When the children seized power, we agreed… MORE BATS!
January 20, 2019 7:41 PM   Subscribe

US-based socialist magazine Jacobin's recent Childhood issue featured a novel insert: Jacobin's first children's book, More Bats, written by Jacob Kramer and illustrated by Malina Omut. Kramer says, "More Bats is a playful reimagining of what might happen if our society prioritized maximizing bat populations, instead of our current model, which allocates most resources to the military industrial complex." He has since collaborated with illustrator K-Fai Steele on Noodlephant, a kids' book about elephants, kangaroos, rebellion, power, and community action. Book trailer here.
posted by duffell (12 comments total) 19 users marked this as a favorite
 
Fuck yes more bats
posted by The otter lady at 8:53 PM on January 20, 2019 [1 favorite]


Neat--the first question that came to mind for me was whether it alludes to Vilfredo Pareto's observation in Les systèmes socialistes regarding Marx's terminology in Capital: "C'est toujours la fable de la chauve-souris." Or, as Bertell Ollman puts it, "Marx's words are like bats: one can see in them both birds and mice."
posted by Wobbuffet at 9:08 PM on January 20, 2019 [3 favorites]


🦇🦇🦇
posted by The Whelk at 9:18 PM on January 20, 2019


Bats-as-concept are A Thing with me and my friends, specifically in reference to their hateful ubiquity in computer games. Everyone recognises the standard Lvl 1 Rat Quest as utter, utter bullshit, but somehow these Fliegenmaus fuckers dating back through Tombs Raider to Pitfall! 2 and beyond get a free pass. NO! The line must be drawn, and drawn here.
posted by I'm always feeling, Blue at 9:30 PM on January 20, 2019


musical interlude
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 9:31 PM on January 20, 2019


(Fwiw, I did really like that bit in Grant Morrison's Batman run where The Batted Man thinks "Yes! I shall become A Bat!" as opposed to "I need a professional glazier right nows, yo!")
posted by I'm always feeling, Blue at 9:32 PM on January 20, 2019 [1 favorite]


Sorry, I caught myself being a spammy arse too late. For similarly-minded/distracted types the main link in the FPP is the final Noodlephant Vimeo one, check that first.
posted by I'm always feeling, Blue at 9:43 PM on January 20, 2019


Where are the bats?
posted by pracowity at 11:30 PM on January 20, 2019




Haha! Flagged as fantastic[ally accurate!]
posted by I'm always feeling, Blue at 12:23 AM on January 21, 2019


🍞🌹🦇
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 7:54 AM on January 21, 2019 [1 favorite]




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