Review by Ian Keogh
To almost everyone other than the young readers at whom Batpig is aimed, the lead character’s name seems deliberately designed to activate DC’s lawyers, yet their attention has been evaded long enough for a second adventure Too Pig to Fail.
Humans and humanoid animals co-populate Gary’s world, and before he became Batpig he was plain pig Gary Yorkshire, hanging around with his mates Carl, a fish, and Brooklyn, a bat, and she’s integral to his origin. While she slept Gary plotted a trick, and instead of reacting as planned, she awoke and bit his nose. Soon after he found himself sleeping during the day, and floating above his bed, but wide awake at night. There’s assorted other silliness, but the origin is just a means to an end for Rob Harrell.
Chapters of Batpig’s hilariously incompetent early career separate chapters of a sequence begun at the start, with Batpig tied to a rocket and heading for the sun, which is actually less important in the scheme of things than the present day problem. In colluding with Brooklyn, they’ve excluded Carl.
There’s no hammering home of messages to Batpig, but in passing Harrell will make a point or two, such as Carl’s feelings of alienation. The primary objective, though, is to make youngsters laugh, and from the ridiculous superhero antics to none of the kids being the sharpest, Harrell manages that all the way through. His art is simple, but extremely expressive, and his plots continually take silly turns guaranteed to induce fits of giggles, on which there are no age limits.
Repto-Man is a single storey threat, but When Pigs Fly is a two story extravaganza separated by an intermission focussing on Carl’s inability to keep a secret. Will Gary’s secret identity become public knowledge almost immediately? The second story isn’t ‘Batpig 2’, but ‘Meat the Enemy’, in which crime occurs as Gary’s babysitting his odious little cousin Mervin, the whiniest kid in the world. Even with that problem solved the Meat Lady’s a threat who doesn’t go down easily.
It’s the lazy option to suggest every new funny series for kids is suitable for fans of Dog Man, but that is the case for Batpig, which occupies the same territory with an equal laugh per page ratio. A hit!
