Fanboys Anonymous

Niki Batsprite, a comic series by Italian indie artist Francesca Urbinati, is about a young superstar bat who is a champion flying racer. Through deception and the use of reverse psychology, he finds himself taking on the responsibility of guarding a young rodent, Moari, the only "person" with the ability to understand and use the power of the Stones of Balance.

The comic attempts to tell a heroic tale, while incorporating a lot of humor. It reminded me at times of the Sonic the Hedgehog animated series and the game Nights into Dreams, because of the animation and type of witty humour. The interesting correlation here, that I never knew before I went looking, is that Knights into Dreams was made by the Sonic Team, so the matchup quite literally fits.

Before long, our hero loses Moari during what can only be described as a magical storm, and so begins Niki Batsprite's journey. From that point he will have to find the boy, but in the process also locate and restore all the stones to their rightful place.

I was lucky enough to get my hands on the first seven loosely-translated issues of this Italian comic book series straight from Francesca, the creator and one of the writer/artists of the series, and I enjoyed them tremendously. I thought they were fun and often funny. However, I feel this series might be better suited to be a children's comic. If the writers just took out a little bit of the inappropriate material—a very few instances of cussing, and a single adult-situation reference which unfortunately also happens to be one of the funniest jokes in the book—I know it could find a pretty decent niche with younger readers. But all in all, it's a good, clean, fun comic. Check out the first issue of Niki Batsprite here.

Let me know what you think below!!