But I mean, this is the thing that's kind of really, I think, brought your attention to more of the mainstream.

dream come true what's your reaction how's it been yeah it's it surpassed my wildest dreams i mean i've always held gotham and the characters of gotham um very close to my heart um but yeah i think the thing that makes it really special is just being on this journey with scott you know working with him since Dark Spaces at IDW, and then growing into, and stepping into the very big shoes of writing Catwoman and writing Selina Kyle in a way that, and reimagining her in a way that I felt like really spoke to me and I was hoping would speak to audiences, and it absolutely did.

There are people who have come to signings, to conventions to tell me, you know, I don't know much about the mainline Catwoman, but this one I really love and she really speaks to me.

And it's a way, there are people who, this is their first Absolute book, and it truly has been across the board love.

And I can't say that I expected that.

I thought, you know, with Absolute being so big, there were enough people to be kind of on the other side of things, but it has been a unanimous love fest and I could not be happier.

It makes me feel really indebted to the fans and the readers.

So, you know, leaning on him for advice, kind of a mentor-mentee relationship?

How is that collaboration working? Are you kind of doing a plot outline with him and then you're just going in and putting all the fine details and everything?

Yeah, so something that's really nice, and I see Scott as kind of the architect of the absolute universe.

And so what I will do is I have, you know, ideas in mind of what I want.

You know, we had already decided, before it was announced, you know, what the story would be, what we wanted Selena to kind of, where we wanted her to start, where we wanted her to end.

Like we want this character, we want you to see her change in these six issues and kind of come to a new realization by the end of it, because something that is different from the other books is Selena is the first proper spinoff.

She was introduced in Absolute Batman 13.

But she's also not a self-proclaimed hero, not even necessarily a self-proclaimed like renegade in any sense of the word, where all of her motivations are very much internal, you know, and she's taking the external world and the external issues and saying, I'm fighting this battle for me.

Do you think that's one of the reasons why everybody who's coming in to the creative side of this is just having fun and doing so well? Because you're bringing like an independent spirit to it, like that creator-owned spirit.

And a lot of the characters, the calicos, the copycats, um holly represent broken female friendships and then because of absolute batman 13 we know she also she has had a history of having kind of like a posse and a tight friend group and so i i would love for you to talk a little bit about what it's been like for selena maintaining friendships while also trying to get this like batman level of wealth

Yes, yes.

I think that this is very much not your typical...

I think what's nice about it is it's not your typical origin book.

So the present is taking place concurrent with the events of the absolute universe, which is fabulous, right? Like, she takes the Bane toxin, she flies off, and she's living this life in London concurrent with everything that's been going on back in Gotham.

But the past... has a lot to do with the friendship she had, the reason she lost them, and the reason she chose to leave them in the past.

And so we can talk spoilers.

You've touched on it a little bit already, but I'd love to know how you're managing that as you're writing.

Is, is that the case?

That's absolutely the case.

I grew up with movies being a really huge, movies and books being a really huge part of my life.

I grew up around the corner from a Blockbuster.

I would go to Blockbuster every weekend and rent, I had like the three rentals at a time and just get three, watch them, get another three, watch them.

And my favorite genre is horror, like horror full stop, but just genre in general.

And I grew up with comic adaptations being some of the best and not, you know, best in terms of, oh, so elevated, but just in terms of getting us to think about the medium through another medium because I grew up with Burton's Batman and I grew up with Raimi's Spider-Man.

How did you build out the story? Was there a hook you needed to find in there, or was the hook just Selina?

Mm-hmm

... as you probably got from the opening pages, and say, you know, "This is me, um, and I'm, I make no apologies for it." And, and so I, I think for me, having that where her, her goal is, and something that really spoke to me, is this Selina Kyle cares less about what she's stealing and more about what's been taken from her.

And so the kind of subversion for this Selina is, uh, being on the other end of it, of, like, she learned to be a thief because she understood all of the things, all of the resources that are taken from her and people like her, and her response to that and how she became who she is because of that.

And so it was a complete reframing of why Selina Kyle and Catwoman does what she does.

[laughs]

... you know, who wants who and, and, um, yeah, we just check in.

And working with Scott is, has been a real dream.

I worked with him...