Fann Club: Batman Squad, big laughs in text and art for this all-age winner

Fann Club: Batman Squad is not a story that exists in the multiverse. There also isn’t a typo in the book’s cover. Once you see the cover it’s obvious that it’s a graphic novel intent on making elementary school-age readers and up laugh, which it succeeds at very quickly. Our sometimes surly 13-year-old picked up Fann Club: Batman Squad, plopped himself on the sofa, and proceeded to read it. This is worth noting because he’s an avid reader, but mainly sticks to mglit. “This is from the Catwad guy, isn’t it?”, he asked. Yeah, some readers might know Jim Benton from that, but they also might recognize his work from the Dear Dumb Diary book series, Franny K. Stein books, Victor Shmud or his cartooning work. For me, the most entertaining was Attack of the Stuff, which was criminally ignored and still is by most elementary school libraries that I visit. Fann Club: Batman Squad is a Jim Benton book because it’s his style, set against the background of a young boy who knows everything about Batman.

Ernest Fann is a typical young boy who sees adventure and conspiracy wherever there’s an unknown variable. When Ernest’s socks get chewed to pieces his first line of thinking, despite looking at an eager dog on his bedroom floor- as the dog is chewing on a shoe, is that this gnarled-up foot covering was committed by a criminal. He climbs his dresser and thinks about the various criminals that he could apprehend. Just then, divine intervention comes into play when a Batman comic book flies in through his bedroom window and he realizes that he must start a Batman fan club.

The only difference is that this fan club will also consist of superhero training. His best friend, as well as, the babysitter who saved him from his dresser, will become them, but they all need a disguise. Of course, he’ll dress up as Batman and after creating costumes for the two of them, plus his dog, they’re assigned superhero names. Ernst names them based on the way that they described themselves, such as Eye Shadow, Night Stand, and Night Terrier.

Ernest is a full-on method superhero and is unable or unwilling to tell the difference between his friends when they’re in costume. EyeShadow is the superhero when she’s in costume, and Harriet is a typical middle school student when she doesn’t have the cowl on and never the two shall meet. The quartet train for half of the graphic novel and thing take a turn for real when Ernest and Night Stand witness a real-life bank robbery.

Could this bank robbery be related to how Ernest became Bat Man? The aforementioned style that I mentioned is one that Jim Benton perfectly molded to this story. Fans, even young fans, are passionate about intellectual property and tweaking it to a different audience. Granted, in this case, the intended demographic is elementary-age readers and might not be as passionate about The Dark Knight. That’s why I was very surprised that our oldest son, who is very firmly in a darker, more brooding Batman phase, enjoyed this graphic novel.

 Benton’s style of cartooning is friendly and interspersed with flashes of realism that are immediately compared to the absurdity of the situation. For the mission of breakfast, Ernest’s hand is more realistically drawn in comparison to his more cartoon body. The next panel shows the two following him into the kitchen while making one of the many statements that hit home in Fann Club.

I imagine that it’s very challenging to make an absurd graphic novel that is also funny, yet Fann Club: Batman Squad does that. The joke-to-hit ratio in the graphic novel is absurdly high. On every page, there’s a visual gag and a written joke that work. Some of the illustrations are droll, while some are more comedic.

My son’s comment on Catwad got me thinking about that graphic novel series which is one of the staples in elementary school libraries. That series is simpler, with bigger illustrations and not as many opportunities for jokes. In Fann Club: Batman Squad there are only a couple of pages that are used for one, stand-alone illustration. Usually, when that happens in this book it’s done for the purpose of segueing to another chapter. As a result, more panels allow more jokes to be told without feeling as if it’s bloating the story.

Nobody will mistake Fann Club: Batman Squad for a serious Batman, crime-fighting graphic novel. Yet, those same older folks who would read and enjoy a graphic novel like that will also find the humor, joy, and reverence for the Caped Crusader in this. It’s an example of a character being able to inspire an entirely different demographic of interest, and succeeding in delivering to both of them.

Fann Club: Batman Squad, The Justiest Justice Of All is by New York Times Bestselling Author and illustrator Jim Benton and is an original graphic novel available on DC Graphic Novels for Kids.

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