SweetTart

Hometown= Jigaboo Junction, USA Species= Human Occupation= Junior High-School Student Age= 14 Family= (no appearances in series) Affiliations= (none) Real name= Kathryn Marie Tartakoff= First appearance= SweetTart (May 2007)

Fictional character biography
SweetTart first appeared in issue #25 of The Belch Dimension Comics, in her debut eponymously-titled story, SweetTart. Her civilian identity is Kathryn Marie "Kitty" Tartakoff. She is 14, and a student at Sonny Tufts Jr. High School in Jigaboo Junction.

Kitty was the author of "Watercress Blossoms", a serial comic about the misadventures of a girl who had moved into a haunted house, for their school newspaper, The Harbinger. Her best friend is Aren Loy, a popular and pretty cheerleader who has an inexplicable long scar running along the right side of her throat.

Quite by accident Kitty stumbled onto a plot by Rhea Borstein facuklty advisor, and Tom Little, copy editor, to take over the school. When no one would help her, she hastily put together a superhero outfit and even created a name for herself. She eventually put together enough evidence to expose the conspiracy. Shortly after The Harbinger was closed down for investigation and mothballed.

SweetTart remains active to this day, as implied by her watching over the city from atop a building in the final panel. Sweet confirms he "wants to use her again in future stories, as soon as I find them".

SweetTart's costume consists of a Sonny Tufts Jr. High cheerleader's skirt (borrowed from Aren) and top, a blonde wig tied in long pigtails, an ivory-colored masquerade mask, large earrings shot through with colorful rhinestones, and ballet-type slippers. When not in costume she generally wears a long military-type jacket, a red-and-green sweater, faded and patched blue jeans, and large glasses. Her real hair is an untidy brown mop described by Jon unflatteringly as "a poodle haircut".

Her name comes from both an affectionate epithet--"sweetheart"--given to her by Aren, and the lettters ST (for the comedian Sonny Tufts) on the front of her shirt. It also refers to a feminization of Jon's surname, "Sweet" (sort of like "Batgirl" or "Supergirl" are female counterparts to male heroes), and a nod to the chalky, crunchy confection SweeTarts.

The SweetTart arc
In a three-issue story arc that ran from May to July 2007, Kathryn "Kitty" Tartakoff is introduced. She works for the school newspaper, the Harbinger, where she draws an anime-influenced weekly strip called "Watercress Blossoms" (though ironically she claimed distaste for Japanese anime, complaining of its "slimpy outfits, stupid plots, and badly-dubbed voices", perhaps echoing hardcore fans' complaints of second-rate Americanized versions of Japanese cartoons that are poorly dubbed and often ridiculously edited for children).

One day she witnessed a teenage boy in yellow arresting a fleeing suspect, using fantastic powers, in front of her school. Kitty developed a mad crush on him. She began sketching a number of idealized portraits of this boy (in these Jon looks very similar to Mamoru Chiba, the male lead from the Sailor Moon manga in his superhero garb) in her spare time.

Several months later, two suspicious deaths of Harbinger staffers happened within mere weeks of one another. One was John Tewes, a staffer who has recently been let go for plagiarism and was accidentally killed by a falling trash can outside his apartment. The body of former managing editor Mack Burke was found, gruesomely murdered, in the Tallahatchie River. In addition, Megan Nyce, the photo editor--whom Kitty had asked her to blow up a photo of the scene outside the apartment because she has seen a familiar face in the crowd--had gone missing. Kitty was full of questions, not the least of which was what copy editor Tom Little was doing at Johnny's the day of his accident, and why his charges against Tewes hadn't been questioned. She came in early to work to meet with the faculty advisor, and quite by accident she ended up listening at the office door. Inside Rhea Borstein and Little were talking. They had already killed Burke and Tewes, they said, and kidnapped Megan Nyce, because Borstein had caught her with the photo. This confirmed Kitty' suspicion that Tom had killed Johnny, but she hadn't realized Rhea was involved--and, moreover, she realized that she had both gotten poor innocent Meg mixed up in something awful...plus she herself had the photos they were looking for, and if Meg were to drop her name, she might be next to die.

Remembering the day she saw Jon arresting that punk in the getaway car months ago, she contacted him (through an improvised "Bat-Signal" type innovation). When she explained her dilemma, however, he refused to become involved. Angry, she decided to forego help and go it alone. She put together an eccentric homebrew costume--including a cheerleader dress that had been too small for her best friend, but fit Kitty just right--from various odds and ends lying about her room, and set forth.

