Feline Fatales
The relationship between sultry women and comic books has always been tight. Explanations for this phenomenon vary, but the results are tangible: Attending this weekend’s Planet Comicon comic book convention are both Julie Newmar, the original Catwoman from the classic 1960s Batman show, and local pinup painter Jennifer Junesko.
Three decades have passed since Newmar played Catwoman. She has played plenty of other roles, but generations of Batman fans consider this Catwoman the only one — even though other actresses have tried to fill her suit. “I almost made the costume myself,” she says. “I knew how to fit costumes and make them look wonderful. The costume I had only fit me … it was like pouring melted licorice around my body.” (Scot Stolfus, a clerk at Kansas City’s Clint’s Comics, echoes her sentiment: “Nobody filled out that cat suit like she did.”)
In one of Newmar’s favorite scenes, she walked across a rooftop to find Batman and Robin tied down on the ground. She could, she recalls, do her will with them. Looking back on that scene, she still gets a few triumphant laughs from the feeling she remembers as “lightweight wickedness.”
Newmar made an impression on Junesko, whose paintings have been printed in such magazines as Playboy and Maxim. The artist remembers watching Newmar on Batman and “thinking she was so powerful. She was always so aggressive. You rarely saw women portrayed that way.”
As a pinup painter, Junesko has given consideration to the view that her type of artwork objectifies women. She disagrees. “I see contemporary strong women as women who recognize sexuality and sensuality as parts of humanity…. By no means do I believe that’s the entire essence of a woman, but that’s the part I want to explore.” She adds, “Fantasy is a nice escape from reality sometimes.”
Newmar is looking forward to meeting Junesko at the convention, which brings together pop culture figures, comic book artists and fantasy genre artists, as well as fans of all of the above. “It’s marvelous,” explains the feline fatale, “to give people a lift from washing the dishes and paying the bills. It’s an escape from the drudgery.”
