In the Katie the Catsitter series, written by Colleen AF Venable and illustrated by Stephanie Yue, Katie is an average twelve year old who starts cat sitting for her enigmatic neighbor Madeline’s 217 cats. But it turns out Madeline has a secret: she’s really the “supervillain” Moustress! And in the latest and fifth volume of the series, Katie the Catsitter: Villain Con, Katie and her mother attend a supervillain convention at Coney Island.
Comics Beat caught up with Colleen and Stephanie over Zoom to ask all about their collaborative process, about the details of Villain Con and about what’s in store for Katie in the next volume of the hit series.
This interview was edited for clarity and length. Please note that it does contain spoilers for Katie the Catsitter: Villain Con.
AVERY KAPLAN: For readers who might not yet be familiar with the book, can you give us a quick recap?
COLLEEN AF VENABLE: I did just re-read it this morning, because I haven’t read it since I wrote it years ago!
In the last book, at the very end, we find out that Madeline realizes that a lot of the changes she’s trying to make are not sticking. And in order to make real chance, she’s going to try to become Mayor of New York. So this book is essentially her trying to run for Mayor of New York.
Meanwhile, the actual mayor – the kind of crappy mayor – more than kind of – he has banned heroes from the city. So, there’s no hero activity happening. Katie and her friends are helping Madeline with her campaign…
But at the same time there’s the angst because all of Katie’s friends decide they want to go to this special arts school for eighth grade. And she doesn’t want to go, so she’s trying to decide, “Do I want to do theater? Do I want to do music?” And you can tell she doesn’t want to do anything.
So that’s the major plot: the mayoral campaign and this angst of, “Are all my friends going to be together and leave me?” And at the same time, they find out about Villain Con, which happens at Coney Island every year. So, Katie and her mother sneak into Villain Con and find out more about what the villains in New York City want, and what they do on their time off. It’s mostly just some trust falls, but like, don’t trust them for that part.
So, Steph got to draw a million weird villain costumes and some new villains.
STEPHANIE YUE: Some goofy villains, yeah.
AVERY: How have your creative and collaborative processes evolved since the first Katie the Catsitter book?
STEPHANIE: This is an interesting one, because I think Colleen trusts me with a lot. There will be a very short description, and it’s pretty freeing that Colleen just says, “You’ll handle it.”
COLLEEN: I used to panel it out a bit more, and I still break it down by panels, but it’s always rough. “If you think there’s a better way, go for it.”
I think we’ve both gotten faster and slower, in a certain way. This one was a tricky script to write. This one was one of those ones that took lots of drafts. But when we got it… I am so happy with this one, and then I feel like Steph nailed it. There weren’t that many art notes, it was like, “Yes!” This one was a delight.
I always feel bad because I always talk about loving books three and five best. Nothing against books two and four! But I feel like we hit our stride in those two the best.
STEPHANIE: I’m trying to remember if this is the one where I skipped the thumbnailing process entirely – I think I might have just gone directly to pencils. I actually don’t remember if it was book four or book five that we started that. But it did feel like, because I’m familiar with the pace now, and how the characters are drawn… I’ve been doing it for a while, so.
COLLEEN: And the same things that were hard were still hard. I think we have the most trouble, like, both of us saying, “It’s a robot! What does a robot look like?”
STEPHANIE: The robots are still my Achilles heel.
COLLEEN: Luckily there’s only one. So, we’re still leaning into our strengths. More cats, less robots.
KAPLAN: Villain Con explores many themes and subplots. Do you feel one theme in particular is particularly central to the story?
COLLEEN: The timing of when I was writing it… I was writing it during the last election, when a particular Black woman did not win. It felt very cathartic. And actually – I’m spoilering – the original ending didn’t have Madeline winning. And my editor, Shana Corey, said, “You need to change the ending.”
And I’ve actually had parents write to me and say, “Hey, I was about to pick up the new book, but I need to know if Madeline wins before I start reading it.”
STEPHANIE: Super interesting, because that’s a peek into a revision I didn’t see. When I read the manuscript that I received, Madeline is mayor by the end of it. And that one panel – again, spoilers – the one double-page spread where everyone is voting and you get to see all the different characters – I was like, “This is the ‘moment that you cry’ spread.’”
