Spider-Woman 9

Spider-Woman #9 unpublished cover art by Infantino/Lealoha. Here's a note about this issue from Wolfman: "In point of fact, I created the character [Black Cat] to appear in Spider-Woman. Everyone always asks writers where we get our ideas. The standard answer is "from everywhere." And that's true. I sometimes think the major difference between a professional writer and others is that when we see something that strikes us as interesting, we immediately try to figure out how to use it, whereas others just watch and enjoy. It may rob us of some of that enjoyment factor, but that's the way the mind works. At least the way my mind works. Anyway, I was trying to come up with a new villain for Jessica Drew...and was watching an old Tex Avery cartoon called Bad Luck Blackie. BLB is about a black cat who causes bad luck to everyone whose path it crosses. As with most Tex Avery cartoons, it's hilarious and the jokes keep building and building long after other animators would have stopped. So, I'm watching the cartoon and thinking that this black cat bad luck concept might make for a good villain. As I was writing Spider-Woman at the time, I decided to put the character into that book. For Spider-Woman the Black Cat was going to be mysterious. She would wear a slouched hat and a long skirt, a very 40s style femme fatale. I had a lot of problems writing the Spider-Woman comic, never much enjoyed the book and I had trouble making her special, finding a way to make the book distinctive, so I kept trying to come up with more and different ideas, very few of which I think worked. Anyway, I had a cover drawn... and was about to plot out the story when I decided to quit the title. As I say, I was never happy with the stories I was doing." MarvWolfman.com January 31, 2006