1939-2019 : BON ANNIVERSAIRE BATMAN !

Marko · Août 16, 2021, 7:31

CATWOMAN: SELINA’ S BIG SCORE

During my run on Catwoman with Ed Brubaker and Doc Allred, I saw the chance to do a story that filled a few gaps in Selina’s life and perhaps provide her with the motivation for the altruistic deeds Ed and I had her displaying in the monthly. That being said, Selina was simply a great character that would be a natural for a heist story. I teamed Selina up with Jeff and Stark, the two bad boys I had used in the then unpublished “Deja Vu”.

Jeff is my Chow Yun Fat — a favorite of mine from the Hong Kong crime movie scene. Stark is my Lee Marvin, and is named after the crime novelist Richard Stark. Stark (a pseudonym for Donald Westlake) is famous for his series of “Parker” crime novels. The 1966 film classic Point Blank is an adaptation of Parker’s first appearance and stars Lee Marvin in a quintessential performance. The other cornerstone of BIG SCORE was Siegel and Shuster’s Slam Bradley, a character I had become quite fond of since Ed’s and my decision to weave him into Selina’s world. The monthly was emphasizing Slam as a foil to Selina, and as such his drinking and need were the sides we were seeing. I wanted to show the other side of the man — the streetwise detective, the romantic adventurer and, primarily, the slightly crazy Irishman who acts with great justice and violence when faced with evil bastards.

I threw in Burgess Meredith (Swifty) and Pam Grier (Crystal) and I had a cast to kill for. BIG SCORE remains my favorite book that I’ve written and drawn.

– Darwyn Cooke

Marko · Août 16, 2021, 7:42

Dana head turns from the Batman Beyond opening credits designed by Darwyn Cooke. Shane Glines drew the original head turns, which were then xeroxed and hand colored by Bruce Timm.