In looking for more Cass news this morning, just a smidgen, just a dab, a dot, a teensy, tiny piece of anything-- like that little mouse in the classic Chuck Jones adaptation of Dr. Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas, who sniffs the last remaining crumb before a fuzzy green hand with sharply pointed fingers like Winsor-Newton sable-haired brushes comes into the frame and plucks it away-- I found a review of Adam Beechen's Batgirl: Redemption Road trade collection. The critic goes into some character analysis I skimmed and found intriguing. Unfortunately, I don't have time to read it in detail right now. We'll discuss it at a later date.
But what makes this Cass newsworthy is down in the comments we can see Cass Fan #1 Nathaniel get into a discussion with none other than Adam Beechen himself. Nathaniel and I have had our qualms about Beechen's Cass characterization for years and with Redemption Road in particular. I haven't had time to pick over their give and take, either, but from a quick scan it's very congenial and full of a lot of enlightening info that will probably help me fill post after post here at Cass-O-Rama.
It's an impromptu interview you as a Cass fan simply must read. Yes. Required reading. I just need some leisure time to give it my full attention and draw more conclusions other than Beechen shows an amazing amount of good humor and puts an awful lot of thought into his responses, especially when you consider how reviled his writing of Cass has been over the years.
One of my favorite things is when two people disagree and discuss said disagreement in a completely rational, friendly way. I'm not very good at it. I'm a bit too... shall we say... passionate. So as a frothing-at-the-mouth loony, it's neat for me to see their ideas batting together like colorful helium balloons at a party rather than like two boxers slugging it out inside the square circle and all those tough guy cliches.
Have I grown up? Or has this whole getting married thing softened me? I'm like Cass when she first learned to understand spoken language and it fritzed up her fighting skills! Oh no!
Yeah, I just can't really be mad at Adam Beechen anymore. I don't like his writing and I fundamentally disagree with basically all his ideas about Cass and her dad, but he's a guy that's willing to engage with ornery fans and patiently explain his ideas without seeming overly defensive, which I'm not sure most comic writers could do. Back in the day I thought he was part of a grand conspiracy to ruin Cass, but now I think he really did feel like he was doing right by the character. He just has a reading of the character that it irreconcilable with mine (and I guess most other fans').
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you liked the exchange. I felt kind of bad for being so negative in my first comment when he actually showed up...
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DeleteIt's tough being a critic. On one hand, you want to write punchy, interesting critiques. On the other, sometimes the writer or artist actually shows up and then you feel like a heel. That happened to me a while back. I still feel my fundamental criticisms were valid, but I felt like an ass for pointing them out when the professional in question was so genuinely concerned I hadn't enjoyed his work.
DeleteAdam Beechen is much better at PR than the company he works for. I'm as guilty as anyone for giving him flak over writing I didn't like. Like you, I truly appreciated his lack of defensiveness. That was one takeaway from my brief reading of it. Definitely need to go back and read and write about it at length in the future. And also, yeah, I think it's more a matter of irreconcilable differences than anything else. He has his take and we have ours. I do believe ours to be more interesting and valid, but I absolutely wish Beechen all the best on his other books and projects!
How magnanimous of me, huh?
And I did think his comment a while back about Cass fans stealing his bicycle was hilarious. We deserved that shot.
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