R.I.P. Catwoman

02.06.2004

It's a sad day. I dropped Catwoman from my comics pull list. I loved the first 24 issues of Brubaker's remaking of the not-so-good protector of Gotham's East End. I looked forward to each month's new issue — Catwoman was among my top-five favorites.

And then the artwork changed. Darwyn Cooke, Javier Pulido, and Cameron Stewart had established an elegant, minimalist style that defined the title & its characters. The current art by Gulacy & Palmiotti, on the other hand, is sloppy, amateurish, and just plain distracting. Sigh.

Catwoman exemplified everything that interests me about comics. Here was a pure vigilante, who stood clearly outside the law in order to impose her sense of justice. Catwoman blurred the line between hero & criminal; she made Batman look like a goody-two-shoes. Plus, the inclusion of Slam Bradley (a DC character from the 1930s) gave the series a great crime noir feeling.

Oh, well. I can still get the crime noir from Gotham Central (Brubaker & Rucka). And I'm looking forward to holding the first issue of DC: The New Frontier, Darwyn Cooke's retelling of the birth of DCs Silver Age. Funny, I started reading comics to understand American popular mythology after 9/11 — and ended up hooked on the genre.

BTW, a public thanks to Josh Upson & Bay Jo for mailing me my comics biweekly.

Posted by Miguel at 02:30 PM

Comments

New Frontiers is great. You are gonna love it. Not what I expected.
Catwoman? Yeah, the Cooke isues had a real great energy. They were just 'on'. But, think about this. The first few issues were not really that good. It took a little while for that groove to form.
I like Cooke more than Gulacy, but the story is still good....and I asume the art will just get better and more natural.
Cooke chose to move on and I am glad that they didn't try to replace him with a style-clone.
I say, give it more of a chance.

Posted by: J. Edmund at February 6, 2004 10:27 PM