Preview of Joelle Jones' Catwoman

http://brianmichaelbendis.tumblr.com/post/177396195391/fyeahbatcat-exclusive-preview-of-catwoman-1-by

I love Mikel Janin's Artwork

Justice League Dark (2011) #18 Cover
by Mikel Janin

I have been a huge fan of Mikel Janin's artwork since his stint on Justice League Dark. I would argue that his pencils are right up there with Ryan Sook's (who did many of the initial covers for the series and is another favorite of mine).

Of course, Ulises Arreola Palomera's color work must also receive credit for the interior art on these issues. They are absolutely gorgeous!

Interior Art on Justice League Dark
(2011) #5 by Mikel Janin &
Ulises Arreola Palomera)

I was inspired to focus on Janin's art in this post because I ran across CBR's exclusive preview of Janin's cover and interior art (with June Chung's colors) for Batman (2016) #41 on fyeahbatcat's tumblr (via lyrafay) this morning (see below).

I could wax on and on and on about Janin's art, but I'll save that for his creator page (which I'll eventually add to this blog... someday).

http://lyrafay.tumblr.com/post/171073411937/fyeahbatcat-batman-41-preview-everyone-loves

Jae Lee

Cover for Catwoman (2011) #36

In doing my quickie research for this post, I discovered that one of my favorite artists, Jae Lee, is in fact a man (or a human who elects to use male pronouns), and not a woman (or someone who self-identifies with female pronouns) as I had always assumed.

I know this from the bio on his website at jaeleeart.com and this picture:

Jae Lee & his dog, Thor

Meaning no disrespect to Lee or to men in general, but I must admit I was disappointed by this discovery.

Lee works regularly with June Chung (who does colors on his comic book art), and I had this whole lesbian relationship between the two in my head.

It's sorta like when my father read The Lord of the Rings to me and my brothers each night when we were kids. I had always imagined that Merry (Meriadoc Brandybuck) and Pippen (Peregrin Took) were both girls who were in love with each other. It took me a long time to get over my disappointment upon discovering there are no female adventurers (let alone lesbian lovers) in the "Fellowship of the Ring."

Anyway, this post was supposed to be about how much I enjoy the haunting, ethereal quality of Lee's art, but I think I need to waller in my disappointment for a bit, so I'll just leave you with some of his art with June Chung's colors. (You can also check out more here and here).

Cloak & Dagger from Dark X-Men (2009):
The Beginning #2: Utopia

Two-Face & Batman on the
Cover Variant for All-Star Batman (2016) #1

Interior Page from Batman/Superman (2013) #1: Cross World

Cover for Batman/Superman (2013) #1

Cover for Batman/Superman (2013) #2

Cover for Batman/Superman (2013) #3

Cover for Batman/Superman (2013) #4

Cover for Batman/Superman (2013) #8

Cover for Batman/Superman (2013) Annual #1

Cover for Batman/Superman (2013) #9

Cover for Batman/Superman (2013) #11

Cover for Batman/Superman (2013) #12

Cover for Batman/Superman (2013) #13

Cover for Batman/Superman (2013) #14

Cover for Batman/Superman (2013) #15

Chess: Jim Lee's Cover Art for Batman (1940) #619

Jim Lee & Scott Williams' Cover
for Batman (1940) #619

Visual metaphors can become tired and repetitive, but I find a great one (with beautiful art and specific details) can make up for the reuse of the, perhaps, overly familiar construct.

Case in point is this 2003 cover by Jim Lee and Scott Williams that depicts the Batman universe of villains and heroes as pieces on a chessboard.

Even though the chess metaphor has been presented innumerable times across a variety genres and mediums, it still has the power to convey a ton of content.

Here the Riddler is the chess master positioning the players on the board. He is moving Hush (the titular villain of the collection in which this issue falls) into position to take on the Batman chess piece at the front of the image.

Batman is in a "ready-for-action" pose, but he is face forward as if blind to all the peripheral pieces on the board as well as to the arrival of the Hush chess piece.

The cover artwork's metaphor basically functions as a plot summary for the content of the issue (including potential spoilers).

Lovely details include the custom text on Joker's T-Shirt ("I killed Jason Todd, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt") and the postures of the female villains. Poison Ivy is seductive with her chest out and her hand on her hip.

Catwoman is crouching like, well, a predatory feline (while also somehow managing to stick her chest out), and Harley Quinn has her signature boardwalk carnival mallet (yet she, too, is turned incidentally, I'm sure, to reveal her ass and chest at the same time).

