This Week in Cat-Tales

Gave the first tour of the TBA. That was beyond exciting. I was hoping to actually ANNOUNCE said TBA at the end of the month, but it’s already the 28th (how the hell did that happen?!). Right now, it’s looking like some technical issues may delay it another week or so, but still, it’s exciting to have it in sight. And speaking of technical issues, I’ve about had it with this laptop acting up. I was planning to put off a new ‘puter as long as possible, since it will probably necessitate a move to Windows 7 and experience has shown it’s best to give any new MS operating system a loooong time to work out the kinks. But now I’m having second thoughts. I’m looking at traveling a lot more again in the future, like I used to, and a RELIABLE laptop is a necessity. Apologies to Eddie, but any computer where start-up is a GREAT BIG QUESTION MARK is not desirable.

Anyway, back to CT. Finished the pre-conversion edits on Cat-Tales #55: I Believe in Harvey Dent, which means it is now available for Kindle and Mobi Readers, as well as the ever-popular printable PDFs. I also finished work on Chapter 5 of Don’t Fear the Joker, which is now out for beta. The first reader got back to me already, the other… eh, might be a few days yet. But it will be ready soon.

And that concludes the catch-up on Cat-Tales. We just have time for one quick catch-up from the mailbag backlog. Check out this Original Comic Art Marketplace at Thrillist.com

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

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I DON'T NEED YOUR CHARITY

Forum regulars know I’m a big fan of The Daily Show. One of the most memorable incidents from the George W. Bush administration involved... well, you know what, a text description really cannot do it justice. Let’s go to the tape:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Childrens Do Learn
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

Now then…

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

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Women Lacking Complexity - FOR SCIENCE!

I’m several weeks behind on the fun links, pics, and video clips from the mail bag, so we’ll be getting caught up for a while. This one has to take precedence as it is time critical. The event is April 26 and women lacking complexity will want a few days to prepare (read: shop) for Boob Quake 2010.

It began with the kind of story that gets bloggers in a lather: some Iranian cleric spouting the kind of idiocy guys like that are always spouting. In this case that women dressing immodestly corrupt men, provoking God’s wrath and bringing earthquakes. Jen McCreight, one of the wittier bloggers, ran with it. Monday she declared she would test the claim on April 26 with Boob Quake. After all, if…

Postulate: Boobs >> lust & adultery >> godwrath >> earthquakes
Test: Bring on the cleavage and see how much movement we can get on the Richter scale.

That was Monday, and today there’s a Facebook page with about 10,000 participants already signed on.

My delight in this is twofold: ( * ) the celebration of women’s sexuality fused with all the fun and sass that is so central to a proper depiction of Catwoman, and ( * ) Remember the pseudo-intellectual, faux-enlightened dipshits that went along with the Balent-bashing as if there was something degrading and wrong about a beautiful woman in a comic book being drawn with big breasts? They are now in a delightful position where they can either get with the program or side with the Iranian clerics. Win-win for the rest of us, particularly those of us who bounce.

Gentlemen, remember, you too have a part to play on Monday. We show off the goods and you are duty bound to look, enjoy, and try to, y’know, be corrupted. Remember, it’s for science.

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

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The Week in Cat-Tales

Whew. Two major projects coming to a head at the same time. Let’s try not to do that again for a while.

First things first: Congratulations to Loren Weisman on the epoch-making launch of The Artist’s Guide to Success in the Music Business. Huzzah! Apparently the after party at Seattle’s famous Tini Bigs was quite the event, complete with – be still my heart – a new signature martini made for the event by one of the country’s great mixologists, Shane Sahr.

As for the book, you know, most creative fields are beset by an Echo Boomer problem: kids coming out of a system where they have been rewarded for participation and not achievement. The result is they hit the real world with no clue what they are actually good at and where their talents are barely adequate. They come in expecting the real world to be set up the way their previous environments have been: designed to help them achieve and to advance them as quickly as possible – or preferably faster. This in the industry of “Don’t call us, we’ll call you.” Surprise, kids! No theatre, no movie studio, no nightclub, no record label, no publisher, no agent, no manager, no anybody anywhere is going to do that, even if you actually have the once in a decade talent you believe you do. Loren’s book is a milestone in actually letting aspiring artists IN on those realities. Instead of talking about them behind closed doors, he talks to them, explaining the facts of life frankly but honestly. IMO, at least half will react like Talia: hysterical scream fits, angry assertions that her deluded fantasy Is, Was, and Always Will Be. You’re a big fat meanie for even suggesting otherwise, all her Facebook friends say so too and so does her mom and so does the Easter Bunny. Elvis lives! In all probably, innocent crockery will die… But the other half, that’s who this book is for. They can and will step up, grow up, and become real artists.

Anyway, book release. Despite that excitement and the next phase – testing – on the infamous TBA that ate Tokyo, I did manage to complete edits and roll out the kindle and mobi for Cat-Tales #54: War of the Poses. Even got a few chapters done of CT55. Speaking of CT#55, it appears that Christopher Nolan appeared at something called WonderCon not too long ago and surreptitiously waved the checkered flag on a viral for his upcoming flick: Inception. That set off a slew of new visits to our Dark Knight viral sites. So CT-readers, if you missed out on the alternate reality game the first time, just a heads up that those websites are still out there for your vicarious Gotham-living pleasure.

