The Black Bat in Pulpsploitation: Hard Edged Heroes for the 1980's

Bah.  I found out about this Kickstarter campaign a couple of days ago, but was too slow in posting about it and now the Black Bat Facebook page has a mention of it so it looks like I'm lifting it from them... ;-)

In the 1930s, pulp fiction introduced dozens of amazing heroes to the world. Dozens of hero pulps of various success filled the racks alongside numerous other titles. Those characters formed a lasting impression on society and are still remembered fondly to this day. 

In the 1970s and 1980s, men’s adventure fiction introduced dozens of new characters and properties that captured the minds of readers young and old. Sex and violence became the new norm. They influenced heavily the decades of fiction since, even as the “exploitation” films of the same era helped to shape cinema.

Among the four stories...

Frank Byrns introduces the legacy of The Black Bat, as a new hero takes up the mantle of one of the earliest masked vigilantes.

All this information is front and center on the campaign page.  However writer Frank Byrns provides details as to what he has planned in an interview posted under the "updates" tab.

So what would that mean for a Tony Quinn in his seventies? What would he be up to? If I left him in New York, I could work in another of my passions: the look and feel and vibe of 1970s crime films. 

The French Connection, Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, sure. But also things like Rolling Thunder, The Killer Elite, Charley Varrick, The Yakuza. Friends of Eddie Coyle. 

So give Quinn a pro bono legal aid clinic in a rundown Brooklyn neighborhood. Make Butch O'Leary's daughter a crackerjack young lawyer working for Uncle Tony. Have Silk Kirby's kid work as a plainclothes narcotics detective. Add in a former Vietnam tunnel rat, who's used to fighting in the dark where he can't see. The NYC heroin trade. The Mafia. Street gangs. Son of Sam. Reggie, Sparky, and Billy. The blackout.

Byrns has some history with the character already.  He wrote The Ty Cobb File story for Airship 27's second volume of Black Bat Mystery.  As an aside, the Facebook page I referred to earlier also mentioned earlier today that a third volume is underway, though no details are provided as of yet.

There's still about a week to get involved in the fundraising campaign, and to trigger some stretch goals, so if you're a fan of The Black Bat, or pulp era stories in general, you may want to get in on this. Hell, you can get the Black Bat story alone for only $1.00 in digital format. Tough to beat that.

To find out more about publisher Super Powered Fiction, head on over to their website.