You're a fine one, Mr. Grinch

I never watched Glee, but I was in the room recently when a friend was watching the latest episode on Hulu. On headphones, I didn’t hear a thing apart from the occasional laugh, muted. Then there was a loud one. I looked up and saw this…

I didn't have to watch the show, I knew EXACTLY what they were doing. That's The Grinch That Stole Christmas, fondly remembered Dr. Seuss Xmas tale from all our childhoods. Later my friend talked about "how well they did it" and how they "did the whole thing" - from a character wearing the reindeer antlers and dog ears pulling the sleigh to plucking the ornaments off the tree.

Friend: And just when you're thinking "There should be a Cindy Lou Whoo"...

I mention this because there is a misconception out there among some big names in comics that people are "bored" with the very elements that MAKE THE STORYVERSE WHAT IT IS. That's why there is a wail of protest every time they announce the next big stunt that will fuck up the comics for another year and postpone the return to what it is SUPPOSED TO BE. Because these core things they are changing are not repetitive and boring, they are ritual and reassuring.

Bruce Wayne is Batman. Joker is his nemesis. Catwoman is his adversary/love interest. Jason Todd is dead.
Last year, next year and always.

If you don't want to do that, don't write Batman.

"Keep Christmas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine."
"Keep it?" repeated Scrooge's nephew. "But you don't keep it."
Last year, next year and always.

If you don't want to do that, don't perform A Christmas
Carol.

"Face it, Tiger... you just hit the jackpot!"

Last year, next year and always.

If you don't want to do that, don't write Spiderman.

"It doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world." "Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore." "Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope." Nobody is looking for reinvention here. They got it right the first time, and that's why these stories last.

When it's right, don't reinvent, recapitulate:

Here endeth the lesson.

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

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The week... Oh for Bast Sake! NOW WHAT?

Okay then, so much happened in Cat-Tales last week I didn’t even manage to get a blog out. I had another chance to play my friend’s Lego Batman game, and as Classic Catwoman, I opened a can of whoopass the goggled pretender—not once but many times, shocking my friend with the violence of a purple cat crossed. It would have been a very cute and entertaining entry, but nobody got to read it because I was more than occupied prepping for the big rollout over the weekend. In case you haven’t seen it:

• The website got a makeover, including some spiff video wallpaper that did not shoot or edit itself.
  
• Armchair Detective and Not My Kink are out for Kindle and Mobi. 
  
• Cat-Tales opened a virtual Visitor Center in Second Life (otherwise known in these parts as the TBA that ate Tokyo).
• Shane Sahr, the rockstar bartender at Seattle’s famous Tini Bigs Martini Bar, released a quartet of Cat-Tales Cocktails that are too sinfully indulgent to be believed. 
  

Now, that’s a lot to get ready, particularly when one of my clients had a press thing and needed a little extra web-work himself. Pulled it off though, got everything together, produced the triple launch without a hitch. Got some nice screenshots of the visitor center, got a new headshot of myself as a pixilated person IN the visitor center, got pictures of the criminally indulgent Cat-Tales Cocktails that should have you all on a plane to Seattle just to order one of these babies. I was all set to get up this morning write up a killer entry about the whole thing when…

Sean Hayes… dressed as Spiderman… singing Don’t Rain on My Parade

Picture a close-up on Chris with a strange little twitch above her right eye. "That’s… Sean Hayes… That’s… Radio City Music Hall… That’s…"

I’m a theatre-gal, folks. Remember
Reputation?  It takes a certain kind of mind to come up with an idea like "Cat-Tales: An Evening with Catwoman", and that’s a mind who’s spent an awful lot of time backstage. I’m also hip deep in comic book superheroes. Sean Hayes hosting the Tony Awards, covering Streisand, dressed as Spiderman, that’s not something someone like me can me can just IGNORE!  For the love of God and Stan Lee, that’s like… for 30 years we’ve all assumed the ’66 Batman was lightning in a bottle, a product of time and place that, if there is justice in the universe, should never be attempted again. But Sean Hayes? Don’t Rain on My Parade? CAMP LIVES, folks. Superhero Camp is alive and well and heading for the Lunt-Fontane.

And y’know what? I’m fine with it. Perhaps the most resilient aftereffect of Miller on the Bat mythos and comic books in general is this overblown seriousness. Maybe it’s not as corrosive to the soul as the other stuff, but it is every bit as damaging to the genre as a whole. It simply isn’t necessary to take this all so f-ing seriously 24/7/365.  It is permissible to lighten up and have a little goddamn fun, and by NOT doing so, a lot of people who would be fans are shoo'd away - because unlike the fanboys who keep enabling this crap, we demand our our entertainment make us FEEL GOOD. The new Brave and the Bold cartoon gets that.  The DC vs Marvel guys on YouTube certainly get it.  Hell, even the uber-realistic Nolan movies get it.  Look at Liam Neason’s face when Bruce finally makes his costumed entrance in Batman Begins. They get it.  They ALL get it.

Perhaps that's why Batman can thrive in movies, in cartoons, in games, and (humbly) in prose fiction, in everywhere EXCEPT the comics medium where he began, is because those guys are the only ones locked into this mindset that Batman is a serious-fucking-business. Maybe if we can just get them to unclench, to embrace the lip twitch and all that it implies, there’s hope.  If not, we can just keep showing this:

and get days of free entertainment watching them try to prevent their heads from exploding.  That could be fun too.

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

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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

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.