And finally, yes, writing is ready to resume on Don’t Fear the Joker. It was a good weekend for Laughing Boy, which is to say, a crappy weekend for Gotham, but what can you do. That’s the way the clattering teeth clatter, HAHAHAHAAAAAAA!

And, since I am several weeks behind sharing goodies from the mailbag, check this out: a “Kodak Moment” doesn’t begin to cover it.

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

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The week in... Screw it. A love letter to Jim Lee

Two insanely busy weeks down, one to go. Yet despite a lot of real life demands, it was a gratifyingly productive week for Cat-Tales – for everything except the actual writing, that is. Construction is finished on the TBA, edits completed on several chapters of War of the Poses, and a number of those pesky support services that keep the web extras operating have all been attended to. As for the writing, well, officially, that resumes next week. My friend and client’s book release is Friday, so on paper at least, these next five days are on stand-by for him… That’s not to say writing does not occur. I don’t know how it is for other people, but the characters in my head tend to start without me sometimes. They have in this case. While I didn’t technically do any writing this past week, they did. It isn’t written down, but they have several story developments all arranged to their liking. We’ll just have to see if it’s workable or if it’s another one of Joker’s “Rainy Sunday Fun! All the hamsters out of the microwave” ideas.

In other news, not Cat-Tales specific but, well let’s call it Cat-Tales adjacent, Jim Lee got one of the first iPad off the assembly line. And just look at one of the first things he drew with it:



iPad quick sketches by *jimlee00 on deviantART




Yes, okay, I know, goggles. But hey, this is Jim Lee, as in the man behind the Hush rooftop clinch, the image immortalized in CT 28: Awkward Pauses, the image about which Selina, glorying in her Post doppleganger’s purple tint, stated “It’s not real, it’s Photoshop. That means if it’s purple, that’s because somebody made it purple.” Jim is the man who made it purple, and for that he will always have my love. Here,of course, it’s more than a vague “are my eyes deceiving me” tint. So, y’know, progress. That said, Jim, I love you. I love how you clearly love Selina. It comes out when you draw her. You can’t hide it. What I say now comes from that place of artist love: Lose the goggles. As Selina has also stated, it’s not just how they look, it’s what they mean. You make those awful things based on a goddamn cartoon DOG look as good as they can, but even you cannot make them look feline rather than bee-like. And even you, you wonderful man, cannot change what they represent.

That said, thank you for the purple, then and now.

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

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The Week in Cat-Tales

What an amazing week it was, on the Cat-Tales stage, backstage, and in that pesky real life far from Gotham.
Chapter 4 of Don’t Fear the Joker got a wonderful reception.  April 1st saw the hacking of our beloved forum (and this very blog) by agents of Ra’s al Ghul.  You can’t imagine the headaches cleaning up something like that. 

And despite the considerable demands related to that book release in a few weeks, I made enormous headway on one of those big TBAs I’ve been referencing on and off for a year.  So much so that I expect to actually make good on the implicit promise of calling them TBAs and announce one by the end of the month for a May opening.  Huzzah!

In other news, Random Equinox slipped in a new fic on us when he thought we weren’t looking.  Sneaky, sneaky, Random, but I found you… One of Those Days at ffnet.  Check it out, everybody.  

And finally, I caught up on my reading this weekend… well, almost.  There’s still a half-finished library book on the nightstand, but all the rest is done.  And the unfinished one has only itself to blame.  I’m not what I’d call a lazy reader, but a 60-page introduction drains away all the reader’s enthusiasm for the material.  Let’s put it this way: you know the one about the IT guy who goes to a Tech Support center for some extra training?  They’ve got this picture up of a ditzy looking blonde with the caption that her password is MickeyMinnieDonaldDaisyGoofyPlutoSacramento – because it had to be 6 characters and a capital.  Here’s the thing:  if that’s your opinion of your audience, you shouldn’t be writing.  Seriously.  Yes, there is a need for context if you’re serving up period material from the early years of the Cold War, but 60 pages worth?  I’m not sure if the problem is lack of discipline – taking 9 paragraphs to say what can be covered in 2 – or if it’s what I suspect:  simply not trusting the readers.  The thing is, we’re not talking about some random sampling off the street.  We all made a choice to buy the book, or in my case borrow it from the library.  Assume we’re at least, y’know, functionally literate and didn’t buy the book as a doorstop.  Give us a little context, and then pay us the compliment of assuming that if we need more, we can take what you’ve told us and Google for more.  Anyway, point is, apart from this one annoying volume that is probably going to go back to the library unfinished, I’ve swept away the backlog.  Life is good.  Meow.

The week ahead looks to be a busy one.  I doubt I’ll be able to finish up Chapter 5, but as stated previously: book release.  You really have no idea how much graphic art and other paperwork is required.  Oh, which brings me to the neatest piece of trivia from the mailbag… which I realize will be a longer entry.  We’ll save that for Wednesday.  Ciaomeow, everybody.

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.