Seriously, though, Catwoman is revealed as an ally of Batman given the color of her chess piece's base (gold like Batman's while the villians' bases are all silver).

I find this cover to be a very effective use of chess as a visual metaphor.

Medieval

http://haffpint.tumblr.com/post/169897921147/vikaq-medieval-bat-this-really-made-me-chuckle

SciFi, Fantasy, Comics, Etc.: The Intellectuals' Head Candy

Lego Catwoman Logging onto Her Laptop

Were I to engage in labeling myself one way or t'other, I would probably end up somewhere in the SJW camp, but not for the reasons the anti-SJW camp might suggest.

I want brain candy. I want texts, & movies, & art to challenge my thinking and stimulate new thought. I want to explore all the possibilities of being.

Despite my love of comics, which are often recursive and sometimes downright repetitive in their storytelling, I read them to discover the moments of "awe" hidden in them that cause my brain to rewire former connections and build new, unexpected pathways.

And, well, the old paradigms the anti-SJWs seem to exert a great amount of time, energy, and animosity defending just don't extend the story. The protagonists are the same, the devils are the same, and the payoffs take one nowhere that one has not already been.

That's not to say that genre fiction isn't also political for me. As brainstatic suggest in his/her/their post on Tumblr: SciFi, Fantasy, Comics have always served as part allegory reflecting the cultural "hot zones" of the zeitgeist of the time in which they were created.

(Though, I would add that the Clone Army in Star Wars, 

who function primarily as cannon fodder, are designed on 

the genetic material of an indigenous person of color.)

Lego Catwoman Cursing at Her Laptop

The characteristic of SJWs the anti-SJW could accurately ascribe to me, though, is intellectual snobbery. But that is only because, as a former teacher of English, I think it is the moral obligation of intellectually capable humans beings to actually develop their god-given capacity to reason.

So I insist that people who claim reason actually employ reason. Go figure.

Batman #3: Crushing on The Cat

A "strange case," ugly = evil, and winning nascent criminal youth to the side of truth and justice with a boys' club: the three other stories in this issue that I will not be focusing upon.










Most Amusing Panel Prize (so many to choose from in this issue): 

An early sign that hazing at Fraternities has always been hazardous:

"What you got there, Tyler?"

Oh, it's a hypo "filled with a lot of drugs I mixed together haphazardly. I'll pretend to inject it into Carlson!"

Muwahahahaha... Surely nothing bad will come from that. Har, har, har.




I have chosen to focus on The Cat story from this issue because I cannot get over how the Cat-Woman's first appearance as the "Cat-Woman" (and not just "The Cat") includes having an actual Cat-head mask. (A cat-head with no neck, mind you.)

Surprising Details (there's nothing really surprising here):

As one might expect from a story written in the 1940's and featuring a female "villain," gratuitous evidence of male chauvinism abounds. (Heck, even Commissioner Gordon succumbs to a bout of male rage at the idea of a woman eluding the apparently all-male police force.)

Taking the stereotypical trope associating women with "cat-fighting," Cat-Woman threatens to "scratch out" the eyes of the duper who has double-crossed her in a diamond heist.

As Batman reluctantly (and apologetically) resigns himself to turning the Cat-Woman into the police for her part in the crime, she performs the perfect feminine escape technique of thanking Batman with a kiss (and a shove) as she makes a speedy exit.

Batman is not too broken up over this slight to his own masculine crime-fighting capacities (I'm not sure if this makes him more sexist or less, but I'm going with less), much to Robin's dismay.

Batman doesn't seem to mind that a she has "beaten" a him, though Robin seems to think that there may be a double standard at play.

Batman's romantic ardor is reciprocated as Cat-Woman imagines Batman taking over the wheel (quite literally) and going "for a ride" with him "like any other boy and girl."

(Granted, Batman has seen her out of her disguise three times now, but she still has no idea who he is under that cowl, but reciprocity nonetheless.)

Final Notions:

Despite the historical gender-baggage on Cat-Woman's shoulders, I still find her a strong female character even in these earliest issues. She works (she takes jobs as a criminal, yes, but it's still work); she is independent (and relies on no man for her subsistence), and she is tough and scary to those who have crossed her (righteous, even, in her threats to scratch them).

There is good reason why Catwoman and Lois Lane have been enduring icons of comic book women. They are complete women on their own heroic adventures. Their stories intersect with those of their male counterparts, but there is a very real sense that their stories continue on even outside the presence of Bruce Wayne/Batman and Clark Kent/Superman.

