I've just watched the recent trailer on Dark Knight Rises and some parts of the trailer somehow reminded me of something that i (day)dreamed of as a kid, that is; to take ownership rights of Keluang Man and make my own storyline take of the animation series.
Yep, Keluang Man. Ring any bells?
Keluang Man is a Malaysian comedy caped-crusader hero based on the animal "Fruit Bat" (Keluang) with appearance closely resemble the ever popular hero Batman. Keluang Man, however, goes around with the attitude of Spiderman/Deadpool - highly comedic and almost ultimately memorable by his verbally annoying remarks towards his enemies. The show was aired from 1997 to 1999, where the series stopped due to its drop of popularity - in which was suggested in Wikipedia that the popularity drop could have been caused by the producers take to make a more morally preachy Keluang Man rather than a hillarious one... @#$% you, morality.
Keluang Man was neither a billionaire or a friendly neighbourhood. He's just purely made of 100% pure annoyance, even throwing racist remarks to people around him. But why is that fine on Malaysian television? Well, Keluang Man, or his real identity, Burhan (yeah, what the fuck), is a fictional OKU (wait, how does that make it okay to be racist on national tv again?). He's a patient in Tanjung Rambutan Mental Hospital who is suffering from... well, some brain damage considering he's so annoying. But Burhan somehow possess this atheletic skill and the habit of escaping Tanjung Rambutan at nightime to look for trouble. His career as Keluang Man begins when Burhan accidentally stumbled on the corpse of the previous Keluang Man (which was only explained to have been shot by a villain but never explained of his real identity) and putting on the costume, he resumes the heroic journey as Keluang Man. Whether or not if he really knows what he is doing but with the Keluang Man identity 'revived'; Burhan caught the attention of all villains around Malaysia who thought that Keluang Man was supposed to be successfully murdered.
The latter episodes of Keluang Man had Burhan's fighting and athletic capabilities explained, alongside his real identity. While the show is ultimately lame on today's perspective (considering there's way more cooler foreign superheroes out there) i personally find Keluang Man's a good attempt to start Malaysian own iconic super-hero league. And why Keluang Man is a better icon IMO than the now-popular Cicak Man? It's because of the take of the story. I consider Cicak Man's storyline to be way more cliche. Keluang Man's storyline has so much potential that the producers should have hired me as their storyline advisor and make it gazillion way more epic - this is where my imagination as a kid came in.
Donning on Keluang Man's costume, Burhan faced villains he never really heard of and villains of Burhan's own past. This is where i think the show could have been made way more interesting (and probably for more mature audience). Burhan could have been made to start using the Keluang Man identity to his own advantage and often forgetting the fact that he is taking the role of a late super-hero, not as a vengeful new one. The show can have audience to question the line between being the public's view of an iconic hero or an undercover villain. The audience can take sympathy of Burhan who, while mentally deranged, cannot figure out this line to a point that he comes close to becoming a villain himself - probably by a scene when he killed a public figure who was actually someone evil or corrupted, and related to his own past. Burhan's brain damage could have been caused by a traumatic experience to which he may often lose control of his heroism as Keluang Man due to his long-contained desire to sought for revenge; all this while masked by his comical personality. At the same time, the directors can have so much twists in the show based on Burhan's decision on his surrounding conflict, that the audience would think that, despite Burhan's mentally-ill identity, he's actually way more sane as compared to how mad the modern society is in perceiving things around them. In all, Keluang Man, with its pre-established premise, had the potential to be both a superhero and a philosophical show at the same time, as opposed to standard hero vs villain storyline.
Anyways, those are just the idea i had when i was... about seven years old? (damn, should have picked a different line of work. sigh). How did the trailer of Dark Knight Rises reminded me of my old ideas when i was a kid? Well, i wanted to have my (alternate) Keluang Man's 'trailer' to start with the national anthem that ends with alot of all-hope-is-lost footages. So there. Lol. Anyways, maybe there will be one day when i'm a millionaire that i can purchase ownership rights of Keluang Man and make my take of the animation a reality.
Til then, here's a sketch that i did on the 'new' Keluang Man. Was doing this in a moving vehicle awhile back and i didnt have any eraser with me. so sorry for the terrible drawing
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| I drew the mask to be slightly pointier as the Keluang is more in the family of foxes rather than bats (according to some source). Also tweaked the logo to be sharper because I hated the original dumb looking face. lol |
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| I prefer the other sketch as this started out just as a joke. That was when i get to the head part and got really immersed into starting to draw the tones and the cape more seriously. But because of this, I think the body is slightly off proportions. oh well. |
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