There likely isn’t a single individual alive who enjoys going grocery shopping. You plan to go in for the mere bare essentials and along the way back from the rear corner of the store where they keep the milk, you find yourself with one item too many to qualify for the express checkout. As you wait to make your final purchases six persons back, the costumer at the register holding up the line as she insists her arthritis supplement was on sale for 12 cents cheaper, you do what everyone else in line does to pass the time, you thumb through a tabloid. Do you grab that copy of THE ENQUIRER and ponder whether or not that shopped image of Angelina’s stomach reveals a “baby bump”? Do you approximate your sexual prowess in the latest COSMO quiz? No. Your attention is caught by that thin print periodical whose cover feature aliens, Bigfoot and, of course, the ever-popular Bat Boy.

While other tabloids such THE GLOBE are content with merely exaggerating the lives of carefree celebrities, THE WEEKLY WORLD NEWS, “The World’s Only Reliable News,” tips the scales, goes for broke and opts to fabricate whole stories from scratch. And as any fan of the pretend publication will tell you, their most sensationalized celeb, the fictitious Bat Boy, has become something of a poster persona for the WWN, as well as a pop culture phenomena—even nabbing his very own, Off Broadway musical. Now GOING MUTANT: THE BAT BOY EXPOSED! (Scribner), a new paperback centered on the nocturnal nasty-turned-cult icon, is available in the humor section of your respective bookseller—not to mention as an eBook for your Nook or Kindle.

GOING MUTANT gives a humorous look at the near 20-year run of Bat Boy-related stories from the perspective of Dr. Barry Leed, a scientist with a Ph.D. in “Mutant Bat Studies” and a likely pseudonym for the book's second credited author, WWN CEO Neil McGinness. The book operates, in part, as a first-person narrative wherein Dr. Leed details various Bat Boy sighting, his ongoing effort to study the bloodsucker and the work he’s done side by side with the creature. The book also reprints some of the more popular (if not outrageous) stories its predeceasing parody paper had published. Some headline favorites include “Bat Boy To Be Knighted,” “Bat Boy To Fly Space Shuttle” and “Bat Boy Bites Santa Claus!”
From the opening line in Glenn Windeatt’s foreword, “Bear Grylls is an idiot,” to the closing chapter detailing Bat Boy’s patriotism and potential as a political leader, GOING MUTANT: THE BAT BOY EXPOSED! is an entertaining and even nostalgic romp as nuanced news group WWN tide their misunderstood mutant to so many major events within the past two decades. Though overtly absurd at times, GOING MUTANT is sure to please enthusiasts of the odd and makes for a great novelty.

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