When you wish upon a star...

I was once a little girl who went to the movies and saw that big, gilded storybook opening at the start of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.  I grew up with all those classics where, political correctness be damned, a Prince Charming arrives in the final reel to right the wrong, slay the dragon, save the princess and generally bring about the Happily Ever After. 

As I grew up, I’ve become as cynical as most adults about those childhood tales, but every few years the godspark of great storytellers weaving great stories worked their magic.  The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Toy Story (Yes, I knew it was more Pixar than Disney), Wall-E (Ditto)… I was pixie-dusted all over again.  But losing myself in a great story is different from still believing in the fairy tale rescue of a Prince Charming.  Until today.  Prince Charming is wearing mouse ears…

First look: Marvel Comics' 'heroes will be heroes again'
Marvel superheroes are leaving the dark side.

After seven years of grim and grimmer story lines, including a superhero "civil war" that pitted Iron Man against Spider-Man and the death of Captain America, Marvel Comics will usher in a more optimistic "Heroic Age" approach in May.

"Heroes will be heroes again," says Marvel editor in chief Joe Quesada. "They've gone through hell and they're back to being good guys — a throwback to the early days of the Marvel Universe, with more of a swashbuckling feel."  --Full story, USA Today 

Anyone who wishes to believe Joe Quesada, the man who mandated the Peter Parker/MJ split (since y’know, happiness isn’t realistic), that this sudden appearance of a storytelling sensibility in a medium where it has been lacking for more than a decade has nothing at all to do with the new player in town, have I got a deal for you.

Chris Dee
www.catwoman-cattales.com
cattales.yuku.com
cattales.wikispaces.com

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This Week in Cat-Tales

I guess if I’m going to be making these posts on Mondays instead of Fridays, they should be “Last week in Cat-Tales”, but we may as well continue as we’ve begun.  You all know the mantra: it’s not a mistake, it’s feline quirkiness. 

I was really pleased that I could post the chat transcript on schedule.  I was finishing up a big laptop migration at the same time, and it was touch and go for a while if this machine would be open for business with all the web applications.  Happy endings all around there.  If I can just get one more program working with a certain piece of hardware the way that it should, I can be completely mobile on one ‘puter again.  This nonsense of being spread over 2+ laptops and a desktop has been going on since last August, and I’ve seriously had enough of it.  Every time I see that ad for Carbonite that says “You don’t realize how much of your life is tied up on one computer,” I think how I would LOVE to have that problem again.

But back to the Tales.  Don’t Fear the Joker has launched, HAHAHAHAHAAAA! And the response has been amazing.  Any time there is an event story like Do No Harm, there is that concern that there will be a letdown.  No fear of that where Smilin’ Jack is involved. 

Broke ground on Chapter 2 this weekend, finally, and got the best email from a long-time reader I haven’t heard from in a while.  Their commentary on Riddle Me-Tropolis left me in stitches.  Hm… must return their email, and get some real progress made on chapter 2.  I guess I better get a move on.  Happy Monday, everybody.

Chris Dee
www.catwoman-cattales.com
cattales.yuku.com
cattales.wikispaces.com

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This Week in Cat-Tales

It was a big week backstage for Cat-Tales. Reviews and emails were coming in for the last chapter of Do No Harm, along with questions for yesterday’s chat (more on that later) AND there some java updates to fuss with underneath our pretty chatroom to make sure it would actually work as good as it looked.  The thing you have to watch about third party java add-ins like that: most programmers are very good at what they do, but a few make software like Orlando makes football fields.  Looks real nice until you actually bring in a few teams to play a game, then it’s a mudpit.  (And okay, this has nothing to do with Batman, Catwoman, or writing, but WTF?!  Did they seriously spend however many millions it takes to build a stadium without it dawning on any professional architect or builder that sooner or later it was going to RAIN???  I mean. it’s not like we’re talking about some rare, biblical weather that only happens when the Comet Kohoutek passes through.  It’s rain.  Clouds fill up, they dump water on us.  I’ve been to Florida, there are no deserts there.  How can they not know?)

 

All right, sorry.  That’s been building up since the Capitol One Bowl.  Lot of Penn Staters in my speed dial, and the ones that aren’t wondering why our bailout money is being used to sponsor bowl games are bitching about the mud flats of Orlando, Florida.  Moving on.

 

 While I was prepping for the chat, I was also starting work on Don’t Fear the Joker.  I’m happy to report that Chapter 1 is now ready for the proof-and-polish dance and with any luck will be out in a few days.

 

The chat… wow, we had a blast.  There were great questions about the fic, little bit of silliness, a recipe for lemon sheet cake, trips to Wikipedia, and I even found out what that stuff is inside Twinkies.  However, I couldn’t put a dent in the pre-submitted questions.  I knew that going in, there were just too many this time around.  But I’m hoping to answer them in the forum when I post the transcript.  When exactly will that be?  Eh, stay tuned.  There are a lot of questions to get through.

 

But it is a long weekend, so I can probably get more done today than I would on a regulation Monday.  Wish me luck.

Chris Dee
www.catwoman-cattales.com
cattales.yuku.com
cattales.wikispaces.com

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This Week in Cat-Tales

So far, the new year is off to a good start for the catverse.  Despite a full court press from RL in the last half of the week, I got the new chapter out, at last.  Up to the last minute, I still hadn’t decided whether to present the Do No Harm conclusion as one chapter or two.  It is long, which is harder to get away with online than it is on paper.  You can bookmark a physical page.  If you’re anal (and don’t mind crinkling the paper), you can even slide a paperclip on the exact line you left off on.  Scrolling a webpage doesn’t work that way, and not everybody wants to read 20 pages in one sitting.  Those were the reasons to slice the chapter in two.  But the fact is, it is one chapter whether I published it that way or not.  So I opted for honesty in presentation, and I’ll just have to make it up to readers some other time.  (I did make an effort to get the pdf and Kindle awz files out asap.  Those, at least, can be bookmarked.)

 

Scheduled the chat for a weekend afternoon this time around.  The weekday evenings made for an interesting experiment, but the mailbag has spoken: mid-day EST accommodates the most timezones.

 

The week also saw another round of fan art updates.  Thundering Monkey began a Batman calendar.  Behold Mr. Freeze looking more like a Norman Rockwell figure than anyone who’s stared at the business end of a freeze ray would have thought possible…

 

And Honor Among Cats demonstrating once and for all that costuming is a form of artistic expression as much as drawing, singing, or dancing…

 

 

 

Also, while the new work has nothing to do with Cat-Tales, one of our own has released a new work:  Random Equinox (of the latest CT fan tale WoZ) has just begun Accidental Hero of the Galaxy, set in the Mass Effect universe.  I highly recommend.  Even if you haven’t played Mass Effect, it’s a good read for any scifi or action buff.

 

Chris Dee
www.catwoman-cattales.com
cattales.yuku.com
cattales.wikispaces.com

Thank you for reading. If you are viewing this post anywhere other than The Catitat you are reading a mirror. Please visit the original posting in The Catitat to leave a comment.