Cat Claw (original) (raw)

CC HiSTORY

Script:Svetozar Obradovic (1), Slavko Dragimcic (4-8),Bane Kerac (2,3,9-44)

In 1981, the redaction of YU STRIP decided to enrich the content of the magazine with the comic which could have been close to the tradition of the American super heroes. There was the idea that there should be established the teams of script makers,pencilers and inkers. Out of all called authors, only two of them , Toza Obradovic and Bane Kerac, came up with three suggestions:GEA, as a match to Conan, meaning Red Sonya, CAT CLAW as female version of Spiderman and CYBORG like... well, the Terminator had not existed at that time. Bane did a couple of pages of each of the suggestions (pencil) and they were offered to Belgrade comic drawers to be the inkers. Moste of them, disgusted, refused the offer,and a half of them who accepted, never took the job seriously. The rest of them just were not able to take part in something like that. Well, if they had known that Cat Claw would be published in USA, France, Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Turkey... Finally, everything was up to Bane, who had already been working on Cobra (Cindy episodes), so two other super heroes had to be dumped. Cat Claw, being too close to Bane, who always liked John Romita Sr., the best drawer of Daredevil and Spiderman, had been chosen. The first episode (Bane Claws) had been made according to all Marvel's rules, including the appearance of Peter Parker on the bench in the park, but it soon came up that it was a dead end. Slavko Dragincic had tried to bring up some disorder into Sten Lee's clishe, but for his numerous obligations, could not accept the place of regular script man. Accepting the script as well, Kerac took the advantage to make everythig upside down. He did it in such a ration, that some of the readers could have understood Cat Claw as a parodyor spoof. Fortunately, most of them realised that Cat Claw was a simple super hero, neither better, nor worse than any other, but with a significant addition: already absurd superheroic situations were brought to even bigger absurdities. Simply said, nothing was sacred to Bane. He mixed up the genres, (common thrilers, soaps, horrors and SF), maliciously bringing the clishees to extremes ( slippery dying of Phil Fireball on Xtremity's hands); he made real Mac Sennet's commedy (chasing of Cat, Catminator, police, Helloween Gang and TV crew in City) just to work in the folloowing episode in the most serious comic in the world (dramatic uncover of Dr.Stein), to push in some character out of his private surroundings (his wife as TV reporter, marriage witness as a cab driver, colegue Igor Kordej, drawing Black the Rock, which is absolutely not joinable etc. He had also imagined some moronic onomathopeic sound effects (DUMUOKO - HITINTHEYE, RASPIZD - STROKEINTHEBALLS, TJORAAAK - MIIISSED! etc, flirted with music (Helloween, Eithne N'Bharonian), movies (Berthold Schwarzenberger) and other comics from Phantom, through Rip Kirby to Snoopy. The top of the uncritical stupidities is certainly the character of Cameron Hill (James Walter sounds foolish, doesn' t it?), who makes the joint of Bane himself and James RedHeat Belushi, and it had been made just to prevent Cat Claw to be fucked by somebody else (some kind of a parajelousnoya, or else!) . Bane had never avoided to infiltrate some of his temporary or permanent obsessions and to share them with the readers, laughing to them or to himself (most of the titles are grimaced and not distorted visions of well known movies, most of Clint Eastwood's, r'n'r songs and heavy metal albums. Pouring male chovinism into weird feminism in Cat Claw comic becomes regular and it makes laugh out both of them. Enough to make feminists look themselves as gentle housewives, and macho men don't even understand the scene where mad Cat Claw breaks balls to a "poor" raper. There is some of Bane's covered Vigilante nature (Eastwood-Bronson connection) but we honestly hope that the drawer won't start to dig into containers and climb over the roofs. The synopsis of the Cat Claw comc is rather simple. Caroline Connor, biology student, was scratched by the cat radiated by sygmatrone races (genial, isn't it?) so she became a girl who sees in the dark, she can use her claws, has proportionaly enlarged strenght, alwas jumps onto her Iwantout - o'boy long leggs and, probably, gets mad in February. Just to be different from other super heroes, who take their costumes as sacred thing, she tears her net (whoreish?) stockings and looses parts of her bikini costume in her battles (mostly upper than lower, but Bane still cares to keep her as an erotic, not hard core heroina). According to some opinions, characters who are around her are more interesting than Cat Claw herself. Doctor Bruce Baker (Eastwood again), the scientist who turns into a monster (genial, ain't it?), Lieutenant Battleball Bullet, hyphohondric policeman (intended to be like Jonah Jameson, but had much exceeded his pattern) potential rat and father of the reporter Phil Fireball who was supposed to be the anker for a potential comic "love story" but came up to be unsuccessfull Renate Roseblood (Xtremity) husband. She got her nickname according to her enormous breast "talent" and is the typical female negative charachter - she doesn't know what she want, but she wants it now! Berthold Schwartzenberger aka Catminator, temporarily Grgur the Monster, and permanent Xtremity's loverboy, who loves Cat Claw so much to kill her; Dr Sigismund Morse, Grgur's manufacturer and of a very few who got killed in this comic (even twice); Ninja Deathbringer, patological killer; Walter Schockley (Eastwood again!), Cameron Hill's boss, in fact a Celtic warrior and his children - druid Nicolas and warrior Eithne; Warlock, sorcerer whose task is to bring three 6 onto Earth; Ginnie Jones, weird Carol's roommate who illustrates a person who would be taken to bed straight away by a real man- the only brunete with a brain of blonde. Clive Carson -rather stupid and rather honest muscle bunch;frustrated student Steven, called Hawkeye alias Dr Stein and the rest of Helloweeners who got their names by the songs of HM band Helloween (Dr.Stein, Gorgar, Iwantout, Rise & Fall); Cameron Hill, a mixture of Dirty Harry Ridzik Detective and Sledge Hammer- meaning a public rowdy frustrated by a Micheline tyre taken around his waist and very unhappy if anybody has bigger than him (meaning gun), but as good inside as a baker's helper. Alsoo there are many well known faces and Bane's friends (Hermann Hupen barman, Sergio Argones - psycho, Ervin Rustemagic, the owner (what else could he be?) of the bar on the corner, Lena Ollmark, editor of Swedish magazine MAGNUM as mud wrestler, Sigbjom Stabursvik - editor of Norway MAGNUM , as Walhala mutant, Manfred Sommer, Paolo Eleuteri Serpieri, Jean Giraud, W.Axl Rose - a cup, Beavis and Butthead -drawn realistic, Ken Parker, Arnold Schwartzenegger as Donaldminator, Rob Halford of Judas Priest, La Bionda, Tank Girl, Lucky Lucke etc.

