As Batman leaves Gotham City behind, a new era for Catwoman begins in 2022, with Tini Howard and Nico Leon taking the helm on the iconic antihero's ongoing comic book series. Starting with January's Catwoman #39, Howard and Leon unleash Selina Kyle on a Gotham without its Dark Knight keeping a constant vigil. The legendary cat burglar is ready to shake things up. However, as Selina launches her big score, she finds a familiar foe from her past obstructing her bid to become the undisputed Queen of Gotham City.
In an exclusive interview with CBR, Howard and Leon teased what fans can expect from their upcoming run, including their influences for crafting Catwoman's latest adventure. The creative team promised they will challenge Selina in new and interesting ways. Also included with this interview is a preview from Catwoman #39, written by Howard, drawn by Leon, colored by Jordie Bellaire, and lettered by Tom Napolitano. Also included is Catwoman #39's standard cover by Jeff Dekal and its variant cover by Jenny Frison.
Tini, Nico, how did the opportunity to take the helm on Catwoman at the start of the year come about?
Tini Howard: I wanted to find something to really focus on and put my heart into whatever my next project was. As much as I loved what I've been working on the past few years, I had my heart open to a lot of things and other projects coming down the line. [Editor] Jessica Chen gave me a call and she laid out that she and the editorial team over there wanted to know if I was interested in working on the character, and I immediately started pitching. [laughs] I had been thinking about Batman Returns and I had the realization that, because of that movie and watching those movies as a little kid, I think Catwoman was probably the first female comic book character that I ever knew: this was before I read comics. So it was pretty cool!
Nico Leon: I got an email from Jess Chen and, like Tini, I really related to the movie because I'm from Argentina originally and comic books weren't really a thing in Argentina. When I was a kid, they were super-expensive so you really needed to be rich to read comic books so you really got superheroes from the movies. For me, when I think about superheroes, I think about movies and cartoons from that time, and with [Batman Returns] it was really exciting.
Catwoman lends herself so well to noir, perhaps more than the other Batman-adjacent characters and this is an atmospheric opening issue in that regard. How was it leaning into noir in the scripting and visuals?
Howard: One of the things I talked to Jessica about the story really early on was that I wanted to not necessarily make Selina a darker person. I wanted to keep her the same person, but I really wanted the chance to explore a lot of the darkness in dealing with crime and criminals in the city, which is something that she's always had her claws in. I don't make Selina a dark, evil bad girl, I want to make her who she is. I'm not precious with female characters because I am a woman and I know how hard we are. I like writing a female character and putting her in a situation that's deadly, dangerous, and where she's underestimated and can make the world of that real.
I love crime and mafia stories and am a huge Scorsese fan. I particularly love the women in his films and that's something I've gone back to a lot in writing this arc. I love those stories and part of why I love them is they're passionate and there's a lot of darkness in them, in the sense that they don't pull their punches. I didn't want to pull punches towards Selina. I didn't want to take the approach of making her a darker person doing dark things to the world. She herself has a dark sense of humor, which I love about her, but she's very much her own woman with her own moral compass. I wanted to put her in a really rough, dark world up against some real stuff.
A big way to lean into that, for me, was to pull from the stories I love which are crime and noir stories. I am an absolutely huge lover of the Ed Brubaker and Darwyn Cooke Catwoman run and it's pure noir almost. I was very influenced Brubaker and Cooke and the mafia stories I loved -- everything from 1930s detective stories from Raymond Chandler to gangster stories set in the 1960s and '70s that Scorsese was making to more modern stuff like The Sopranos and Catwoman runs I've read. Brubaker and Cooke and Genevieve Valentine and Garry Brown, which I nod to a lot. Noir is a really good way to make a dark setting while keeping your character a morally strong person.
Leon: Noir is very interesting. I like that approach because noir is about contrast. A character like Catwoman in this series, with this approach that we're taking, will have a lot of contrast. Not just in the art but, in order to show the complexity of the character, those layers of light and dark show her moods and make her belong to the city. When you're walking through the streets at night and a black cat appears, it feels like it comes out of nowhere. I wanted this to have that feeling, that [Catwoman] is connected to the city and part of it and Gotham is a character in this book.
