CATWOMAN WEEK: Defining an era…
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Welcome to CATWOMAN WEEK! One of the greatest characters in comics history debuted 85 years ago, in Batman #1, on April 24, 1940 — and we’re celebrating with a series of features saluting the Feline Fatale. Next week, it’ll be JOKER WEEK! For the complete index of CATWOMAN WEEK features, click here.
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As I noted the other day when we featured Darwyn Cooke, Catwoman has had so many looks over her 85 years that it’s hard to pick a definitive one. Our pal Anthony Durso did a great job of ranking her TOP 13 COSTUMES for her 80th anniversary five years ago, but for this year’s CATWOMAN WEEK, I wanted to do something slightly different — highlight a handful of her essential artists.
Normally, I’d do a TOP 13 list of them, but I was more, ahem, drawn to the idea of doing deeper dives on individual illustrators. In this case, Jim Balent, who defined Catwoman in the 1990s.
To be transparent, I’m not a huge fan of the period, but there’s no denying that Balent is one of the artists who had among the biggest impacts on Selina Kyle.
So here are 13 sharp-clawed covers:
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MORE
— The Complete CATWOMAN WEEK Index of Features. Click here.
— CATWOMAN’s Essential Artists: DARWYN COOKE. Click here.
April 17, 2025
All I see are boobs.
April 17, 2025
That costume is cheesecake ridonculous… but it hit me at JUST the right era of my life, and I just cannot bring myself to dislike it!
April 17, 2025
One of the blown opportunities in the “Convergence” crossover was not getting Balent to do the Catwoman issue. (IIRC, few artists returned for their eras. They got Jon Bogdano e to do Steel and that’s all I remember.)
April 17, 2025
I was too old of a fan/reader to be seen buying these.
April 20, 2025
Wow! Or “Meow!” Excellent!