The second part of the arc details how after one disasterous night--where she almost got killed by carjackers and severely talked down to by Jon, who swooped to her rescue--she was ready to throw in the towel. It was then a call from Lyle Turncoate, the editorial editor, surreptitiously warned her to avoid the Harbinger office that day. Thinking he knew something he wasn't saying, Kitty--back in her SweetTart outfit--paid him a visit at the public library. With some "help" from Jon, she learned some new data...such as Megan's death. Little, with Turncoate's help, had killed her while looking for the pictures. Lyle now felt guilty and scared of crazy Tom, and cried as he confessed everything. Kitty told him to go talk to the police, who would protect him.

With this information in hand, and Lyle willing to help any way he could, she made plans to confront Tom Little later that night when he arrived for work. The third and final part of the arc picks up here.

Inspirations
The character of SweetTart began as an idea for a creative writing class in college. Jonathan M. Sweet was a huge fan of the anime series Sailor Moon and thought it would be fun to write a crossover fiction between that series and his own Belch Dimension. He felt that Sailor Moon's natural bubbly personality would contrast sharply with his own hero's dark and brooding nature, creating an ideal conflict to build a story around. Though ecstatic about the idea, Sweet was defeated in all attempts to produce a logical explanation as to how Sailor Moon--a Japanese superheroine--could ever come to America, and the project was shelved.

Six month later, in February of 1997, Sweet was terminated from his post on the Arkansas State University Herald for plagiarism. A copy editor named Scott Mitchell claimed that a piece Sweet had submitted on TV ratings was stolen from a sketch on Saturday Night Live, which Sweet continues to deny the existance of to this day. This unfortunate experience later formed the basis for SweetTart, and a draft of the script was completed in mid-1999. Elements of the early Sailor Moon idea--particularly a scene where the heroes are arguing in the street after fighting off several goons--filtered into the new story...only now she was "SweetTart", named after the candy (similar to how Peanuts creator' Charles M. Schulz named Peppermint Patty after the contents of a dish of mints).

"Kathryn Tartakoff" was modeled after a fellow staffer from The Herald--a female cartoonist named Kathryn White, whose work Sweet admired. White drew a strip called "Sassafrass Roots" (later changed to "Mosquito Creek" for web distribution) that ran in the Herald (1996-97). White was actually intended to appear as herself in an untitled serial about the adventures of his stick-figure characters at a paper called "The Harbinger" (a synonymn for "herald", or one who announces or signals something coming). In a four-panel strip Jon compliments her artwork and tried to pick her up; she responds by dropping an anvil on his head, flattening him. A newly-fired Sweet called this serial his "comeback vehicle", but of course he was never rehired.

For his new story Sweet had to change White's last name to avoid legal problems. He wanted to call her alter-ego "SweetTart", so, looking for something that would logically shorten to "Tart", Sweet picked "Tartakoff", after onetime NBC head Brandon Tartakoff. He turned The Harbinger into a junior-high newspaper because he wanted his new superheroine to be a few years younger than Jon, and because he felt it was appropriate owing to what he felt was "childish" behavior on The Herald's part to fire him. All the major players in the drama are modeled after actual 1997 Herald staffers.

Similar to her source inspiration, SweetTart wears a school uniform, only a cheerleader's top and skirt rather than a formal private school uniform. Her flowing hair--a wig--suggests Sailor Moon's long pigtails and famous odango balls. Her mask is also quite similar to that Tuxedo Mask wears, though a bit larger and hides more of her face. Since in her civilian identity she wears glasses, it's possible she is only moderately nearsighted, needing them mainly to read and she can either see well enough without them to manage, or she wears contacts while in costume. The use of a hairpiece also is reminiscent of Golden-Age Supergirl, who indeed wore a short, mousy brunette wig to hide her blonde hair when in her civilian identity, Lara Danvers (Kit reverses this, being naturally brown-haired and becoming a sexy blond when she transforms). Her leaps and kicks, as well as a gymnastic background, are similar to Batgirl's (Barbara Gordon).

Publication
The story spent the following eight years in rewrite limbo, with names changed and rechanged, dialogue written and rewritten, and scads of model sheets coming and going. Some scenes, such as Johnny Tewes talking to Kitty, and the conversation between Johnny and editor-in-chief Lucy Chaser, were word-for-word out of actual conversations Sweet had with fellow Herald staffers. Johnny was originally called "Jimmy Doulcette"; his changed name, "Tewes" is an anagram of "Sweet". Rhea Borstein was originally named "Bonnie Thrashart", and Tom Little was simply "Mitchell Scott Phillips", both very close to the names of the real-life faculty advisor and copy editor. Tom was originally concieved as a dimwitted potato-nosed goon. Later he was drawn to look closer to an old yearbook photo of Scott Mitchell, and given more of a stylized Joker-like appearance and a similar attitude towards murdering and torturing his victims.

