Catwoman: The Dark End of the Street and Crooked Little Town

Well, this is the kind of inspiration for my comic webseries that I have been looking for. Dark, complicated, shades of gray and moral ambiguity and a woman who absolutely kicks ass with no explanations or qualifications. She is nimble and quick and kicks the shit out guys twice her size without batting an eye. Brubaker is known for noir and crime and that is one thing that makes this gritty comic feel so timeless and yet so real. The noir lighting and crime genre could be straight out of the 40s if it wasn't for slightly more modern cars, gadgets and cell phones. Using Slam Bradley as a P.I. investigating Catwoman/Selina Kyle's life and death was great. We got some interesting backstory about her character and origins without sheer exposition. I felt like I knew her as a person before she even appeared in the comic. Genius.

What really drew me in was a few pages into part one of "Anodyne" the relaunch. Selina is reflecting on what happened to her as Catwoman in the past, how she lost sight of her altruistic goals and just became a petty catburgular, caught up in high society. She alludes at some drugs and losing herself until she "offs herself" to let it all blow over. We still don't know what happened, but this keeps the interest necessary for a serial. Give some information but not all. I knew this book was smart when she said "There's nothing like the universe to make your problems feel small...if only for a moment or two." Referring to the sunset. And the casual appearance of Batman the next few pages really hit home. "Of course when night falls there is always something to help you lose perspective...Him. Of course. Gotham's own guardian angel. In his black and white world...with his brightly colored adversaries. Such a joke...Is this my world, too? With the boyscout...and the obsessive compulsive? The violence sure feels like my world. Without him I wouldn't have become who I am. And I owe him so much...But we've been at odds from the start...Because my world is all just shades of grey, Batman. That's why you'll never understand me. It's about good people being forced into bad situations. That's my territory...In between right and wrong. Which is a place you can never go. And we both know it." And she is. In the first story she is fighting a man who is killing prostitutes. The cops don't really care and so Catwoman becomes the voice of the disenfranchised, mostly women and some kids. She protects the women that can't protect themselves. And she isn't afraid to cross some lines of right and wrong to protect her friends. In the second book the 4 part sequence is titled "Disguises." The whole first part is Holly Robinson's point of view. Holly is Selina's new assistant, trolling the streets looking for dirt that Catwoman can clean up. Holly talks about her past and we really get a good characterization of how she ended up a prostitute, later in a convent after Selina left her for high society and then a drug addict. We feel for her and rejoice when she gets her girlfriend back (yay a lesbian) and then really feel for he when she gets shot and becomes the dirty cops scapegoat. Without this characterization we wouldn't have felt for her or understood why Selina goes to such links to save her. It is all very believable and well done and I understand her violence. It makes sense and it kicks ass.

This is what I am looking for in my webseries, although I can't film Catwoman's high-flying tricks on a budget, (or any stunts for that matter) the part with Holly gave me a good idea. It could be very realistic to have the series be about the sidekick. Digging up dirt, getting into trouble and wanting to be a hero, being strong, yet vulnerable. I'll have to see what I can film. Noir, crime and seediness is all very cool if you can pull it off, but if you don't it looks cheesy. I want a comic book, Sin City feel, but with some kick-ass ladies (and lesbians). I'm really liking Catwoman for its depth and ambiguity and I'm hoping that my series could achieve the same. I'm definitely going to keep reading this series. I feel like I might have to re-watch the Halle Berry Catwoman trash if only to learn from their mistakes.

Geography Club by Brent Hartinger

Well, I'm not quite sure why is Bill is having us read cliche, overly stereotyped teen fiction. Is gay content really so hard to find that we are starved for anything? Especially when it comes to gay teen fiction. Yes it was a quick read because it was written in first person, as if it were the main character's journal, and he addresses the reader on several occasions and even references what he has written about previously, like (see chapter one section one) so it makes it seem like a very genuine account of someone's personal experience, written in very casual language. But I just couldn't get over the fact that everything was a caricature or a stereotype. The whole high school scenario was an over simplified, black and white battle ground of cliques. With well defined names like The Jocks and The Cheerleaders and The Left Wing Radicals and The Nerdy Intellectuals, etc. Your stature of popularity was all that mattered and well defined from your clique, Land of the Cool Respectable and The Outcasts. A school with 800 kids has one outcast that everyone actually throws food at and picks on? That doesn't really happen. And people transcend their cliques and their lives aren't defined by popularity. And popularity certainly isn't as fickle as one day you are the school hero for hitting a home run and the next day you are eating with the one loser and shunned. Sometimes those are aspects of high school but it isn't real high school in its entirety. That is TV, over-simplified stereotyped high school. It is so much more complex than that and making high school that one-dimensional just makes generic characters and story points.

I just don't see how a book that writes everyone as a stereotype and speaks in generalities and cliches can ever hope to do something real. It was a struggle to find a real genuine moment with these characters that would allow me to connect with them. Maybe it is hard for me because I didn't feel like that in high school because I wasn't aware of my sexuality so explicitly, but I do know that actual high school wasn't like this book. I suppose the few moments that held some truth for me were the moments when Russel spoke in his plain language about his feelings. Like when he described what it was like to kiss Kevin compared to Trish and then said he wasn't going to tell us what happened because it was none of our business, but then backtracked and said, actually if he was reading this book and someone said that it would make him mad so he would give us more details after all. That felt like a high schooler writing a book, not an old man pretending to be in high school again.

It seems that reviewers on amazon found the book cute and could identify with some of the situations. Maybe gays do just need something a little more familiar sometimes?