When a bat’s gotta go, a bat’s gotta go. (all image via sarahj-art.tumblr.com)
LOS ANGELES — The appeal of Batman has always been that he’s a regular old human being. Sure, he’s the orphaned child of the 1%, but he wasn’t born in a far-off planet or bitten by a radioactive spider. He was just an average Bruce who became a hero.
Batman takes a ride on the penny-farthing.
This is why artist Sara Johnson’s Ordinary Batman Adventures are so delightful. One animated comic starts simply, with the dark avenger enjoying a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios (man’s gotta eat, right?) and zooming in on the box, which awakens the primal trauma of him losing his parents. Then there’s Mr. Wayne perched on a ledge above Gotham, enjoying three scoops of ice cream (“Go big or go home,” declares Johnson.)
While some fanciful images show the caped crusader engaged in mundane tasks like cleaning the cat box or fly fishing, it’s easy to imagine him outsourcing that kind of work to Alfred or Robin. The more interesting ones show him, figuratively, putting on his pants one leg at a time, just like the rest of us. Clipping his nails and getting a fragment in his face? Well, that’s just batty.