Gentlemen Prefer Domino Lady

We may finally be in store for some new Black Bat material after a long, long wait.

The long-awaited Black Bat / Domino Lady: Danger Coast To Coast graphic novel is now said to be in stores as of November 25th. I'll believe it when I see it, but I'll certainly be looking for it on Moonstone's website regularly. 

Speaking of Moonstone's website, for quite some time I avoided buying their New Pulp Fiction book, which features a team-up between the Black Bat and the Purple Scar, because of ridiculous shipping charges. It would have cost me roughly four or five times the cost of the book to have it delivered. I assumed that this was due to my Canadian address but United States residents pointed out a similar issue as well on social media. 

If by coincidence you read this and held off buying from Moonstone for the same reason, give them another look. That appears to be fixed on their website now, right on time.

In addition to the above book, our boy also seems set to appear in a new Domino Lady prose anthology next month!

The City of Angels attracts beautiful people from all over the world with its glitz and glamour. But just beneath the surface is a city stinking of corruption seeded by crime and politics. Enraged by the murder of her father, beautiful socialite Ellen Patrick knows she must break all the rules. She has to become somebody else: Domino Lady, of the sexiest and most elusive crime fighters of all time. Guest starring: The Black Bat, The Phantom Detective, The Green Ghost, Zero, Secret Agent X, Ravenwood, and more! Introduction by Nancy Holder!

Comixzone shows a 200 page count for this one (and 160 for Danger Coast to Coast). That delightful cover is the work of Alex Innocenti. I'm assuming this is all new material (Unlike DCTC which is roughly half new, half reprint) but won't know for certain until we're closer to the release date.

Thank you to Bobby Nash for drawing my attention to this on Twitter, I had not known that this book was even in production.

Blutgeld

It may be a little while until I'm able to acquire another one of the Black Bat's original stories from Black Book Detective, and I certainly can't count on any new material being made available any time soon, so I've taken the plunge and bought the Kindle version of one of the character's original stories published in Germany.

Blutgeld, which translates to "Blood Money", is not one of the many novels published in Germany throughout the 60s and early 70s. It was released in 2008. Publisher Blitz-Verlag has reprinted many of the original Black Book Detective stories but also released three original ones. This is the first of the latter.

I've located a Google Chrome extension which auto-copies what I've highlighted from the story into Google Translate so I can flip large chunks of the book at a time from German to English. I was skeptical about my chances of being able to follow the story using that method, and it makes for clunky reading on occasion, but a few chapters in, I'm able to keep up just fine.

The "A.S." in "A.S. Jones" on the cover image at right stands for Angelika Schröder. I am not far into the story yet (about a fifth of the way in), but to this point, Mrs. Schröder has it pretty well nailed down. The elements that make the character and his stories enjoyable all appear to be there; his three-person crew, McGrath's suspicious assistance, the secret lab, etc. It would seem that she has included some of the features sometimes found in the German books as well, such as Carol Baldwin's red Volkswagen and Butch's Indian motorcycle.

This came as no surprise after I spotted Nico Mathies' name as editor. Dr. Mathies (I believe that is the correct honorific for him) manages the rather incredible Schwarze Fledermaus website so he knows the character inside and out. He also contributed to the Black Bat Companion book published by what is now Steeger Books back in 2011.

Blitz has also reprinted some of the books from the 60s and I'll probably devour one of them after this one, though I haven't heard many great things about those. In the meantime, I'm going to enjoy some Blood Money.

Riddle Of The Dead Man's Bequest (March 1949)

I received Bequest in the mail on the same day that The Survivor Murders arrived, making me a very happy batophile. 

In Bequest, Anthony Quinn is called to the home of a very financially successful recluse who passes away prior to being able to speak with Tony. Quinn shrugs that off as an odd, unfortunate event but finds out that another attorney had also been called to the recluse's home. This other attorney appears to have been killed in a murder-suicide later that same day. Is there a connection and are the deaths of the recluse and the attorney as clear-cut as they seem? After an attempt on his own life, Quinn intends to find out.

