written/drawn by Bane Kerac
Yugoslavia, 1981 - 1995 (?)
Best described as: Russ Meyer goes drinking with Stan Lee while they listen to heavy metal and watch re-runs of Sledge Hammer and the Toxic Avenger.
As I see it, there's a huge cultural pipeline connecting Europe and America, metaphorically speaking. The drawback is that the majority in that pipeline seems to flow from America to Europe, with only a tiny fragment flowing in the opposite direction. The estimated causes for this could probably be the subject of later article, but let's just say that : There's a lot you yanks are missing out on.
Take, for example, Cat Claw. Originally appearing in the Yugoslavian YU STRIP, it slowly gained distrobution in Germany, France, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Turkey, and even two short years in USA before Yugoslavia spontaneously self-fragmented into the mess we know from CNN, and it was...let's say "put on hold".
Dammit.
It was originally concieved as a super-hero comic in the American Marvel/DC (*cough* Can you say rip-off? *cough*), but it gained a life of its own as it progressed.T he story in itself was a run-of-the-mill story of an unfortunate female biology student, Carol Conner, that happens to be scratched by a cat radiated by an experimental ray. A Very marvel-esque origin this, and Peter Parker, or something incredibly similar to him (*cough* copyright violation *cough*), actually makes a cameo appearance in the first issue.
You can look at it this way; Cat Claw starts out as something that Marvel could have published, both in terms of storylines and art, and slowly diverts from the marvel ideal as time passes. If you pick up one of the later stories, you will very soon find out it would be a cold day in hell before Marvel would publish that kind of comics.
One reason would be all the nudity that appears. Bane Kerac, the creator of Cat Claw, is a perfectly normal man, and as such, has a certain affinity for drawing semi- and fully-naked women in more or less detailed distress. Our poor heroine has this tendency to end up with her costume ripped to shreds every so often, and her ortagonists often suffer even worse fates. Most notably the descriptively named Extremity, who ... well... I think you know what I am alluding to.
The nudity does not detract from the artistical quality of the stories. Because that would be impossible, since you have the feeling that Cat Claw spends every other scene poking fun of the reader, the medium and itself. It pushes every clichee you know to the limit and beyond, yet you can't help smiling. You can't shake the feeling that Cat Claw is a spur-of-the-moment work, and Bane Kerac has admitted that he's prone to including just about anything that pops up in his deranged yugoslavian mind, even going as far as basing the characters on friends and family members. He has yet to reveal who was the model of "Extremity", also known to you and me as "the former stripper, now villian with the huge knockers that ends up being unintentionally naked a lot". Somehow, I have a fleeing notion who was the model for Gerhard Schwartzenberger, aka the Catminator. Not to forget Cameron Hill, who is really the transcribed personality of Bane Kerac himself.
The soundeffects deserves a paragraph of their own. Kerac threads the fine line between moronically onomathopeic and quite cool with this transcribed serbian words, substituting the normally seen BAM!, THUD! and KA-BOOM! with things like DUMUOKO (HITINTHEYE), RASPIZD (STROKEINTHEBALLS), TJORAAAK (MIIISSED). For the record, I think it was a blast and surely an improvement over the industrial standard of comic-approved sound effects (TM).
When reading Cat Claw, there's this feeling as if a small man would poke you on the shoulder each time you finish a page, saying "oi, you're not taking this seriously, are you? Come on, superheroes? They don't exist, any more than that arch-nemesis with the big boobies and the mad scientist with his pet monster. Read this story, have a laugh, then put it away and return to real life." I think this is why I still enjoy it so much, more than fifteen years after I first discovered it.
It IS wild. It IS over-the-top. It's camp and kitch and it has no deeper meanings at all. But it's amusing. And that goes a long way.
Recommended? Hell, yeah. If you don't like it, you should have your sense of humour surgically re-attached.
http://members.tripod.com/~ivarman/
http://bkerac.tripod.com/catclaw/indexeng.html
http://members.tripod.com/~bkerac/indexeng.html