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June 24, 2005
Subway Reading: Catwoman
Catwoman #44 - In my preview of this week's comics, I compared Catwoman artist Pete Woods to Mike Allred. After seeing the book, I realized that his comparison was entirely inaccurate. Woods' compositions are more cinematic, with extreme camera angles and tighter cropping. His line work is very delicate and sensitive. Check out the backgrounds; he often eschews a straight-edge for things like buildings, giving the art a hand-drawn, organic feel that I find very appealing. About the only thing he does have in common with Allred is a mastery of anatomy, which he combines with expressive yet subtle character acting to impressive effect. My only criticism would be that his pages are sometimes a little too tight; this is due to the tight cropping and his tendency to fill in every bit of background. If he opened it up and let his beautiful drawing breathe a little bit, the results would be spectacular. Nonetheless, I was very impressed with the drawing on this book. If somebody could point me in the right direction I would love to track down some of Woods' previous work.
Will Pfiefer's story is a well-executed set-up job, with some brisk action scenes and a nice little cliffhanger. If I were the type of reader to quibble with dodgy character decisions, I might wonder why Selina decided to break into S.T.A.R. Labs at all, considering that she had no intention of delivering her target to Hush. It smelled a little bit like she made the decision because the plot needed it to happen. I guess it could be explained away: she doesn't want Hush to get his hands on the mysterious item; she figures it must be valuable and this arouses both her thief-like nature and her cat-like curiosity... fine. Actually the thing that confused me more was the splash page where she is perched on a rooftop, enjoying a cup of coffee. Did she walk into Starbuck's in her costume, stand in line, and buy the coffee? If so, how did she manage to climb up the building without spilling it? I guess she could have used the stairs. All right, now I'm just rambling. My point is that this was a tidy little Catwoman story with very pretty art.
Posted by jdonelson_nyc at June 24, 2005 11:40 AM