The recluse's family are basically all bastards and he has a checkered history of his own, so there is no lack of suspicious folks in this tale. This is another story in which the members of team Bat are not used much. McGrath has a presence throughout but is assisting Quinn moreso than trying to interfere and capture the Black Bat.

There is one odd aspect from a story-telling standpoint. McGrath mentions the police commissioner. I believe he even phones him. Jerome Warner was the commish for several of the early issues in the series but they don't refer to him by name. I knew Norman Daniels had ceased to use Warner as a regular character but if the story calls for the police commissioner, why not make it Warner? Unless Warner's status is explained in an earlier story (retirement, for example), it's too bad Warner was completely overlooked.

There is very little action in the story and a little too much goofiness in the way the crimes were carried out and how Quinn and co. figured them out. It made for a relaxing cottage read but I wouldn't count it among the better Bat stories.

Norman Daniels Obituary

There's not much to add here. I had looked for Black Bat creator Norman Daniels' obituary some time ago when building his biography page above but failed to locate it. With greater access to old newspapers recently acquired, I tried again and found it in no time.

It was included in the July 21st, 1995, Los Angeles Times and of course has been added to the bio page now.

The man wrote until he was 83 years of age. I can't help but be impressed by that. 

The Survivor Murders (Summer 1946)

 I recently managed to acquire two more original Black Book Detective novels including the Summer  1946 issue which features the Black Bat story The Survivor Murders. 

The book's premise is interesting from the get-go. A plane crashes in a field killing most of the people on board. Then someone starts killing off the survivor. 

Most of those survivors all seem rather ordinary and harmless. There's a stewardess, a school teacher, a florist and a recently-married young couple...Why would anyone want these people dead? 

One passenger was a mob lawyer who rambled on deliriously as he lay dying. Is someone trying to ensure that none of the secrets he might have blurted out go any further than that field?

Overall it's a decent little mystery. I do believe that most readers will pick up on which characters are the most likely murder suspects but perhaps struggle to connect all the dots until the very end.

That end, incidentally, feels a little rushed, as if author Norman Daniels realized that he was near his maximum word count and had to wrap things up.

If you feel that the notion that pulp heroes need to be surrounded by a team of assistants is tedious and tired, then this is the book for you. Carol Baldwin fans will be disappointed in this one as her role is very limited and Silk is written out fairly early. Butch becomes a bigger part of the story in the second half.

Otherwise, the bulk of the heavy lifting is done by our favourite bat-themed hero teamed up with police officer McGrath, though McGrath is somewhat dull in this one. You could substitute any generic cop character in his place and hardly notice. There's no real attempt by McGrath to discover the Black Bat's identity, for example. They're working towards the same goal throughout.

This is still a very good entry in the Black Bat collection and came a hair shy of being included on the "Recommended Reading" page. It would have made it if the supporting cast had been more heavily used or, in McGrath's case, perhaps not so watered down.

The Black Bat by Big Dad

The artwork below was posted by one Big Dad about ten days ago on a site with which I was unfamiliar, Fur Affinity.

To be honest, from appearances alone, I initially thought that this image had nothing to do with "our" Black Bat but Dad's caption makes it clear it does. 

Who'd a thought that the 1930s would birth TWO bat themed vigilantes... and only one of them had actual bat-like characteristics

I assume this in reference to Quinn's ability to see in the dark.

Black Bat art normally includes the character's cape. I'm sure it would appear "wrong" to some to not do so, but Tony Quinn shed the cape in a story called Markets of Treason. We're so used to a certain "look" that it's easy to forget that.

The issue of Black Book Detective in which Markets of Treason is featured was cover-dated Winter 1944. There were 61 published Black Bat stories in all in Black Boot Detective and Markets of Treason was #27. Therefore, the 34 subsequent stories did not include the cape. He's actually spent more time without it than with it.

