Young Ernest Fann is the biggest Batman fanatic there is. Wearing a homemade costume and practicing brooding from great heights (of about 6 feet off the floor), Ernest is a superhero just like his idol, the Dark Knight! Ernest just started a Batman club called the Batman Squad in which other aspiring superheroes can learn the skills of Batman to become their bestest heroic selves.
Things are going great at first. Ernest has 3 members enrolled in the club. Training to find clues is going well. They've all found a lot of clues. Just no mysteries. Then Ernest and a pal decide to visit the local bank where an actual bank robbery is taking place. Can Ernest as Gerbilwing and bud Jack as Nightstand save the day?
Written and illustrated by Catwad's Jim Benton, I was excited to read this book. But the artwork kinda worried me a bit. It looked an awful lot like this running short on Cartoon Network from a few years back. The Claymation segments were of heroes like Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman all talking about life as a superhero. Only you couldn't understand what anyone was saying because the voices were of kids with these thick British accents. It just was horrible. As Benton's characters all looked like those characters, I thought maybe whomever created those shorts were behind this young reader graphic novel.
Then I saw on the cover that Jim Benton created Catwad, and I am a big fan of that character, so I gave this book a try! I'm glad I did because this was a funny book that had Monty Python type humor that was so unexpected, I laughed out loud several times. The humans may have looked very non human. But I loved the Batman villains that pop up in Ernest's daydreams and that stray cat who pops up from time to time was hilarious.
Recommended for readers ages 8-12. Parents of readers under age 10 might have a little bit of problem with some of the material. There's a small bit of potty humor in this book. A small amount of Peanuts level violence. The bank robber does carry a gun. However, the ending is the type of thing you'd expect in Mr. Roger's Neighborhood because no way in the world is a bank ever going to hire the guy who robbed it to be their new security guard!
I'd actually enjoy reading more about Ernest and his friends. Maybe they'll take a field trip to Gotham City in hopes of running into their hero. That would be exciting and I bet Jim Benton could make the encounter a laugh riot!
Worth Consuming!
Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.
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