Okay, kittens. Comic-Con is now truly a fait accompli. The turquoise nail polish has finally been removed, my Lucy Van Pelt dress has been laundered and tucked away neatly in the costume trunk, and my official SDCC 2015 Souvenir Book with has been shelved in the office with all previous years' publications.

For those whom attend, the memories of San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC), or any Con, never truly fade. Even as years pass, and, perhaps, specifics get cataloged into the wrong Con, the people, adventures, and costumes, never leave our mushy, grey databases. For those whom don't attend, or for those free moments you have and wish to relive it all, I present to you Dr. Lucy's Famous Con Slideshow!

Reform, Relapse and What She Wore: 75 Years of Catwoman Chic

by

Jennifer Susannah Devore

They say a little black dress is a timeless classic. We say a little patent-leather jumpsuit with a mask and a whip beats that.

-Suzan Colón, Catwoman: The Life and Times of a Feline Fatale

Simply because the night includes midnight Parkour and pilfering, doesn't mean a girl should look homeless, even if she is. Confident yet wary, the youngest Selina Kyle yet, of FOX's Gotham, sprightly portrayed by Camren Bicondova, has perfectly honed the hip, desperately-casual style of Millennial America (designed by Lisa Padovani): storm colours in leather and wool, jeans, hoodies and knee-boots. Although, oddly, like Star Wars, Gotham seems set in the future and a long, long time ago, thus explaining Selina's futuristic/vintage steampunk goggles and 1930s, Marion Davies curls. Bicondova's Selina is a magnetic addendum to Catwoman's bio; but she has years to grow into Batman's nemesis and the sartorial significance that transmutes Selina into Catwoman.

Spring 1940 (Batman #1) introduced us to the dishy ne'er-do-well known prosaically as The Cat. Boarding a yacht to pinch a diamond bauble, she wears no catsuit, only the unimaginative mask of an elderly woman. Yet, the rest of her? Long legs, tiny waist, form-fitting pencil-dress and bombilating blue-black locks. Clearly, more Old Hollywood glam than old lady scam.

We needed a female nemesis to give the strip sex appeal. So we came up with a kind of female Batman.

-Bob Kane, Catwoman co-creator (artist)

Soon, she was dubbed Catwoman and receives what any hot villainess requires: mask, cape, kick-ass boots and whip. Even so, costume uniformity came slowly.

Summer 1940 (Batman #2) saw Catwoman sporting dramatic, primary colours in the standard, pre-WWII silhouette of the day: fitted dress, shoulder pads, puffed sleeves, full skirt. Unfortunately, by autumn of that year she also started sporting furry, realistic cat masks. The Fifth Avenue dame with the cat head was just creepy.

Autumn 1940 (Batman #3), the gold and red ensembles transitioned to more mysterious, black numbers in leather with purple capes. On-target, but the fur masks lingered. Why obscure the pretty? Modeled partially on Hollywood bombshells like Jean Harlow and Marlene Dietrich, why give Catwoman the figure of Jane Russell and the élan of Lauren Bacall, but the face of Clark Gable?

As WWII raged, Catwoman shimmied out of her day dress and into a voluptuous violet frock with shoulder pads and a full skirt, great for twirling and swinging around Gotham rooftops. A Kelly-green cape and Robin Hood boots finished the glam-bandit look.

The fur mask was finally shed, too. Half-face with cat ears and wide eye-holes, the new mask highlighted her intense peepers, sharp cheekbones, ruby lips and waves of black curls in the Gotham moonlight. Kitty can still scratch, but now she doesn't have fleas.

And don't underestimate her, just because she's a woman!

-Robin, Boy Wonder

After WWII, Catwoman reëntered peacetime unscathed, sashaying easily into the well-manicured 1950s. Vacillating between prowler and proper citizen, she kept busy in a variety of "jobs": jewel thief, fashion editor, pet shop employee. Each gig meant new gear, which meant getting said-gear. The magazine gig was solely a ruse to misappropriate a mink coat.

The Fabulous Fifties presented Catwoman as a bored socialite with plenty of cabbage but a penchant for shoplifting. Until 1954, she reflected post-War America perfectly, save the kleptomania: swank, comfortable, blasé. She had an itch though, and Gotham nights provided the scratching post.

