Purrrr-Fect Eartha by Kevenn T. Smith

This piece has been living in my head for a while now, demanding to be made.  Eartha Kitt, as a performer, thrills me.  I think our world is a suckier place since she passed away in 2008.  She is my second favorite live-action Catwoman.  (I have to cop to Michelle Pfeifer's psychologically driven performance in Batman Returns as my favorite.)  However, I think Eartha's Catwoman is the most fun and slinky Catwoman of all.  When Julie Newmar (whom I also loved) bowed out of the 60's Batman series in its third season, casting Eartha Kitt was a no-brainer.  Look at her album covers from the fifties and sixties - she already WAS Catwoman.  Eartha Kitt was a global citizen years before the rest of us started to get onboard.  She spoke four languages and sang in seven. 

She was the kind of celebrity that is becoming extinct - one with a truly individual voice, the likes of Bea Arthur, Phyllis Diller, Grace Jones, and Carol Channing.  Nowadays, vocal sounds are so homogenized.  There's rarely any character and distinction in a lot of the voices I hear in mainstream singers and celebrities.  I feel like everyone is too busy trying to be "hot" to be distinctive.  You can't tell me Eartha Kitt's voice wasn't hot.

This piece is after Eartha's 1957 cover of Norsk Dameblad magazine.  I chose red and leopard print for the background colors because Catwoman's lair in the Batman series had red drapery and a leopard print upholstered chair.  This illustration is available at my RedBubble.com store.
Eartha Kitt as Catwoman by Kevenn T. Smith
Pencil, ink, Photoshop
©Kevenn T. Smith 2012
Catwoman ©DC Entertainment 2012