BG11 Available Now, BBT2 on Monday!

Lucky Comics' Beetle Girl #11, discussed in the previous post, showed up on Drive Thru Comics earlier today. It was originally believed that it would be available only in early April so the early release was a pleasant (and extremely rare) surprise.

The 8-page format that Lucky uses has very much grown on me. More along the lines of the golden/silver age material, Lucky's books pack a lot on a page, unlike most of today's books which commit three pages to show two dudes shaking hands or ordering coffee. At $0.75, they're not too hard on your comics budget and it's a good deal on a per-page basis, if you feel the need to analyze it to that degree.

And since we're talking finances, I've never been one to collect variant or rare covers. Never saw the point of buying the same content multiple times for what amounts to a single different page no matter how attractive the rare cover might be.

But for smaller, inexpensive books...Why not? The following cover was shared with me earlier this week (and has since been added to the Lucky Comics page above).

I didn't know if it was done with some degree of confidentiality so I didn't include it here right away, but my understanding is that the book is coming out early next week and a smaller version appears on Lucky's website blog now. I doubt I'm spoiling some big reveal then.

I quite dig this Marcelo Salaza work but I also liked the first cover that was made public. It is my understanding that the book will be available with either one, so I'll get both. One goes in the read pile, the other goes up on my wall. "Problem" solved.

As to the Beetle Girl issue, Lucky might have landed their finest artist yet (I say this without having read their entire catalog, mind you). Geanes Holland seems like a very good fit for the book.

Also, I enjoyed having the Black Bat butt heads with The Shadow in regards to methodology in the first Masks volume from Dynamite Entertainment a couple of years back. Something similar happens here, yet the Black Bat is on the opposite of the argument, interestingly enough.

The Black Bat appears in at least one more future issue of Beetle Girl and to the best of my knowledge, Black Bat Tales is meant to be an ongoing series. So it seems that Lucky Comics has become our proverbial "Bat channel" for the moment.

The Bat Prowls, Part 2 - Coming Soon in Lucky Comics' Beetle Girl!

When Lucky Comics announced in issue #9 of Beetle Girl that the Black Bat would guest-star in three issues, I incorrectly assumed that they would be consecutive.  That is not the case, since he was nowhere to be found in issue #10, but he returns in a big way for issue #11 in early April.

Art by Geanes Holland
Colours by Federico Pepito Sioc Jr.

Taking into account the Black Bat Tales series and the upcoming pulp classics prose book in which the character will appear, Lucky might well become our most regular and reliable source of new Black Bat material.

Airship 27 throws down an anthology every couple of years but has been quiet on that front since the third volume was released in late 2015. Moonstone's offerings are constantly months (sometimes years) late and Dynamite appears to have forgotten about the character altogether.

So don't be surprised if Lucky Comics gets mentioned here relatively frequently in the coming months. It's clear they have a vision, a plan and enthusiasm for the character.