On March 14, 2023, I will realize a lifelong dream: Publishing an honest-to-goodness Batman graphic novel with DC. The project has been in the works for over three years, but I have been sworn to secrecy by DC — until now.
Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been a huge fan of Batman. Because Batman was just about the only superhero that I could be. He had no super powers. He wasn’t bitten by a radioactive animal or given a magical object by aliens. He was just a normal guy (albeit a very rich one) who used his brains, his skills and some cool gadgets to defeat evil.
So the idea that I could actually get to write a Batman story is a dream come true.
The story of how it all came to happen is kind of a long one, but the short version is that, around three years ago, I was invited to come to the DC Comics offices to discuss doing a graphic novel project with them. The exec in charge actually asked me ‘Is there any chance you’d be interested in writing a Batman?’ at which point I exclaimed ‘YES YES YES!’
I was so excited by the idea that I think I hatched the whole story on the way home from the meeting. I had to go through a few rounds of pitching them the idea, but they agreed to do it right around the time that Covid hit. I wrote the script way back then, but it has taken quite a while to get the art done — because, in all honesty, the art is INCREDIBLE.
The artist is Berat Pekmeczi and I could not be more thrilled with it. It is dynamic and hilarious and fantastic.
You can click here to learn more.
Here’s the pitch from the DC website:
On sale February 7, 2023, Bruce Wayne: Not Super follows a 13-year-old Bruce Wayne as he attends an exclusive prep school for the gifted. But, in this book written by Stuart Gibbs (Spy School) with art by Berat Pekmezci (Flash), this school is for the super-gifted. Bruce doesn’t stand a chance of winning a race against the future Flash, or a swim meet against the future Aquaman, and he always gets picked last for dodgeball.
It’s hard enough being in middle school, but it’s even worse when you’re the only kid at your school who doesn’t have super-powers. Bruce does have a goal though: he wants to make a difference in the world. But how can he do that when he doesn’t have any powers? While the Future-Supers are currently content to simply use their gifts to glide through school and court popularity, Bruce struggles to figure out if he has any gifts at all — and if so, how to use them. His challenge comes when he discovers fellow student Jack Napier and his hired bully Bane shaking down lesser-powered students for money, including that hapless kid Dick Grayson. Someone must stand up to them and somehow, it’s going to be Bruce!
Bruce Wayne: Not Super represents an alternate origin story for Batman and a number of other iconic DC characters, imagining them all as school age kids and with Bruce as the misfit. Filled with a lot of humor, this is a light-hearted take on a well-known and beloved character.
UPDATE: You may have noticed that the date for the release of this graphic novel has moved back a month since this post was originally published. That’s because there was a conflict between the release dates between this graphic novel and my next FunJungle book, Whale Done. This way, I’ll be able to spend more time focusing on the release of each book.
