Drawing Catwoman: Too Big Not to Fail

Image credit: Tucker Stone, The Comics Journal

That... thing comes from Catwoman #8. Now, I have a few problems with the image, but somehow it's the little ones - and not the glaring, anatomically incorrect ones - that niggle most. WHY ARE THERE TINY CAT CHARMS ON THE STRINGS OF HER BIKINI BOTTOM? First of all, the strings. The strings. Why? Now, I may not be a sexy cat burglar myself, but I think they might pose some practical issues. For example, they might unravel right over a laser sensor. That's both embarrassing and unprofessional. Then, the charms. I always figured Catwoman was a confident thirty-year-old woman with some BDSM tendencies, not somebody with the same tastes as a teenaged girl. On the other side, are there charms that express her dedication to chess club and marching band? And oh yes: I almost forgot about the breasts.

Now, talking about the depiction of women in superhero comics isn't the freshest topic in circulation. It's been so churned over, that critics and artists have reached some kind of uneasy detente over the matter. Women will continue to be drawn like they don't need rib cages, and people who don't like it can pass over the spandex for any D and Q title. That's not the point of this post. Rather, I wanted to figure out why this image bothered me more than some of the first drawings of Catwoman I saw as a young, fresh comic book fan. Those were dark years. Those... were the Balent years. For the uninitiated, Jim Balent was the main artist on Catwoman's solo title back in the late '90s, and a firm believer that female anatomy included beach balls embedded just below the neck. Here's an example of his sensibility:

And yet, swimsuit issue Catwoman irritates me more. Jim Balent's vision was so ridiculous that it could be interpreted a clever parody if you were feeling generous, harmless silliness if you weren't. But this Catwoman is just realistic enough to irritate, just realistic enough that it doesn't seem patently ridiculous. It seems achievable. Furthermore, the artist, Adriana Melo, is a woman. Female writers or artists are still a minority on mainstream titles, but when we do get representation, this is the product? I know I should take a deep breath and give Melo the benefit of the doubt. I can't fight for more female creatives, only to dictate what they can produce. And I'm not so naive as to forget Melo was probably working under certain (DD-sized) expectations. But still. At least give Catwoman a form-fitting wetsuit and lose the girly charms. Otherwise, we might have to call Balent back in, that is if he's not too busy haunting vaginas.

RIP Pistache

Other things Pistache loved beside human affection: lying on a plate for no discernable reason.

My favourite foster cat, Pistache, had to be put down a few days ago. I guess I've truly become the crazy cat lady I had feared was my destiny, because the news has put me in a funk. The funk is incomprehensible to my friends and family. Pistache had nearly every disease known to cat, from FIV to a brief bout with ringworm. Of course, this didn't stop him from trying to force his physical affections onto any conveniently located human. He was remarkably affectionate. According to the shelter, where he once held the record of most obese inmate, he was rescued from a cat colony in Rosemont, circa 1999. I doubt he was born into that colony, because the call of the wild had long ago been put on mute to his ears. He once escaped from my apartment in Montreal, only to immediately enter the open door of the apartment next to mine. He couldn't even kill an ant. I saw him try. And then fail. But although I couldn't trust his skills as a mouser, he was just a big bag of unconditional, rather smelly, love. He would curl up beside me as I read a book, watch me type on my computer, and attempt to sleep on my collarbone as I watched The National.

Life events and an ill-timed move meant I never got to adopt him permanently, but he spent the last two years of his life perfectly content with a friend. And although she replaced me in his heart, nothing could ever push him out of mine. Because, though I've never met another cat who smelled so bad, I also haven't met one who loved so much.

Why You Should Read William Langewiesche

Every week, or at least whenever I can remember, I link to one piece of non-fiction writing on my Twitter. I try to vary the authors and magazines as much as I can, which is hard. Because all I want to do is share William Langewiesche's work, and that would take the better part of a year of faithful linking. I guess I'm a Langewiesche fangirl, in the way other people geek out over G.R.R. Martin or Neil Gaiman. He has a beautiful style, without being a beautiful stylist. His prose is direct and his diction rarely surprises, but he's a genius at presenting the facts at their proper facets, so they can illuminate each other. He's at his best when he describes the failures of machines - shuttles that explode, ships that sink, airplanes that collide with each other - or of the men who run them, and at his worst with one-subject profiles. Profiles are all about the colour and texture of the notable they're describing. They circle instead of heading straight for the problem. As a former pilot, Langewiesche is more direct. He describes the circumstances of every collapse, then works through to the end with clarity and grace, so that it almost seems like fate. Here are the final sentences of my favourite piece, "Columbia's Last Flight," from the November 2003 issue of the Atlantic:

As had happened with the Challenger in 1986, the crew cabin broke off intact. It assumed a stable flying position, apparently nose high, and later disintegrated like a falling star across the East Texas sky. 

And now you have something to read for the rest of your Sunday.

Domestic Thursday: Blind Owls

When it comes to knitting sweaters, I have a pattern. No matter how energetically I start, two years later I'll only have the back, front, and lonely sleeve of a painfully dated sweater. Kate Davies' Owls Sweater is the exception. The more I knit, the more I liked knitting it, until I gave myself a wrist injury cabling the owls on the yoke. But now I have to sew on 40+ wee button eyes to a stubbornly fluid piece of fabric, all so my decorative owls can see. This seems like the kind of tedious work in the service of twee that should be contracted. Who would be an appropriate party? The missing third Deschanel sister?

News from a Social Media Hermit

For my few dedicated readers out there, I'm sorry I disappeared so suddenly and abruptly. For reasons I won't go into here, I thought scaling back my Twitter and my blog were necessary for a short period of time. Of course, I missed serving up my loopy thoughts on everything from the Tebow trade to Mad Men on a semi-frequent basis. My poor friends were stuck listening to me ramble on in person. But I had made a vow, and by gum, I would stick with it. But yesterday I realized that deleting my blog and disappearing from the Internet were the wrong decisions, and choosing to stick with them was kind of like keeping your foot on the gas and hoping the brick wall would bend to your will. Now my Twitter's back, and so's this blog, so expect a post on those playoff ads for the Hockey Hall of Fame in the near future, and more beer. Facebook will remain dormant though, becuase - ew.