44th episode (Catsolute Power-Firecat, part IV) was made in 1995. For three years, Bane has been trying to face Cat Claw with Warlock. He even made a title of the album -CATMAGEDDON, so it seems that Cat won' t stay where she is now. Yugoslav readers have never had the oportunity to read the episoded RATSODY IN BLUE, CITY CAT, CATHATTAN and FIRECAT, which were made as classic albums og 46 pages, but who dares winns. There is a little hope that some of the publishers would deal with these four episodes, for old times sake

INDEX OF EPISODES

album#1 OTROVNE KANDZE/ BANE CLAWS

album #2 KRV NIJE MLEKO / THE GAUNTCAT

album #3 SIC! / THE GOOD, THE CAT & THE UGLY

album #4 CICMINATOR / CATMINATOR

album #5 CAT OR ALIVE

| 21 | EVERY WHICH CAT BUT LOOSE | | Septembar 1989. | 10 | | ------ | ----------------------------- | | ----------------------- | ------ | | 22 | DEATHBRINGER | | Oktobar 1989 | 10 | | 23 | CAT OR ALIVE | | 1-17/198318-20/1989 | 20 | | 24 | NO MILK TODAY! | | | 10 | | 25 | CAT-ACLYSM! | | | 10 | | 26 | HELL*S CAT | | | 10 | | 27 | CAT POOL | | | 10 | | 28 | THE FINAL CAT | | | 10 |

album #6 PACOVDIJA U PLAVOM / RATSODY IN BLUE

| 29 | CATING FOR TOMORROW | | Februar 1991 | 10 | | ------ | ------------------------------- | | ---------------- | ------ | | 30 | RAT CAT BLUE | | | 10 | | 31 | TWO FOOLS FOR SISTER CATTIE | | | 12 | | 32 | KITTEN IMPACT | | Jul 1991 | 14 |

album #7 OLUCARKA / CITY CAT

| 33 | KITTY HEAT | | Decembar 1991 | 14 | | ------ | ------------------ | | ----------------- | ------ | | 34 | CLAW DEAL | | Januar 1992 | 10 | | 35 | HELLOCAT | | Februar 1992 | 10 | | 36 | CLAW *EM HIGH | | April 1992 | 12 |

album #8 CATHATTAN

| 37 | CATTIE*S HEROES | | April 1993 | 12 | | ------ | -------------------- | | ------------------ | ------ | | 38 | CATSTREMITY! | | Jul 1993 | 10 | | 39 | CATTRICK! | | Septembar 1993 | 12 | | 40 | CATROPE | | Novembar 1993 | 12 |

album #9 FIRECAT

album#10 MACKAGEDON / CATMAGEDDON