Capes, Bats, Cats, Covers... Not so much with The Closet

I certainly hoped to get in a quick comment on all the stuff that has been going on this summer which certainly warranted a purr or a scratch, but for which I didn't have time.  A metaphorical closet-cleaning to match the physical one.  Unfortunately for my mental closet but fortunately for Cat-Tales, there has been - yet again - too much going on to bother with the knucklhead stuff.

1.  The new Cat-Tale: Electron 29 hit the cyberstands last week,  and as anyone who has written Edward Nigma will tell you, he doesn't sit quietly in the back of your head waiting for you to finish other things before you start on his next chapter.  If you don't start writing, he'll start without you.  Meh. 

2. Wanders Nowhere has released a new installment of his Dracula in Gotham fic Capes and Bats.  Much as I want to gush, you simply will not believe me.  Believe the forum: "This little tale created an imagery and gravitas in the first chapter that the graphic novel storytellers of Gotham have been trying to do for decades" "Gorgeous prose" "Masterful".  'Nuff said.  Read it, just read it... in time for Halloween because we're not done yet and... Whew... *fans self*  just read, trust me.

3. We're getting ready to welcome a new artist into the fan art gallery, and that requires a little more work backstage than a busy girl could want in the midst of #1, 2, and 4.

4. EBOOKS!  Yes, the new ePub format is going to make mobile readers very happy and it's also given me an opening to redo the printable pdfs and kindle documents so we have some consistency.  Win-win, but it's the sort of thing where the first few will take a while, but taking the time to do them RIGHT will make everything go much smoother down the line.  In that spirit of doing it right, I want to give the individual story pdfs their own covers.  Right now, they use the square ones from the website and it's okay but the images are not made for the medium and it shows.  Now, I don't plan to do this for all the tales, but Cat-Tale #1 is, of course, a special case. So I have 4 possible covers up, and I am opening it up for a vote.  Please don't worry about the words of the title "A Girl's Gotta Protect Her Reputation."  They will be placed better on the final image, whichever it is to be.  Just vote for your favorite image. 

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.

Cleaning out the Hell Mouth (Not a Metaphor)

Writing is a more complicated process than most people think.  Many readers certainly come to the conclusion that there is a lot of me in my Selina, and of course there is.  It doesn’t stop there, however.  There’s a lot of me in Bruce, in Alfred, in Eddie and Harvey, in Talia, Whiskers, Sly, Luthor, Ivy and Ubu.  All the characters come out of the 9th circle of the Dee brain. 

One of the details I do share with Selina is a hell mouth closet.  It is not a metaphor, it is – or was – all too real.  Last week, I cleaned it out.  Again, this is not a metaphor.  This was a very real exercise in sifting through clutter, throwing out stuff, and sneezing a lot.  I am happy to say I have a hell mouth no more.  Yay for the nice walkable path down the center of the storage bins, which could be thinned a little more if I want to spend a month on ebay, but I don’t.  So for now, we’re good.

Except for one thing: comics.  All the comics remain out here in the non-closet world.  Those from the closet and those that were never returned to it after being pulled for reference in this fic or that.  They’re going to be here for a week or two.  Some to be filed or refiled, some to get broken down into smaller boxes.  Some will be going into their first box from the land of “stack and drawer”   It’s going to be interesting.  When it’s over, there’s another smaller closet I have my eye on (not a hell mouth, we’ll just call it Jersey).  Once the comic boxes are arranged, I’m hoping to purge its contents and put the boxes in there. 

What does any of this mean for Cat-Tales?  Well, there could be an upswing in silver age influence if I get to reading as I work.  I don’t think Selina will be cleaning out her hell mouth again.  She says once was enough for that kind of thing.  So long as Catwoman has one and only one origin, she sees no need for more than one voyage of discovery into that closet.   That just leaves the sneezing.  Some character sneezing his head off could have enormous comic relief possibilities, but it’s unlikely I’m ready to see the funny since it was only about 72 hours ago I was the one doing the sneezing.  Still, one of these days, somebody… probably Oswald.  Heh.

So that’s the art follows life side of the equation.  Life also follows life, and there is going to be some metaphorical closet cleaning too.  Because the long, hot summer is drawing to a close and not only are we a little backed up on Cat-Tales, there is a certain backlog on blogging.  I’m hoping to get them all out of the way in a few quick entries. 

You have been warned.

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.