.

I never thought I’d make this remark about anything Catwoman-related, and I used to be a fan of her music until right now, but in looking at this picture of Christina Aguilera as Catwoman in a music video or some shit, I can only say,

“Boo. You whore.”

Daily Batman: Miss Kitty workin’ it, social networking edition

Name: Miss Kitty
Sex/Age female, 23
Location: Gotham City, United States
Current Mood: workin’ it! 😉

Robin: Good job that love stuff doesn’t work on me — I’m way too young for that sort of thing!

Yes. Yes it’s age that’s the stumbling block. …

Batman: What about Robin?
Catwoman: Hmmm. . . I know. We’ll kill him.

Robin: Holy caffeine!

(all stills and quotes from “Catwoman Goes to College,” Batman, Season 2, Episode 49. Original airdate February 22, 1967.)

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: Gotham Girls, “Sirens” edition w/ bonus Mr. J

l to r: Harley Quinn, Catwoman, and Poison Ivy.

Cover art from Batman Reborn, “Gotham City: Sirens” Issue No. 4, November 2009. (actual release date: 30 Sept 09) Written by Paul Dini, art and cover by Guillem March. (go buy it go buy it go buy it — I know I am hopefully going to just as soon as I submit and am paid for the project on The Godfather I’ve been working on.) I guess the Joker shows up in this one (he’s been MIA since Batman RIP, according to the divine comicvine), and I somehow only just heard about this after Halloween!

From the look of things, he is none too pleased that his shrink and erstwhile girlfriend Dr. Harleen Quinzel has been palling around with that guy Hush. (You always knew he’d kill her.) So last week, finally having some free time, I hit up Bonanza Books and Comics looking for this and they said they had sold whatever copies they had to begin with, but assured me they’d get some more. Booyakasha: air heel click!

Daily Batman: It happens, Michelle Pfeiffer as Selina Kyle edition

Every now and then it happens that a kitteh-lady is wired a little differently in the heat-between-the-upstairs-downstairs department.

“It’s the so-called ‘normal’ guys who always let you down. Sickos never scare me. At least they’re committed.” — Batman Returns (1992).

Freak fetishes. They are a Thing.

Daily Batman

Advice: Rachel Weisz NSFW edition and Batman casting ideas

Photographed for Esquire magazine April 2004 by [searching for credit]

“I think mystery is kind of great. I don’t know anything about Bette Davis or Katharine Hepburn or Ava Gardner — not really — and I like that. I love watching their movies because they’re my personal movie stars. I don’t know what they eat and who their trainer is.”

No clue where this came from; sometimes I just right-click and save things and make no effort to credit them. Super-sorry!

“Most of the time we do nothing, myself included, … I think the lesson I learned from [playing humanitarian Tessa in The Constant Gardner] is that a lot of drops make up an ocean. If people would stand up and say what they believe in maybe we can make a difference. Helping one person is better than nothing. Just do something.”

Still from The Shape of Things

“There’s not much room for eccentricity in Hollywood, and eccentricity is what’s sexy in people.”

I have heard rumors she is one of the actresses who has been approached to play Catwoman in the next Batman movie, but I’ve also heard Chris Nolan quoted saying that Catwoman isn’t going to be in it. It doesn’t matter, because that would be lame anyways. She should not be Catwoman, regardless of whether Selina Kyle pops up in the next movie (a direction which would actually disappoint me).

What Rachel Weisz should do in the new Batman movies is play Talia, the daughter of Rā’s al Ghūl and love of Bruce Wayne’s life. Helloooo, she would be perfect! Talia seriously needs to once and for all get in the mainstream big screen storylines, especially considering how great the new movies Chris Nolan’s been making are: in the comics she even has Batman’s kid, for god’s sake (Damian Wayne, who is the current Robin). It’s already been set up, when, in the novelized Batman Begins, Rā’s al Ghūl refers to having a wife and daughter while he is talking to Bruce.

So, come on. Let’s finally get her in a movie, and let’s have Rachel Weisz play her. The woman is a stranger to neither action pictures (The Mummy franchise) nor comic book movies (the wildly underrated Constantine). That’s my awesome suggestion: obey!

Daily Batman: Showdown — Monica Bellucci as Catwoman by Ellen Von Unwerth vs. Topless Claudia Schiffer Catwoman by Mario Testino

Wow, guys. Monica Bellucci and my fave photographer, Ellen Von Unwerth, are seriously giving the topless Claudia Schiffer Catwoman by Mario Testino of several days’ ago a real run for its money for the internet’s Best [Batman] Picture Ever contest.

Monica Bellucci, photographed in Catwoman mask and leather bodysuit by the stellar and magnificent Ellen Von Unwerth for “Bella Bellucci,” a feature in Vogue España, June 2006.

While Monica’s cleavage is always impressive and, of course, her face is basically the most beautiful on Earth, I’m still giving the advantage to the Mario-Claudia collaboration for toplessness. Better luck next time, Team Monica-EVU!

Daily Batman: Batman’s desktop wallpaper

You know this is hecka the background on Batman’s computer. Also the wallpaper image on his cell phone and he keeps a printed copy clipped to the back of the sun visor in the Batmobile. Some guys.

Daily Batman: The Cat and the Little Robin

The Cat and the Little Robin … they do not always get along.

[Catwoman is about to feed Robin to a tiger.]
Robin: Catwoman, you are not a nice person.

Did he make it out? (spoiler alert: sadly yes) My entire family is sick, so that’s it for today. Catch you on the flip side!