Series: Batman (1940)

Issue #: 003

Copyright: DC Comics

Cover Date: Fall 1940

Cover Price: 10¢

Page Count:  54 pages

Print Release: 24-July-1940

Digital Release: 25-May-2011

Writer:	Bill Finger
Penciler:	Bob Kane
Inkers:	Jerry Robinson; George Roussos
Colorist:	None Listed
Cover Art:	Bob Kane; Jerry Robinson
Source Links:	comiXology / Comic Vine / Wikipedia
Story Titles:	“The Strange Case of the Diabolical Puppet Master”; “The Ugliest Man in the World”; The Crime School for Boys”; “The Batman vs the Cat-Woman”

Batman #2: The Cat Saves the Bird & PC Policing

In the second issue of Batman, there are again four stories all starring Batman & Robin in some 53 pages (I think comiXology counts the cover as a page in its page totals. However, there are no ads in these electronic issues, so that's cool).

Most Amusing Panel Prize:

"He's very cute! Cute is just the word for him!"

Surprising Details: 

In "The Joker Meets the Catwoman," Batman has an incredibly disturbing plan to prevent The Joker from resuming his nefarious criminal activities after he recovers from his injuries (sustained in the last issue).

Batman explains to Robin that he wants to "abduct the Joker....then we'll take him to a famous brain specialists for an operation, so that he can be cured [emphasis added]."

He wants to have brain surgery performed on someone without their permission!?

Jolly.

In a perplexing misdirection, the Weasel (who also wants to abduct The Joker so that The Joker (whose chances at recovery are reportedly "very slim") can become the brains of Weasel's criminal organization?) -- Weasel has one of his men pretend to be Batman to distract the police.

Before this deception is revealed, however, everyone (including me) wonders when the Batman became willing to kill policemen.

(Given that I knew so little about Batman's history of killing the "bad guys," for a moment I feared that Batman was perhaps even more criminal than I had begun to believe...)

In this story, The Joker and Catwoman meet for the first time when both attempt to burgle the Pharaoh's Gems. They fight to see who will take home the gems, but when Robin's life is put in jeopardy by The Joker, it is the Catwoman who is willing to sacrifice the loot in order to save the Boy Wonder.

The Other Stories (in this issue):

One struggle I have with these early issues is that my personal frame of reference is loaded with modern politics that intersect poorly with the conscious (and unconscious) politics of the writers and artists from the time period in which these comics were created.

I am old enough to have been raised on classic Black & White movies and early television programs on endless repeat on Sunday mornings. There is an uncomfortable familiarity in these tales of the Bat in which simplistic (and therefor often stereotypical) portrayals of people who are "different" are common practice.

My awareness that these pieces are products of their time period does nothing to silence my inner literary critic who wants to tear apart the sexism and able-ism and racism presented in these stories.

But, when the depictions are so overt and noxious, do they really require explicit analysis to identify them for what they are?

So, to comment or not to comment? Align myself with the SJWs (Social Justice Warriors) or skip over such commentary to avoid the risk of becoming oversimplified and stereotyped myself under the latest label the right uses to demonize/dis-empower the political left?

"The Case of the Missing Link," the last of the four tales in this issue, bears the weight of both white colonialism and a limited understanding of scientific evolutionary theory.

In this story, a pituitary gland deformation turns the "missing link" into a giant whom the pygmies of Africa worship as a "god" and whom the Western white scientist has kidnapped in order to "civilize" him.

Luckily, Batman is there to save the day (...or not, as every major player who is not Batman or Robin is dead by the end of the story).

And yet, there is criticism within this story over the exploitation of others expressed by the white scientist who recognizes that the intentions of the two "bad guys" to display Goliath (the missing link) for profit is wrong (even though he remains uncritical of his own desire to "civilize" Goliath).

And Batman expresses sympathy for the "monster," Goliath, when -- in a berserker rage of grief after his "master" (the white scientist) has been killed -- he attacks Batman and dies as Batman defends himself.

Batman directs Robin (and the reader) to recognize that the two men (now dead) who meant to exploit Goliath for profit were the "real monsters."

Last Notions:

I look forward to getting to some contemporary tales with characters who share a greater resemblance to me. Not because I am inherently narcissistic (though I often fear I am), but because variety enriches my understanding of the universe (and so far I have encountered no butch nerd feminists whatsoever in these pages).

