Art Baltazar and Franco Aureliani, the Eisner Award-winning creative team behind the universally acclaimed Tiny Titans series are back with their latest original graphic novel, ArkhaManiacs. Focusing on Batman's extensive rogues' gallery, the all age-friendly comic book has a young Bruce Wayne venture into Arkham Apartments to join in the fun of all its zany inhabitants, from the Joker to Catwoman and more.
In an exclusive interview with CBR, Baltazar and Aureliani talk about the continuing importance of crafting family-friendly fare, what gags were ultimately cut from the graphic novel and which rogues galleries they would love to tackle next.
Fresh off Superman of Smallville, how was it doing this full exploration into Batman's rogue's gallery with ArkhaManiacs?
Art Baltazar: When we did Superman of Smallville and DC said they had plans to a whole line of books for kids, we were called into a meeting, and I immediately asked for Superman and they said "Yeah, sure, because you know more about Superman more than anyone else we know. Take him, go with it, you know him very well."
With ArkhaManiacs, it was one of those where you wait for that question: After Superman, they said "What else you got?" That's kind of how it was. We had ArkhaManiacs in the back of our idea book since we were doing Tiny Titans. It went from Tiny Titans to Superman Family Adventures to Super Powers to Superman of Smallville and then we went back to ArkhaManiacs. We created that when we were doing Tiny Titans around 2009 maybe and it was, at that time, the same question with DC Comics asking what else we had. Somehow it didn't go through and greenlit or whatever and our editor said to start putting the ideas in Tiny Titans, and hopefully, we could have a spinoff. So right when you saw Killer Croc start showing up in Tiny Titans and the Penguin and things like that, that's when we had the idea for ArkhaManiacs. When we started pursuing it now, we didn't even think of Superman of Smallville versus ArkhaManiacs, it was more like we were bringing back the Tiny Titans style so it was real different.
This book really inverts the classic Batman relationship with his rogue's gallery: Instead of being a force of vengeance, he just wants to fit in and play. How did you guys develop that inversion for this story?
Baltazar: It all starts because Bruce Wayne is not vengeful yet. He didn't get hurt; he doesn't have those Batman feelings yet. That had a big part with this story, everything is still good with him.
Franco Aureliani: Yeah, we pushed it from the angle of what would he be like at this age and what kind of things would be open to him. We wanted to play with the idea of his imagination because, later, this is the guy that comes up with Batman. He puts on the costume and defends Gotham City and we were like "Where did he come up with that idea?" We know from the origin but we kind of wanted to make our pre-origin, if you will. [Laughs] How does he use his imagination? Well, he looks over at the people of Arkham Apartments and says "Who are all those colorful guys and why are they having so much fun?"
Baltazar: Yeah, maybe being Batman turns all these guys bad too, because right now they're just all these silly characters playing around, happy in the pool.
Batman's got the best rogues gallery in all of comics and you get to play with most of them here. Who was your favorite to reimagine?
Baltazar: I like the Joker, he's always the #1 guy. The Joker can be anything you want him to be: He's crazy, he's silly, he's insane; he's whatever it takes to fit. He can have a diabolical plan or he can just be out for a good time. And the Joker was really to write and really fun to draw and I even contemplated on the design of having his head not connected to his body, just having his head floating around like a balloon, but I thought that would be weird, like he was decapitated. When I draw sketches of him, that's how I drew him, with his head not connected. But I like him and I like big, crazy guys like Clayface and Croc, I like those kinds of guys; they're fun to play with too.
Aureliani: The fun thing about this whole thing is we had a clean slate, so it was fun to reinterpret Scarecrow as Steve from Jonathan Crane and take Pamela Isley and make her real sassy. She's real sassy anyway but the look of her and the design of her make her more sassy. Killer Croc sitting in the pool and stuff like that, it was a lot of fun to do whatever we wanted with them. There was a lot of freedom, but we sort of zeroed in on the core essence of each one. We talked about it and it just sort of evolved from that. So the core essence of all of them is there even if you don't recognize them at first but what they do or say, the core essence is there.
Baltazar: We had lots of stories for each one but we had to self-edit the book; we probably had a 400-page book when we were done with the story. Each character, we explored their apartments and how they were in their apartments and we had stories and gags in their apartments but we were kind of getting away from the Bruce Wayne story. So we had to kind of focus and channel it down to Bruce, but we had a bunch of Poison Ivy stuff that was really fun. The one guy that I wanted to put in there was Two-Face, but we ran out of room. But we had a bunch of gags and maybe we'll explore that next time. We had a lot more Scarecrow stuff of him not being worthy of scaring crows and Bane with an ice cream machine maker, we had a lot of cool, funny stuff.
Aureliani: Yeah, I forgot we had that whole milkshake bit.
