Batman: Li'l Gotham Vol. 1 - A Comic Book Review

Throwback Thursday! This review was first written for my Special Topics in Librarianship: The Graphic Novel class in October 2014.

Batman: Li'l Gotham Vol. 1
(c.) 2014 by DC Comics

Title: Batman: Li'l Gotham: Vol. 1
Creators: Dustin Nguyen & Derek Fridolfs
Published: 2014 by DC Comics

Batman: Li’l Gotham, Vol. 1 is SO adorable! I love the artwork by Dustin Nguyen. They’re sort of reminiscent of Japanese chibi (a cute stylized manga/anime style characterized with large proportioned heads and eyes in relation to body).  This along with the watercolor-like illustrations add to the lighthearted feel --it was great to read after the more serious/violent/intense storyline in Batgirl. This volume was published in 2014, but many Batman characters show up in this "Li’l Gotham" regardless of space, time or the New 52 universe.

Each issue (there are six collected in this volume) has a holiday theme: Christmas, Halloween, Mother’s Day, etc. There are a lot of “easter egg” extras, jokes, and cameos regarding characters that only Batman savvy audiences would get. For example, one of my favorite stories of the bunch featured Batman/Bruce Wayne and all his “Robins” (Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Tim Drake, and Damian Wayne) trying to make Alfred dinner for Father’s Day while Barbara Gordon and her dad (Commissioner Jim Gordon) run into a more villainous father/daughter pair …

I’d recommend it wholeheartedly, even to elementary aged students who are independent readers. If you needed to do a readers' advisory for a patron that wanted something similar, I’d recommend the Tiny Titans comic book series by Art Baltazar and Franco Aureliani.

Do you have any favorite "kid-friendly" comic book series?

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