Whether slinking through Gotham at night in her mask and cape, or manning the pet shop by day in her silk and pearls, Catwoman remained a dashing yet ladylike knockout. Then, came the Sixties.

After a ten-year stretch under a sunny window, Catwoman returned to print comics in 1964, in a flurry of costume variations. 1967 (Batman #197) found her in a weird green, scaly bodysuit that looked like something she'd catch for dinner. About that same time, television had better designs on Catwoman. Thankfully, that included Julie Newmar.

Is it any wonder she gave him "curious stirrings in his Utility Belt"?

-Adam West, Batman (1966-1968), Batman

TV oft sets its own parameters. Sometimes that's good and brings new generations of fans. Batman (1966) lured a whole new fan base using little more than a black, Lurex bodysuit. Julie Newmar looked as though she'd been dipped in quicksilver: shiny, mesmerizing and deadly. Add a low-slung, gold belt, elbow-gloves with claws, and black kitty ears resting perkily atop wavy, golden-Titian hair and, "Hello, curious stirrings".

Newmar wasn't the only screen-Catwoman; surprisingly she appeared in only six Batman episodes. She was, however, the first. Like Windows 3.1, Newmar was America's first GUI Catwoman.

TV Catwomen of the Sixties numbered three: Newmar, Meriwether and Kitt. Though each brought her own twist to the role, each essentially wore the same thing: same cat-suit, same cat-ears, same cat-accessories (designed by Pat Barto). Though Eartha Kitt rose above the discussion of race, it cannot be denied three years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Catwoman was black.

Was it a racial victory? A black woman portraying a traditionally white character? I don't think of myself in terms of a race. I'm an artist.

-Eartha Kitt, Catwoman (1967-1968), Batman

Lee Meriwether, a kind of slinkier Laura Petrie in leather and revenge, claimed, "Eartha, for my money, was the best Catwoman." As far as Kitt's legendarily sexy purrr, Newmar admits, "I started it, but I'll tell you. Eartha Kitt did it better. My God, no one could top that!"

"Her Catwoman was sinuous and sexy and she exuded intelligence and craftiness from every pore," cooed Adam West of Ms. Kitt in 2003.

Since her creation in 1940, Catwoman's bio, and wardrobe, has changed multiple times: nine lives indeed. By the 1980s though, her backstory, and costuming, becomes darker and less forgiving: more panther, less sex kitten. Depending on the tale, she is an abused prostitute, or an abused socialite, no longer just bored, but victimized. Either way, she escapes her violator and hits the streets with her natural acumen leading the way. One twist finds her recycling old dominatrix work-gear into Catwoman threads. This pattern of finding opprobrious men, save Batman, eventually reduces all men to mere cat toys. The Catwomen and catsuits of the Eighties and Nineties, in print and film, exhibit this more volatile psychology: notably via auteur Tim Burton and actress Michelle Pfeiffer in Batman Returns (1992).

If Catwoman was polite and Stoic before, Pfeiffer pierces her with an enjoyable infusion of pure wackadoo. Pathetic cat-lady Selina Kyle spends too much time at the office and irritates the boss; so abusive boss Max Schreck fires her by defenestration. Remarkably, Selina rebounds uninjured, but totally bonkers. Being tossed out a window will do that to a girl. Naturally, she next fashions a latex catsuit (designed by Mary E. Vogt). Barely held together by crazy-stitches, much like her psyche, the suit proffers a new Catwoman with a bit of batty behind Pfeiffer's almond eyes and cherry lips.

More than a decade later, Halle Berry would continue the dark theme in Catwoman (2004). If Pfeiffer makes Newmar look like a daring secretary at the office Hallowe'en party, Berry makes Pfeiffer look like a rubberized version of Betty Rubble. More Sturgis than supervillain, Berry's leather bra, hipsters and whip (designed by Angus Strathie) left less to the imagination, but inspired comicverse debate and a controversial Catwoman Barbie. With some complaining Berry was more stripper than blackguard, the next Catwoman seemed less lethal and threatening, like a sorority girl in a cheap, devil costume.

