by Gabi Falanga
Johannesburg - Batman is in town and he’s decorating any open piece of skin he can lay his wings on with bat tattoos, or battoos for short.
Tattoo artist Ryan “Busta” Boltoon is in Joburg for the last leg of his Bat Outta Hell fund-raiser for bat conservation. By the end of his three-month tour he would have visited 19 tattoo shops in Cape Town, Knysna, Durban and Joburg, among others.
The Star caught up with him at Empire Tattoos in Fairland on Thursday as he was doing his 35th battoo.
“I love bats. I’ve always loved bats. I’ve got more bat tattoos on me than anything else,” he said excitedly, a blue bat tattoo visible behind his left ear.
He wanted to do the tour to raise awareness about bats and dispel the negative myths that surround the flying mammal.
“As tattoo people we always get negative feedback, in the same way that people have a negative attitude towards bats. They see them as evil and bloodsucking, when in South Africa they’re mostly fruit bats. The only place you get vampire bats is in South America,” he said.
He decided on bats because everyone helps the rhinos out and bats are as important as honeybees. “Also, a bat can eat 2 000 mosquitoes in one night, which helps to keep malaria down. Imagine what a whole colony can do.”
Although Boltoon drew a friendly cartoon bat template, or sheet of flash, as it’s known in the tattoo industry, to inspire potential clients, he by no means sticks to this image.
Some of the tattoos he’s done include a cricket bat with wings, an amphibian bat, surfer bat, frankenbat and even an eyeball bat.
While he talks, he tattoos an image of the piggy from animated TV series Invader Zim onto Empire Tattoo’s tattoo artist Ryan Ansley’s left calf.
Except, this is a piggy with bat wings. A piggy battoo, the two men joke. As his tattoo machine buzzes, he says he is impressed with the support the tour has received so far.
“I’ve done a lot more tattoos than I expected. The response has been great. My record was five battoos in one day in Knysna.”
His battoo clients included two Australian tourists.
He hopes to do at least 50 battoos on the tour.
“Depending how this tour goes we want to take it overseas as well,” said Boltoon, who’s been doing tattoo tours across the world for the past two years.
Between inking clients, Boltoon has been drawing dramatic bat artworks, which, along with the artworks of other people he’s met on the tour, will be auctioned at an art exhibition at the end of the tour next month.
Tattoo artists at the studios he’s visited will continue to do bat tattoos and sell bat merchandise to add to the fund-raiser.
Ansley, who is a good friend of Boltoon’s, seemed unperturbed by the pricking needles against his calf. “Ryan is very good at what he does. His colour work is amazing. I wanted something that was Ryan’s speciality,” he said.
He explained how he was instrumental in inspiring Boltoon to dedicate one of his tours to bat conservation.
“We brainstormed it at my house one night. I’d just got back from St Lucia and I was fascinated by the fact that it was a tropical environment but we weren’t getting eaten by bugs. The locals told us it was due to the high bat population. From there it snowballed and this is how it landed up.”
Conservation biologist and bat researcher Dr Rachael Cooper-Bohannon, who is part of non-profit organisation Bats Without Borders, is delighted.
“We have never heard of a fund-raiser of this kind and are delighted about this innovative and engaging way of raising money for bat conservation.
"We are incredibly grateful to Busta and his team but also to all the tattoo artists supporting this initiative. It also means that bats are finally getting some positive and much-needed press.”
The minimum charge for a battoo is R600 and 50 percent of the money raised will go towards bat organisations, while Boltoon and the shops that have hosted him will get the rest.