COLLEEN: I also like that spread because all the characters you see, it’s not random people – they’re all from the book. But some of them are characters who appeared in one scene, some of them are characters you know really well.
Beth voting with her mother was a really important thing, because I don’t know about you, but I used to go vote with my mom and watch her… That was back when they had the manual voting equipment and they would close the curtains. But I know kids voting with their parents is a thing.
STEPHANIE: I think thematically it felt like, “Yes, democracy, we can do this.” Despite at the time things feeling much more chaotic.
COLLEEN: And Beth’s mother is going through a really bad depression because she’s a hero and now heroes are banned, so she’s basically in pajamas the entire book. I think one of Steph’s most delightful things in this book is how big Mrs. Tinoco’s hair gets as she doesn’t shower. Every time we come back to her, it’s bigger.
STEPHANIE: I enjoy drawing Mrs. Tinoco.
COLLEEN: Politics is a big theme. But I think that probably the big theme or the takeaway is that there isn’t much of a line between heroes and villains. You find out that all of these villains are – with the exception of one guy named Steve who’s just a jerk – they’re all villains because they wanted to change something and they didn’t know how to change it.
So it’s all about being able to figure out ways to make change, and that’s the same thing with Katie – she’s trying to figure out, does she want to go to this school where all her friends are going, or does she want to go to this other school – kind of known as a villain school, but I think I am actually more interested in science than I am the performing arts.
So the graying of the line between hero and villain is a central theme throughout the series, but I think it hits the hardest in this one.
KAPLAN: Was it important to write a story about how heroics do not always align with the goals of authority figures?
COLLEEN: Oooh. Yes. Not everybody in government is delightful, not everybody has the best intentions. It’s almost like people like being in power more than they like actually helping people.
RepKyle is one of my favorite new characters. I think his first name was “Amphib-Ian” and Steph said, “Not an amphibian.” But RepKyle is an even better name. He’s fighting for the middle class, because he says, “You only do things that help rich people or tourists.” He says it more eloquently, with less verbs.
But it’s pointing out that the people in authority they are doing things to get re-elected, they’re doing things for money… It’s very rare to find politicians who are doing things for the right reasons. I think they exist, and I want more of them, so that’s one of the reasons that Madeline does go the traditional route in running for mayor.
But I feel like, in general, I respect authority, but I also question it sometimes.
STEPHANIE: You can do both.
KAPLAN: Did you have a favorite villain?
STEPHANIE: I mean, RepKyle.
COLLEEN: I feel like I’ve already talked about how much I love RepKyle.
STEPHANIE: RepKyle is pretty great. I don’t know if I have a favorite one.
COLLEEN: I do like Sharkangaroo, the half-shark half-kangaroo.
STEPHANIE: There’s one panel where there are maybe five random villains. They were fun.
COLLEEN: And they all do an evil laugh but the rat can’t do it, he just squeaks. And I love that their final reason that they decide to good is they’re going to get a gift bag. Their “baddie bags,” not a goodie bag.
KAPLAN: Can we talk about Madeline Lang’s original debate outfit for a minute? Was there a particular inspiration?
STEPHANIE: The shoulder pads.
COLLEEN: Growing up, whenever there was a female politician, they were always in these pantsuits, and they were always in intense shoulder pads and trying so hard to, I don’t know, stand out amongst all the men but also wear the same exact outfit as all the men.
STEPHANIE: To take up space.
I feel like that particular outfit was very eighties. Maybe because that’s the era that we grew up in. But they’d have the big shoulder pads and the giant hair, and strong makeup, as a way to physically take up space. It was early female breaking ground.
COLLEEN: As much as that outfit is horrible, I would wear it. I love it.
STEPHANIE: The shoulder pads are made of steel. Katie asks because she climbs onto it, and they’re made of steel. I think those shoulder pads could be weapons.
KAPLAN: We also get a whole new look for Madeline in this volume. Is this something you always knew you wanted to do? What went into the redesign?