Anne Hathaway brings the catsuit full-circle (designed by Lindy Hemming) in The Dark Knight Rises (2012), poured into head-to-toe leather, spiked boots and, reminiscent of Newmar, perky kitty ears atop long, shiny, brunette hair. Hathaway looks less lascivious libertine and more Comic-Con cutie. In the end, befitting her natural charms, Hathaway keeps Catwoman chancy, but returns a whit of the Catwoman you'd maybe take home to Mom and Dad … maybe.

February 2014, DCComics writer Genevieve Valentine changed the bio again, exposing Selina's bisexualality. Catwoman #39 sees her retired and the Calabrese crime-family chief. Obviously, her panache is also retired: pixie cut, sensible heels, black pantsuit. Where's her flair? Hiding across town, it seems. In the Gotham shadows lurks another, younger dish waiting to sluice into the old catsuit: Eiko Hasigawa, heiress bred into the rival, Yakuza crime-family.

Usurping her identity and costume, Eiko strives to use Catwoman's persona for good: scotching the Yakuza's ill-deeds, and spying on Selina. Too much spying can lead to obsession though, and after some discourse on identity theft Selina and Eiko kiss. Not surprising, really, given Selina's history. Batman never fully fit the bill and every other man she's known has been a complete bastard, except Alfred. Where this storyline goes? Only Valentine knows.

"Will they dramatically implode? I mean, it’s comics, it could happen. But it will be a relationship," writer Valentine tempts.

Was that for me, or the suit?

-Eiko to Selina, après-kiss

The suit, Eiko. It's always the suit.

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Kids, you've spent time in Vegas and you understand the polar difference between Vegas at nighttime, and Vegas in the daylight. Vegas at nighttime is a wild, weird good time full of sensory overload from which it oft takes a good week to recover. Vegas in the daylight, notably the early-morning, is unnervingly tame. Depending on the state in which the previous night left you, daytime in the desert oasis can prove almost too serene, with nothing to distract you from the headaches, blurry vision and all those pix and oh-so-deep musings you wish you hadn't posted. Except for the inner panic of Who the hell's spurs are these?!, daytime Vegas air is clear, sound levels are blessedly stilled and the culling and deletion of most photos has proved successful, mostly.

If you've been suffering through San Diego's muggy, monsoonal vestiges this past week (Gracias, Hurricane Carlos), have patience; the discomfort is nearing its end. Although, today doled out some Virginia-style, late-afternoon, wicked summer thunderstorms. Of course, it's actually been better along the water, kids: currently 79 at Lindbergh Field with 73% humidity.

Cheers, kittens! As the SoCal comic convention season is in full-swing (You remember Wednesday's Bad Night at WonderCon, don't you?), my con cohort at Twisted Pair Photography and I are getting ready for San Diego Comic-Con 2015 (SDCC); in that process, we are partaking in a wee bit o' pre-con cavorting. Fortunately for us, Yours Truly has contacts; they might be in books, they might be in comics, they might be in beer. You don't know.

So, as it pertains to our most recent pre-conning, I have a query for you. What do the Library of Congress, IDW Publishing and San Diego Comic Art Gallery have in common? A vision of posterity, crackerjack curators, an historic backyard and a brewery within walking-distance. Two of these pip organizations have set up shop in a gloriously gorgeous San Diego community and, happily for all, they're both sitting pretty next to Stone Brewing beer garden.

Comics bulwark IDW, founded in 1999 by Ted Adams and Robbie Robbins, has grown so big in its britches, those britches have been let out to accommodate an 18K+ sq. ft. workspace in the posh yet chill, waterside neighbourhood of Point Loma. Think Range Rover-meets-Roxy, Brooks Bros-meets-Billabong, Nautica-meets-No Shirt, No Shoes, No Problem. Situated serenely along the San Diego Bay and America's Cup Harbor, housed in one of the original barracks at the Naval Training Center (NTC) at Liberty Station, the cavernous, 1921 Spanish Colonial Revival edifice makes great digs for a Vans-and-RayBans kind of entity like IDW.