As usual, I'm just stoked when I stumble into new material, even if it's just a single image, and grateful when someone gives the character a little more exposure. Nice job, Big Dad, I'd love to see how you pull off the Black Bat's more commonly-known look.

Domino Lady and the Black Bat by Douglas Klauba

We've been told so many times over the years that the Black Bat / Domino Lady graphic novel is "coming soon" that, at least speaking for myself, it has ceased to generate any excitement. The image below, however, revived that spark when I came across it on comicartfans.

Douglas Klauba, Domino Lady and the Black Bat, soon to be published for Moonstone Books.

As you'll see on the link, its "art type" is listed as "cover". There was already an image from the project shared a year and a half ago which appeared to be a cover shot. Unless that one has been replaced, the above image could be a variant cover, much like the softcover and hardcover editions of Moonstone's last Black Bat anthology displayed different art.

Whatever the case may be, I absolutely love Mr. Klauba's work here. It might just need to grace the walls of my secret crime fighting lab. :-)

Update On The Airship 27 Update

The 62nd edition of the Airship 27 podcast was released last week and during this episode, Ron Fortier and Rob Davis added a few more details about the Black Bat novel the publisher hopes to publish by end of summer. 

The book will be in the 60,000 word range and its writer will be one Jon Carter. I'm looking for Mr. Carter on social media but striking out at the moment.

Interior illustrations will be handled by Clayton Hinkle. Samples of his work were also a little tricky to come by, but I did locate his deviantart profile under the nickname "gombuck". It displays all of one image but it just happens to be a Black Bat page so that worked out nicely. 

The full-sized version seems to indicate that this was a page for a Moonstone Books project but I would be hard-pressed to identify which one. 

Man, it's nice to have something to look forward to. The theory that I mentioned in the previous post was that this book would be Gordon Dymowskis "The Politics of Crime" story that was scheduled to be published by Pro Se Productions in late 2018, if memory serves. That is not the case but hopefully "Politics" is still somewhere on Pro Se's radar and we can get both books this year. 

In the meantime, if you're interested in Airship 27's just-released or upcoming projects, give the podcast a listen right here.

Update From Airship 27

Airship 27 had some much-needed good news to share yesterday on their Facebook group.

It had been so long since the last anthology, and Airship 27 juggles so many characters, that I'd kind of given up on seeing them produce another book with this one. I have a theory about it, which I'll keep to myself for now, but between this and Moonstone's planned graphic novel with Domino Lady, we might finally get some new Black Bat material before the year is out.

Bat Update from Artist Daniel Solano

It's been a while since Lucky Comics released a new issue of either its 30s-based Black Bat Tales book or its modern-day version of the character, The Bat. Artist (for the latter book) Dan Solano provided a little update earlier today on the Lucky Comics Universe Facebook page.

The Bat #4 is coming, work on writing and illustration has begun on a new series. If you’re familiar with some of my previous work, then you can expect some special appearances from previous characters in the Lucky Comic Universe. I’ve also spoken with John and he’ll be releasing a special collection of issues 1 through 3 with a brand-new Cover, so be on the look out for that. 

"A new series". I believe that means issues four through six of The Bat telling a self-contained tale as opposed to a whole other book being published by Lucky. The first three issues of The Bat told a story called All Points Bulletin.

And for all the fans of some of my previous work here who want to keep up with the progress of the comic and get an early preview, I’ve set up a Patreon page. Currently only one tier exists, but it’ll give access to my page where you’ll see all of my Lucky Comics work before its published for just $1 per month. I have some plans later to expand on what I can offer on the page but for the moment being this will help me keep in touch with anyone who wants to see the work here continue and new comics be produced.

That would be me.

The page was set up less than a week ago so the content is a little thin at the moment but it does include a preview of the cover to the volume 1 compilation referred to above as well as two pages from the fourth issue of The Bat. Sharing those here would defeat the purpose of the Patreon account so I won't, but you can join up for a whole buck a month, support the man and help move the project(s) along.