STEPHANIE: Originally, I was going to draw Madeline with a different look every book just for fun, but this particular book, we thought it would be a bigger reveal if we saved it for when she comes out as Mayoral Madeline.
COLLEEN: And I feel like a lot of comic characters, they never change, and we’ve been very careful to ensure Beth barely ever wears the same outfit, Katie wears the same five outfits over and over again, because we’re trying to show that Beth has a lot more money than Katie.
With Madeline we’re trying to also show that it’s very common and it’s part of Black culture for Black women to go to the beauty salon and get their hair done, and get their hair completely redone when they want to. And I feel like having that be very quietly in the background is a nice way of signifying that culture and who Madeline is.
I like that this is the first time she goes really dramatic. And it’s the first time, as opposed to a person who was hiding at night, doing all her protests, now she’s not hiding anymore. So I like that she has this bright hair – and it’s the same color as her Moustress costume. So she’s almost coming out.
STEPHANIE: That was nice, to try and keep some of the Moustress colors in Madeline’s new look.
KAPLAN: Can you give us any hint about what’s coming next for Katie?
STEPHANIE: Oh boy.
COLLEEN: Well, Madeline wins.
STEPHANIE: So now she has a new job. I think her new job is much more than she even expected. I just handed this in a few weeks ago, so I’m asking myself, “Sheesh, what did I just draw?”
COLLEEN: A lot of Gracie Mansion, because Madeline does move with the cats to Gracie Mansion. And only a few cats are left behind and the few that are left behind are incredibly chaotic, and it makes me very happy. They move in with Katie and her mom.
I will say this is the first book with a lot of dogs. There is a new neighbor that moves into the building, where Madeline used to live, and she has two dogs. But every single time you see them, she calls them the same name, but they are different dogs. I love this running gag.
So it’s this mysterious neighbor, and someone is trying to sabotage Madeline’s debut as mayor by sabotaging the trains.
And we’re trying to figure out who is doing the sabotaging while at the same time Katie is having angst about not having one of her best friends, Madeline, in the building, and not having all the cats there. I think that’s the big twelve-year-old angst of this volume.
STEPHANIE: I think that’s a fair hint… I don’t want to give too much away.
But dogs! There are dogs.
COLLEEN: The dogs are great! I love the dogs. And we’ve had a lot of kids asking why there aren’t more dogs. I’m glad that we get to put, only two at a time, but it’s a lot of dogs.
STEPHANIE: There’s also new superhero teams.
COLLEEN: Yes! That is the big thing: Katie and her friends all working together and figuring out how to become the first superhero team. Because it’s always been single people or duos, so it’s them figuring out who they are, what their theme is as a hero team, and how to deal with egos.
And we find out that Maria is allergic to cats, which is unfortunate, because there are a few. I was getting allergy shots when I wrote this one, so that worked its way into the plot.
STEPHANIE: That’s the behind-the-scenes.
KAPLAN: Is there anything else you’d like me to include?
COLLEEN: I hope this inspires some kids to go vote with their parents, and then eventually vote for reals, and maybe run for office so we can have a really awesome, cool president that used to read graphic novels as a kid! And is going to be the best human ever because of that.
I think it’s a nice way to say, “There’s always going to be grays in the world, not everybody is going to be perfect, and you have to be okay with that.” And sometimes somebody’s a villain, but really, they’re just a little bit misunderstood.
STEPHANIE: That’s a great, positive message. I don’t have much to add to that.
COLLEEN: And I should say, the Coney Island Cyclone is as terrifying as I make it out to be in the book, just so you know. And I do have a friend who lost a tooth on it! So the “urban legend” of the kid who lost a tooth on it… It’s very fun. It hasn’t changed in years and years.
In a lot of ways, Villain Con feels more like a love letter to New York than some of the others because it is so much set in Coney Island, and in this magical place in a city that is very chaotic all the time.
STEPHANIE: I did a lot of Coney Island reference.
COLLEEN: And now we’ve just gotta go ride the Cyclone during New York Comic Con weekend.
Katie the Catsitter: Villain Con is available now at a local bookstore, comic shop and/or public library near you.