Ushered in by Prohibition, 1920s San Diego was two-parts business, one-part good times. In 1921, the NTC commenced construction and by 1923 began rustling to life as a hive of naval activity. Having just come out of WWI, protection along the Pacific, offensive and defensive, seemed a good idea. Initially a training base for one-sixth of the U.S. Naval fleet, the compound soon came to house military classrooms, residential quarters, tactical training fields and everything the Pacific fleet needed to prepare for come what may. Come it did. By WWII's peak years, the NTC was home to more than 33K sailors. (I can't say the wartime Betties of San Diego had a problem with that!)

Today, the NTC is a far cry from its initial intentions. By the 1990s, Liberty Station was maneuvering away from military endeavours and into real estate. Now, it functions as a center for the arts, entertainment and business: retail, churches, beauty and wellness, hotels (Marriott, Hilton), golf (Loma Golf Club), leased office space, banking (Navy Federal Credit Union, natch), fitness, dining, culture, museums and so much more. What your great-grandfather saw as a campus for national secrecy and necessary aggression, you may now see as a weekend destination for Starbucks and SDCAG, SoCal Fly Fishing Outfitters and Capoeira Brasil (Ponytail! Ponytail!) or California Ballet and Sushi Mura. Cap off your jaunty day with a pint at Stone Brewing and a run for Longboard Chips and New Zealand water at Trader Joe's, and you've got the new normal at Liberty Station. It's like Sarah Jessica Parker took great-grandfather's Naval-issue peacoat and stuck a giant, pink, silk rose on the lapel. The original bones are still there, but now it goes better with a Zara cocktail dress than a mop and bucket, you know, for dancing and swabbing decks whilst belting out Fred Astaire-style nautical chanties with your fellow sailors.

That's a nice story, but what about IDW, Hannah?, the fair reader gently prods. To continue ...

Installed on the bottom floor of IDW's digs, in Barracks 3, the SDCAG opened to the public June 5th, 2015: "designed to educate and engage the local San Diego community and the region of Southern California with the sequential comic book and graphic arts". Owned-and-operated by IDW, the gallery houses an analog, research library (appt. only), artist-in-residence program (coming soon) and, for you Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT) aficionados, the Eastman Studio: a permanent installment of TMNT co-creator/artist Kevin Eastman's home studio and personal memorabilia collection. Throughout the year, SDCAG will install exhibits featuring a bevy of artists knee-deep in comic lore. The inaugural exhibit? Kevin Eastman and his TMNT.

With San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC) just around the corner, geographically and temporally, (San Diego Convention Center, July 9-12, 2015) IDW/SDCAG have positioned themselves smartly for a pop-culture, coming-out carousal. As the cosplayed hordes descend upon America's Finest City, they shall find that besides The Old Globe, S.D. Air and Space Museum, S.D. Museum of Art, S.D. Natural History Museum and Hooters (For a lot of you mooks it's the closest you're going to get to San Diego boob.), the S.D. Comic Art Gallery will serve many of your artistic, and geeky, needs. To serve those more primal needs in Maslow's Hierarchy, SDCAG is fortuitously located right next door to Stone Brewing World Bistro and Gardens: an 11K+ sq. ft., glass-stone-and-wood re-purpose of what used to be the NTC mess hall. Hello, sailor! Buy a girl a stout and some crispy Brussels sprouts?

On June 4, 2015, the night before their grand opening, IDW/SDCAG held a VIP event, to present the art gallery on a more intimate level to those closest to the effort. That night, along with Ménage à Trois and J. Lohr wines, an oh-so-hoppy IPA flowed generously, provided by Stone. It's just good fence-building, proffering beer to the new guy on the block.

Whether it's an Arrogant Bastard, a Double Bastard, a Crazy Ivan or a Border Psycho, a quaff of Stone is always a great mingling lubricant. So, just in time for San Diego's greatest mingling event, IDW/SDCAG and Stone Brewing Liberty Station are celebrating con-season with Hop-Con, the w00tstout Festival: "Our annual celebration of nth-degree beer geekery".

Launching Wednesday, July 8, 2015 (same night as SDCC Preview Night), if you jelly beans can swing $40-$100/person, you can drink-and-geek with Aisha Tyler, Wil Wheaton, Kevin Eastman and the upper echelon of Stone brewerdom. To boot, you can be of the first to imbibe the "2015 Stone Farking Wheaton w00tstout". Want more special beer? According to an inside source, there might be a Kevin Eastman/Kris Ketcham collaboration beer which might be called "Twisted Turtle w00tstout". (Call 619-269-2100 for more info. on advance tix and event specifics.)