A lot has happened to Gotham lately, from "Joker War" to "Fear State." What did you want to bring to the city, especially after everything that's transpired recently?
Howard: Without getting into too many spoilers, there's a lot of fun to be had with the timing of Bruce Wayne being gone, and we're having fun with that. Not just "when the bat's away, the cat will play," but in more moral, societal, and personal implications for these people that know [Bruce], like Selina, very well. I think the timing is really perfect and enables us to do a lot with the city and tell a story we really want to tell.
I have to commend Nico, he's doing exactly what he says he wants to do which is, when Selina comes to Gotham, it feels like it bends around her. It feels like it's hers, especially with Batman gone. It feels good to have her move through that space with an artist like Nico, it feels like the city just terraforms when she walks through it.
With a character and world as iconic as Catwoman and Gotham City, what did you personally want to bring to them?
Leon: In Spanish, we literally call Gotham the "Gothic City" and when I really think about it, I think about Gothic art and architecture. I really wanted to bring that to Gotham. For example, in Batman Returns, Tim Burton really brought that atmosphere to the city. You really feel it's dangerous in a really creepy way. You feel in your gut that you don't want to walk alone at night and that's what I wanted to bring, to make it as the most Gothic as I can. I've been studying a lot of Gothic architecture to bring to the series.
Howard: I totally agree. I've been a fan of Gotham City for a very long time. It's very special to me to be here. Part of that appeal, as a kid, I liked shiny, black suits and Gothic architecture. I thought that was beautiful. I'm also a very big fan of Grant Morrison's work on Batman, that whole run. I think there's a chaos to Morrison's Gotham that really connected with me. There's a sense that this whole city has energy running through it that's what makes people mad and turn into killer clowns, rob banks all the time and shoot wealthy people in an alleyway. Something about it just makes you crazy.
I always loved Morrison's Gotham because when they worked on it with Frank Quitely, a favorite artist of mine, it really felt that way. It felt like Morrison and Quitely agreed how crazy this city was. I love working with Nico because we agree on what Gotham feels like. The first time we seriously talked, I was just thrilled, I love working with him. [laughs] He really gets it and I feel confident that we're telling the same story. Even when we give each other notes, we're not working against each other, we're working towards the same thing.
To that point, how is it working together, along with Jordie Bellaire on colors and Tom Napolitano on letters?
Leon: I really love this team. I've been working in the industry for six or seven years and I never felt like a team works like how this team works. It feels more than the sum of its parts, we talk about it and the book feels like it's flowing and changing as we're making it. I really love the dynamics of the group. I'm really happy.
Howard: We're very collaborative. I think that the best vibe in really collaborative spaces is really low ego. Part of how you make good work is when people's egos are low but their love for something that they're working on is high. I love how Nico is so bold about notes because I've worked with artists, especially in work-for-hire situations, who are working very hard but are just drawing the script. That's their job and they're doing a great job but when you embark on a new project with a new character, it's really exciting to have an artist who is also a storyteller.
Nico and I are telling this story and I feel really strong about that and Jordie is one of the best colorists in the industry. We've all gotten into the nitty-gritty about so many things about this book because we can and we open it up to see what we can do that's weird and different and feels like Selina's Gotham because it is.
I hesitate to use phrases like "Selina is going to be in over her head" or she'll be "punching above her weight" because she's so confident and competent but what can you tease about the start of your Catwoman run?
Howard: Whenever I sit down to write a book, it has to be a new approach. I can't do what someone else has done but we're all influenced endlessly by everything we've read. I don't think your urge to use those metaphors is wrong because we are going to challenge Selina. We're going to put her in a rough spot. I don't think she'd be happy if we went easy on her because she likes a challenge so we're going to give her one. I've never felt so much in my life like a character I was writing. I just feel that in my heart and want to scream it from the rooftops: that is very exciting. It also makes it very scary to see what people are going to say about it! [laughs] My heart is in that book in a big way.
Leon: I really enjoy this book and will like people to read it because I know there's a lot of people that are going to enjoy this. There's a lot of energy you can feel in the book and its flow feels really nice, not just because I'm part of the team, but it's a book I'd really enjoy reading and I'm very happy about that!
Written by Tini Howard and illustrated by Nico Leon, Catwoman #39 goes on sale on Jan. 18 from DC Comics.