Series: Batman (1940)

Issue #: 002

Copyright: DC Comics

Cover Date: Summer 1940

Cover Price: 10¢

Page Count:  53 pages

Print Release: 22-May-1940

Digital Release: 25-May-2011

Writer:	Bill Finger
Penciler:	Bob Kane
Inkers:	Jerry Robinson; George Roussos
Colorist:	None Listed
Cover Art:	Bob Kane; Jerry Robinson
Source Links:	comiXology / Comic Vine / Wikipedia
Story Titles:	“The Joker Meets the Catwoman”; Wolf, the Crime Master”; “The Case of the Clubfoot Murders”; “The Case of the Missing Link”

A Bird, a Card, and a Cat (Detective #38 & Batman #1)

Detective Comics #38 and Batman #1 appear to have been released in the same month in 1940, and they introduce three major players to the Batman Universe: Robin (Dick Grayson), The Joker, and Catwoman.

The story introducing Robin in Detective Comics is but 12 pages of the mag (which has several other noirish stories in it). Issue #1 of Batman, on the other hand, has four complete Batman stories, two starring The Joker, one with Hugo Strange (a villain who has appeared in Detective Comics in an issue I don't own), and one with The Cat (Catwoman).

Most Amusing Panel Prize:

Somehow, the Batman gets The Joker to stab himself?

Constructing a parallel origin story for Batman's first sidekick, Dick Grayson, was a masterful choice. Many excellent questions about the nature of grief and vengeance and heroism have come from young Robin joining Batman on his mission to fight criminals like those responsible for the deaths of both sets of their parents.

(However, "exterminating them" may be a bit heavy-handed in its approach.) (Also, the English teacher in me is dismayed that Batman uses the exact same language as the narrator in this panel.)

Surprising Details:

What surprised me most about the introduction of the Joker is how punny Batman is in these early issues. I thought bad puns were a vestige of the 1960's TV show, but apparently they make their appearance way earlier in the history of Batman.

In this issue, both Batman and The Joker deal pun after pun related to a deck of cards (the signature of The Joker's imagery).

Criminal monologue-ing has also had a lengthy history in comics, it seems, as Batman invites his first recurring villain, Dr. Hugo Strange, to explain his crazy plan (which Hugo is more than happy to do).

(His crazy plan involves turning escaped lunatics into giant monsters whom he intends to let loose on the public as a distraction so his men can "loot the banks.")

Horribly sexist and tacky, Batman's first encounter with Catwoman (in which he wipes off her disguise as an old woman) simply creeps me out: "Quiet or Papa Spank!" UGH.

Plus, she employs her notoriously stereotypical "feminine wiles" to try to enlist Batman into becoming her partner. Who's surprised?

In fact, the only redeeming quality in the pair of panels below is the humor created by the juxtaposition of Robin's dialogue with his obliviousness to the interchange between Batman and "The Cat."

In the first issue of his self-titled mag, Batman also expresses (for the first time in my comic collection) a reluctance to kill, even though he asserts he will kill if "necessary."

I find the concept of the sacredness of life (typically phrased as "human life," but all life fits, too) to be central to my understanding of superhero-ing.

What typically separates the "good guys" from the "bad guys" is the moral culpability they feel at the loss of life caused by their efforts to attain their goals.

Final Notions:

It is cool to know that the fundamentals I have picked up about these characters in the Batman Universe (from modern renditions and pop culture) can actually be found in the source texts themselves.

Regardless, these early issues are a bit of a chore to slough through. I may have to hit warp speed so I can get to some material that will make for better reading (especially for those earnest enough to read my blog).

Series: Detective Comics (1937)

Issue #: 038

Copyright: DC Comics

Cover Date: April 1940

Cover Price: 10¢

Page Count: 59 pages

Print Release: 21-February-1940

Digital Release: 17-August-2012

Writer:	Bill Finger
Penciler:	Bob Kane
Inker:	Jerry Robinson
Colorist:	None Listed
Cover Art:	Bob Kane Jerry Robinson
Source Links:	comiXology / Comic Vine / Wikipedia
Story Title:	“Robin the Boy Wonder”

Series: Batman (1940)

Issue #: 001

Copyright: DC Comics

Cover Date: Spring 1940

Cover Price: 10¢

Page Count: 54 pages

Print Release: 28-February-1940

Digital Release: 25-May-2011

Writer:	Bill Finger
Penciler:	Bob Kane
Inker:	Jerry Robinson
Colorist:	None Listed
Cover Art:	Bob Kane Jerry Robinson
Source Links:	comiXology / Comic Vine / Wikipedia
Story Titles:	“The Joker”; “The Giants of Hugo Strange”; “The Cat”; “The Joker Returns”