But, Hannah, what about the Library of Congress?, you ask wearily and patiently. Allow me to elucidate  ...

In 1800, amidst legislation which would move our new country's capital from the progressively sophisticated Philadelphia to the swampy backwoods of Washington, America's second president John Adams (1797-1801) understood the dire need for a local, congressional reading room, research facilities and library for this new nation. Moving merrily along its way, August 1814 saw Adams' library come to a fiery end as the British set our Capitol aflame. (Good thing we're all friends now.) Upon this news, then-retired, third president Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809), and Adams' BFF, proffered his precious, voluminous, private library at Monticello as a replacement. Jefferson's collection and all that would be added to it over the years would become America's library: the Library of Congress.

Visionary like Jefferson and Adams, IDW/SDCAG understand that, even though the comic arts seem all too present and contemporary, at times even fleeting, wondering when this wild, geek, pop-culture rocket will free-fall back to Earth, history always needs a paper trail, even digital history. When tomorrow arrives, mankind always thanks those whom were ambitious enough to preserve the past. (Plus, if you've been watching Wayward Pines, you'll know that even in the year 4065, First Generation will need something to read. Why not Jem and the Holograms or Mr. Peabody & Sherman? Although, I would suggest against 30 Days of Night and Rot & Ruin. Those might be too realistic in WP.)

Adams, Jefferson, IDW and SDCAG also know America needs just the right word-nerd to curate the past and present, for the future. John James Beckley served as the first Librarian of Congress (1802-1807) under the Jefferson administration. In keeping with a national level of know-how, Harry L. Katz, former Head Curator of Prints and Photographs at the Library of Congress, will serve as the first curator of SDCAG. He now calls San Diego home. (Psst, Harry. The Starbucks at Liberty Station is a beautiful and breezy switch from the one you're probably used to at Seward Square. Still, it's hard to beat the small, window-table facing the streetlight on Penn. Ave., on a snowy D.C. morning. Enjoy our palm trees and ocean air, good sir!) Oh, breweries within walking distance of the LOC? A couple of Gordon Biersch, Capital City Brewing Co. and District Chophouse and Brewery. Yeah, D.C. is a far better walking-town than San Diego.

Kids, here's an insider's tip: San Diego is one hell of a town and you'll never grasp it in one long weekend. You can try though! Start by getting up early; you can sleep when you get home. Then, grab a quad shot over ice at Starbucks or Peet's and hit the terra-cotta tiles heading in any direction! If you're in town for Comic-Con, out for a sunny getaway from Beantown or the Big Apple, or if you're just a local doof like Moi looking for more stimuli than Big Steve's Comic Kitchen can give you, drop by the SDCAG, year-round. When you're done, treat yourself to a tantalizing brew in Stone's sunny, stony, garden bistro. It's your summer, kittens; do something fun with it.

Abyssinia on the Con floor, kittens!

Aside: A v special Thank You! to Denton Tipton and Rosalind Morehead at IDW, and Gary Sassaman at CCI, for a wonderful SDCAG opening event! Cheers to all!

Visit JennyPop every Con season for all of her Official SDCC Souvenir Book articles and full, Con coverage. w her fave, Con-cohort: Twisted Pair Photography shutterbug, Eslilay Evoreday.

Follow @JennyPop: Insta and Twitter for year-round geeky goodness and visit her Amazon Author Page

After-hours at any comic convention can get weird. Saturday night at WonderCon 2015 found our Wednesday Addams in quite the weird situation, indeed.

Like Waldo, something was missing, or at least hiding adeptly, this year at WonderCon Anaheim (WCA, Anaheim Convention Center April 3-5, 2015). Maybe something was amiss on the con floor: no behemoth media structures; no celeb sightings; no multi-screen overload; no roaming camera crews from the big-news outlets. Maybe something was amiss outside: no hordes of the gawking, general public, curious shutterbugs or looky-loos. Then again, maybe nothing was amiss and I misread the whole situation. Whatever occurred, as satisfying as WCA2K15 eventually turned out to be, something intangible was mislaid; and its absence left an energy-void, and not just for Yours Truly.