Baltazar: Yeah, the tube that goes into his head was connected to an ice cream machine and gave him a brain freeze. We had a bunch of cool stuff, but we had to bring it back to Bruce, we were forgetting about Bruce Wayne.
As guys that are retailers as well, you see the changes to the market and readership. How important is it to do all age-friendly titles like Tiny Titans, Superman of Smallville and, now, ArkhaManiacs?
Aureliani: Oh, that's easy, we talk about this all the time. Art and I have the very dubious distinction of being a lot of kids' first comic book. When they pick up a book, their parents are picking up regular runs or back issues or graphic novels or whatever, but the first thing they're going to pick up for their kid is a story like ours. I think that's an important thing because it keeps the readership there and it keeps people coming back to the comic store or bookstore, it draws them in in a good way. The unfortunate thing is when we go to shows, Artie and I are getting older but the fanbase is still the same age. We see them all the way up but we see people say "Oh, we used to read this when we were kids!" And now they're buying it for their kids and now I feel really old. [Laughs]
Baltazar: It is really cool when you meet a fan who says they grew up with our comic and they're, like, 20-25 and they say "I grew up with this comic and read it when I was a little kid." and I go "Wow, have I really been making comics for that long?" It's cool too when we get fan art. The fan art has all the characters we worked on like Robin standing next to Itty Bitty Hellboy, and he's standing next to Patrick the Wolf Boy and he's standing next to Action Cat. The kids go into the bookstores and just pick what appeals to them but they're not really aware of Marvel versus DC versus Dark Horse versus Image because they don't know the companies. But they see it's this Art/Franco book and they pick that up.
I think the covers and characters are appealing. Our humor is what we try to keep them reading the book. Rather than trying to teach them a lesson or give them a message, we're just trying to make them laugh. A big example I always use is Dora the Explorer. and she's been on a long time because they are always four-year-olds. And I realized this because, when I had kids, I watched Dora the Explorer for eight years in my front room, and I know every episode and all about these characters and then they started to make her a little older and I was like "You don't have to change her!" because there's always a new four-year-old watching so she's still on TV doing her thing. And that's kind of how we approach it.
Like Franco said, our fans all stay little because there's always a new six-year-old kid ready to into the comic shop with their parents and pick up something off the shelf, and they like how it looks. So hopefully, they see the cover with little Bruce Wayne and his puppy and they see funny-looking characters smiling and dancing around him on the cover so the kid says "What's this? I want this, it's got a puppy on it!" That's kind of what appeals to kids. Like Franco said, every book is a kid's first book and we try to make each book in a way that, if you didn't regress, you could still understand what's happening in this one issue.
The cool thing about these new graphic novels is it's all one solid story in 120 pages. That's kind of cool too: You get the whole thing in one book instead of the monthly books. It's more of a challenge with the monthly books to do a clean slate in each book but, with this one, it's one solid thing from beginning to end. It's cool to write that way too.
What rogues gallery or superhero would you like to tackle next?
Baltazar: I've still got a lot more Superman in me, man. I've got a lot more Superman stories, either Superman of Smallville or the real universe. There's a sequel to Super Powers that we wrote and I can't wait to get to that but it doesn't necessarily have to be a sequel to that, but I have a lot more Superman and Justice League stuff in my head. I would love to bring back Brainiac and Bizarro. I feel like I've been taken over by Brainiac with all this wifi energy all around, I feel it! [Laughs]
Aureliani: If you're giving me carte blanche, I'd want to do all the Justice League stuff. I'd love to go back and do Shazam and Billy Batson, I'd love to do that again. I'd love to do a Little Legion of Super-Heroes. Geoff Johns just came out with Three Jokers, and we'd want to the fourth Joker or Three and a Half Jokers.
Baltazar: Starring Charlie Sheen!
Aureliani: Yeah, then he gets hit by a piano.
Baltazar: Then we'd have to do more sequels like Five and Six Jokers.
What are you guys really excited to bring ArkhaManiacs to the masses?
Baltazar: I can't wait, and it's weird because we've been working for 28 years constantly and, with Tiny Titans, the book was coming out every month so people were always seeing our stuff. Every month, we had a new book for five or six years and then we skipped over to other things. But now, the kids books marketed for all-ages are graphic novel-based which only come out once or twice a year now. And people always wonder "What have you guys been doing? Are you guys still making comics? Where did you go?" and I'm looking forward to people seeing what we've been working on and that we're still here, still doing our thing.
Aureliani: I'm excited for the new fans that are going to pick up ArkhaManiacs, both old and new fans, because I know we're going to get a lot of adults that have read the book, but I'm really excited for the ones that pick it up and tell us it was their kids' first book and that their kids loved it. I love to reach both adults and kids with the same book, that's always a fun challenge.
Written by Art Baltazar and Franco Aureliani and illustrated by Baltazar, ArkhaManiacs is on sale now from DC.