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Oh ChrisDee! Pleeeeeease post soon and reveal what Superman did in New Zealand!!!!!!!!!! I know begging is unseemly and something any cat is (a) above and (b) will ignore no matter how much you want that cat to get off your book so you can read, but being left hanging always makes me throw dignity away.

So, yeah - excellent chapter!

Also, I had no more idea than Superman what Mozart's Dice Game was and was intrigued to see, along with a description of the mucial dice game online, a comment that made me think Riddler and Mozart are two of a kind:


There is no doubt that the process is effective - an (almost) infinite number of waltzes can be generated, and each one has the distinct sound that is attributed to Mozart. ... It is also disappointing to realize that, while each generated new work does have its subtle differences, nothing extraordinary or excitingly new will ever be produced. This is mainly because Mozart has composed the phrases to follow a strict harmonic structure that remains unchanged in every new generation. The reason that he has done this is obvious - it is the easiest way to guarantee that each generation will sound correct (however this does come at the cost of spontaneity). As well as the realization that Mozart made things easy for himself by enforcing this rigid harmonic structure on the phrases he composed, I was heartened to discover that such a great composer could be accused of "cheating" a little, and of "cutting corners".

The lack of spontanity and adhernece to a rigid structure sounds an awful lot like RIddler to me. And the cheating. Let's hope Riddler doesn't end up in a paupers' grave as well.

From A Midsummer's Night Dream:

"In this same interlude it doth befall
That I, one Snout by name, present a wall;
And such a wall, as I would have you think,
That had in it a crannied hole or chink."

Riddle Me Tropolis was a fun read on many levels, but what I really loved was how Chris Dee obviously had a lot of fun toying with the fourth wall.

It struck me in this addition to the Cat Tales collection that it seemed Chris Dee strode across the top of the fourth wall as nimbly as any cat burglar, and then, from that vantage point, curiously peered into the DC world(s) on one side and our world on the other, and proceeded to take whatever struck her fancy from both sides, without any worries about what is "allowed" or "copyrighted." In a word: "pfft."

It's hard to tell whether this is the comic book world with elements of our own thrown in, or our world that just happens to have crime fighters and villains added on. The truth is this is purely Chris Dee / Catwoman's world - which means that it is whatever she wants it to be. This is a world with Superman, The Daily Planet, Bruce Wayne, Catwoman, kryptonite and STAR Labs. It's also a world with Teri Hatcher, Heroes, George Lucas, CNN, the Aqua Teen Hunger Force and Catherine Zeta Jones's ass. Chris Dee makes the two worlds mesh seamlessly in a way I doubt very few others could.

At first glance this seems almost trivial, but take a good look at the DC movies, cartoons and comic books and you see a decided lack of objects and people from our world, replaced with generic store brands to avoid any licensing issues. In the movies Bruce Wayne is on the cover of Timely rather than Time, in the cartoons Superman gets breaking news from a non copyrighted group of letters rather than CNN, and in the comics Dick Grayson will never get back from patrol and pour himself a bowl of Count Chocula - it will be something like Chocolate Flakes or Duke Chocalty.

These trademark avoidances jars the viewer a little bit, a little ping that momentarily shakes you out of suspicion of disbelief and disrupts the story's flow. Chris Dee says "pfft" to that and blends together fact and fiction flawlessly. Also, it's a lot more fun to read the real thing than to put up with the quickly tiresome coyness that writers, animators and film directors use to imply but never come out and say when dealing with real life factors.

The total awesome blend of fact and fiction gets to the point in Chris Dee's stories where I wouldn't be surprised to see Selina reading the Arts and Entertainment section of the Gotham Times and see an article stating that "Joss Wheadon, citing creative differences, has walked away from scripting a bio-pic about the life and times of Wonder Woman."

So yeah, this story was a lot of fun to read. But then! But then Chris Dee decides to really have fun with a little dress up:

Chicago more or less plays herself here. The city is treated as a character in her own right, and rightly so. The Chicago museums, restaurants, theaters, history, cuisine, buildings and skyline all gamely come along for the ride, all needing only the slightest of tweaks to look right on stage. Gotham/New York has long been a character in previous tales and now Chicago gets to join in as Metropolis - "the city of tomorrow."

The Chicago World's Fair of 1933 with its emphasis on Art Deco structure, new inventions and theme of "progress" probably had an influence on many of the writers of the Golden Ages of Comics when they had to create backgrounds for their heroes. Most of this story's description of Metropolis read as little thank you notes to Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel - the original fanboys who gave us Superman. We see a main road named the Joe Shuster, and Wrigley Field is here renamed Siegel Field.

The New York versus Chicago style pizza debate becoming the Metropolis versus Gotham style pizza debate was a delightful background detail, and one of the funniest parts of Riddler's rant. As for Riddler's complaints about the amount of meat thrust upon him - Eddie, darling, you've moved to the city that pretty much invented modern beef in all it's artificially enhanced glory. Didn't you ever read Upton Sinclair's The Jungle? Poor Eddie - although I have to question the brain power of a man who chose the same as hiding place as the luckless prisoner in His Girl Friday.

Then in the party scene - the "Attention Criminals Who Want Our Stuff, We're Having A Party" Party" as Catwoman points out, Chris Dee lets her characters take over the fourth wall narration. Catwoman seems to quite enjoy perching on the fourth wall and pointing out the ludicrousness of this type of event which is repeated endlessly in all mediums with never a lesson learned as socialites, museums, and charity events insist on draping themselves in stealable objects, doing everything but sending an actual card to the villains inviting them to crash the party. Meanwhile Batman points out that, as villains go, mind controlling starfish are pretty lame. And Perry gets to a rant a little about our side of the world, namely the war against nicotine and caffeine. Poor Perry. I hope we get to see him later and find out if he develops any coping strategies.

Then, after all the excitement of Metropolis, we come back to Gotham and find out that Bruce and Selina can't turn their backs on the Bat-family for a few hours without the Iceberg burning down and Robin landing himself in a hospital with no policies for capes. And we still don't know what happened when Superman went to New Zealand, which is really bugging me. Plenty of threads left hanging here to be look forward to next time!

So, in short, Chris Dee - you rock.