The scene where Johnny is killed outside his apartment building mirrors a real-life incident shortly after his firing. Sweet was performing his famous impersonation of comic Andrew Dice Clay for a couple of fans in a window across the way when he heard a lound banging noise. It turns out someone had dropped a trash can out a window at his dorm, which had landed a few feet behind Sweet as he stood there on the sidewalk. Sweet noticed that a fourth-story window was open; he later learned that Scott Mitchell lived on the fourth floor, which--because of the suspicious timing, only a month after his firing--lent what normally would be only an innocent, if dangerous, prank a very ominous tinge. In the story it is revealed that Tom Little, under Borstein's orders, dropped the can that struck Jimmy in the head, snapping his neck and instantly killing him.

The other characters' names and looks changed fairly little, though an ewas added to Turncoate's surname to make it feel more "name-like". The first three chapters finally were released in mid-April of 2007, stamped "SILVER ANNIVERSARY ISSUE!" on the cover.

Issues #26 and #27 released the fourth and fifth chapters, respectively, with B-stories ("Belch Dimension's Stupidest Home Videos" and "Stoopid!"), and a pinup of Sweet's most (in)famous Herald column, "Clinton Wins, America Loses", first published after the 1996 re-election of President Clinton.

Cameo
SweetTart is seen in a walk-through in "The Superhero Roundtable" (Dec 2007), which is the creator's way of saying, "Yep, she's still around".

More?
Sweet confirms she will have at least one more story to herself, likely published sometime in late 2008 or early '09.

Enemies

 * Rhea Nell Borstein, the fat and corrupt onetime faculty advisor to the campus newspaper The STJH Harbinger. She and copy editor/student Tom Little are lovers. She ordered the murders of Mack Burke, Johnny Tewes, and the torture/murder of Megan Nyce to cover up her plan to take over STJH. She also had Jon's old girlfriend Johanna Ralston killed in a car bomb two years before.
 * Richard Thomas Little, the severely-disturbed teenage lover of Rhea Borstein, who is hopeless devoted to her and will do whatever it takes to please her. He dropped the trash can which killed Johnny and (with Lyle Turncoate's help) injected Meg with sodium pentathol, or truth serum, to force her to talk. He is currently incarcerated in Apex Asylum, a private mental hospital upstate.

Talents
Though SweetTart posessesses no superpowers, unlike Jon, she nonetheless is quite agile, owing to vigorous athletic training. She can bend, flip, leap through the air, and even deliver powerful kicks with grace. She is able to flip a man twice her size, as she demonstrates with Tom when she has to defend herself against his full frontal attack.

Trivia

 * The SweetTart arc has probably the highest body count of all the stories: 4 deaths (though only one body is actually seen on-panel). This edges out the previous contender, the "Family Ties" arc, which has only three (counting the alien Barbaeus).
 * It also has the most blood seen in a Belch Dimension story yet, with the spray from the mouths of two punks during Jon's and SweetTart's fight, Tom Little being thrown against a glass-topped table and badly cut up, and some seen coming out of Rhea Borstein's mouth when SweetTart finds her tied up in the hall (implying she fell on the stairs and hurt herself, or possibly that Jon struck her in the face during the arrest).
 * Borstein's plan with the fake photos is very similar to that of Kimberly Mann, a character in "Eve Bade Adam Eat" (Almasheol). Both pieces were written by J.M. Sweet.
 * In issue #25, several people are seen looking at Johnny's body on the sidewalk. A number of the onlookers are caricatures of folks from AJM Studios, a message board where the artistoften frequents, and who appears as "Dr. Belch", the studio's psychiatrist, in several installment of the forum's book-length webcomic series. This was a nod to Belch Dimension's appearance in the AJM Studios comic several weeks before. In the following issue, "Kim Possible" and "Ron Stoppable", two other forum members and AJM series regulars, are standing next to a bound Hiss Hole on the cover of a comic book, in the foreground of one panel. This suggests that in the Belch Dimension universe AJM exists as a real-word entity whose adventures are widely told as fiction (cf. Miguel Cervantes' Don Quixote).
 * The silver anniversay issue was dedicated to Ken Prince, a cartoonist Sweet met on The Herald, and the fiancee of Kitty's body model Kathryn White. He died of a stroke in March of 2006, at the age of 32.
 * This story's last page reveals another piece of Jon's past. When he was 14 he lost someone to violence. At the time his girlfriend was killed--by a bomb rigged to the ignition of her car--Jon had had his superpowers for three years. However, he was deaf to her pleas and didn't use these talent to save her. He no doubt still carries this guilt with him, and likely refuses to get involved in Kitty's drama because of the bad memories.