Catwoman has been a mess from day one, and the cause of that mess has a name: Judd Winick.
As much as I joke about it, I genuinely do not like whaling on comic book writers. They’ve got a difficult job to do, balancing creativity, continuity, and editorial mandate. Furthermore, Winick is capable of good work as a writer. Also, he was taking over from Ed Brubaker and Darwyn Cooke in the eyes of many fans, and that’s a tough act to follow no matter who you are.
And it’s true that Catwoman hardly has a prestigious history at DC, especially in terms of her ongoing. Frank Miller turning her into a dominatrix/hooker was unfortunately a fairly substantial step up for the character.
But even by that standard, Winick’s run has been a disaster. And Winick frankly has not helped his case:
And do I think there’s sexism in comics? Yes. I’ll go even further and say there’s sexism in most media. Well, in all media, really. And that’s mind-boggling, since women are the majority of the population, and they consume more media than men.
Just a note here: currently, Catwoman is paired off with a sexy male sidekick called Spark and is investigating a series of prostitute killings. Great job with fighting the sexism there, chief.
I don’t envy Nocenti her job, here. It’s fairly obvious that DC editorial is yanking Winick because of Catwoman’s mediocre sales. Generally the book has been averaging about 37,000 copies sold a month, which isn’t bad but isn’t the gangbusters sales DC was obviously expecting from a “name” character.
But on the other hand, it may have taken them twelve issues, but at least now DC realizes that yeah, maybe Catwoman needs to be a strong character, not just “liberated”.
image courtesy DC
![[avatar]](http://p.uproxxcdn.com/photo/569/thumb)
![[image]](http://cdn.uproxx.com/wp-content/thumbnails/130/110/2013/05/4-year-old-marvel-comics-expert-batgirl-costume-150x150.jpg)
![[image]](http://cdn.uproxx.com/wp-content/thumbnails/130/110/2013/05/bounce1_cover-150x150.jpg)
![[image]](http://cdn.uproxx.com/wp-content/thumbnails/130/110/2013/05/cccc170513-10-150x150.jpg)
![[image]](http://cdn.uproxx.com/wp-content/thumbnails/130/110/2013/05/ASTRO_Cv3-150x150.jpg)
Hopefully this is the beginning of Winick no longer being one of DC’s go-to guys, because all his superhero stuff has been wretched.
Catwoman’s really not *that* hard to do right. Just write some fun crime capers, with a little darkness/drama here and there and get an artist that can do sexy without straying into overly porn-ish territory. I dunno, Brian Azzarello and Amanda Conner, or two names along those lines.
Or, shit, bring on the venerable. Chuck Dixon worked pretty hard on the character, let him have a shot.
Hell yeah, I have no idea why Chuck Dixon seems to have been banished from DC and Marvel, but I loved his 90s/early 2000s Batman stuff — particularly his work with the supporting cast.
At very least it would clear up the sexism/book’s too porny complaints, since Dixon writes good female characters, and his books are always pretty chaste.
I don’t think all of his superhero work has been awful. I absolutely loved his run on Exiles.
I’m still bitter that somebody came along after he left and killed off his wonderful lesbian version of Sunfire, and for that matter, his version of Mimic as well.
I will always mention in a Judd Winick article that I think he’s super shitty.
Pardon my french, but DC has its greedy head up its a-s. So does anyone else who thinks it’s likely that Ann Nocenti is going to boost sales after Winick’s run. Granted, I don’t know what Nocenti has planned, but who on earth -other than DC – would think that Nocenti (who has exactly ZERO commercial OR critical successes under her belt) should be the go-to person after Winick to boost sales?? No offense intended to Ms. Nocenti, but I predict this comic will soon be canceled all because Time Warner expects DC to not tolerate modest sales.
I also think Winick’s done a great job on this title and March’s art has been spectacular. Sure I’ll concede that Winick went a bit far with the first issue’s over-the-top sex scene, but Catwoman is SUPPOSED to be a sexual character. She’s a femme fatale for god’s sake. And anyone who thinks Brubaker didn’t play up her sexuality is kidding themselves.Anyone remember the way she attacked Sam Bradley to stave off depression? I never heard any complaints about that. I’ve also read that Cooke’s outfit was supposed to make things more practica and less sexuall. Give me a break, instead of a dress and heels, now she was in pure fetish wear. Not that I’m complaining, but anyone who thinks Nocenti is going to accomplish something Winick didn’t is engaged in extremely wishful thinking and doesn’t realize how difficult it is to write a character who must always remain a supporting character in the Batman’s universe. If the plan is to make her more like the new film’s Hathaway version, DC deserves to have another failed book on its hands.
What really bugs me is that the book and Winick aren’t doing so badly that it merits a switch. This is corporate mentality not creativity.
Winnick has screwed this title… He completely removed EVERYTHING that made her a strong person. Aside from the over-sexualized art, she’s stupid, reckless, dependent, and unstable. That’s not fucking catwoman! The thing that made her “sexy” had little to do with her looks. Sure that helped. And yes she should be sexy. But there’s a difference between sexy and slutty. Classy and trashy. Winnick has made this character as trashy as possible. Prostitute background aside, at least before, you could see how she rose above that part of her life. Before, she was intelligent, sly, confident, and audacious. Now, she just appears like one of those girls that kiss other girls not because they like it, but because they’re desperate for attention. She even tells Batman in issues 6 that she wants to die. What? Did we all just forget that her being a SURVIVOR is part of what makes her character!? Sure, I can understand people having down parts of their life. But this is issue 6, and we haven’t even established anything until now of her being a survivor or being smart or being competent. Instead, she’s blowing money she knows she shouldn’t use, making idiotic mistakes with no regard to the consequence until its too late, getting beat to a pulp every panel, and rearranging her body to uncomfortable angles while doing it. So within the first 6 issues, what do we know? We know her face is ugly half the time that’s to weird contortions. We know her body is hot.. kinda, but then I can’t tell considering its covered in her own blood half the time. We know she likes Batman. We know she’s not very smart. We know she’s reckless. And we know she needs Batman to save her every other panel and make sure she doesn’t make mistakes because she can’t take care of herself very well apparently. Oh and she has a death wish. Yay for a strong, independent female right?
At least Hathaway brought class to the character and played up on her independence, strength, and cunning. Oh but DC deserves to fail if its like that huh? I say good riddance Winnick.
By the way re-reading this article I can’t help but notice that you think Winick “hasn’t helped his case” given the quote you attribute to him. The quote doesn’t remotely suggest that he’s not going to make the comic sexist. In the quote Winick is saying sexism is present in all art forms and that’s odd. It would also be MORE sexist for Winick to have written Spark as an unattractive guy. The fact that Spark is sexy makes the comic LESS sexist in the traditional sense since it’s giving women “eye candy” as well. As for trying to save prostitutes: Brubaker’s great run had Catwoman saving prostitutes all the time – was that sexist? At least Winick has her saving MALE prostitutes too (thereby making it LESS sexist, if that is indeed his goal).
You’re entitled to hate Winick as much as you like but the point you seem to be trying to extrapolate from his quote (that he wants to make the comic less sexist and is not doing so) doesn’t really make sense.
So, now that Nocenti has had four issues and they’ve gone from bad to worse, anyone still want to complain about Winick? I don’t think I can take much more of this awful writing, and I fear all the “sexist” reasoning will have DC afraid to take her off the book, especially with the Gail Simone debacle (btw, I’m very happy they reinstated her at the helm, batgirl is awesome and DC was stupid for ever wanting to take her off).