Before I say anything about this book, I want to heap some praise on Altus Press. I purchased this book on Cyber Monday (so December 1st) and had it in hand on Thursday, three days later. They obviously wasted no time shipping it and I appreciated that a great deal.
The
Black Bat Companion was released in the summer of 2011. I waited a while before getting it for two reasons; First, I wanted to read more of the original material available before acquiring book and second, reviews were a little mixed. While some referred to the book as being very thorough, others made it sound as though it was filled with useless information.
Ultimately, even though I'm still working through the book, I'm very pleased with my purchase.
There is some repetition in the information provided, usually in the earlier chapters, which makes the page count feel a little padded at times. For example, character bios will mention errors made in regards to their names in certain stories, then the Adventure Index will also point out the error(s). But in light of the volume of information shared, this is really just a minor annoyance.
The Black Book Detective Adventure Index seems good but since I intend to read the stories myself at some point I didn't want to get too deeply into it. The book becomes particularly interesting for me at chapter nine as it provides a list of all the stories printed in Germany (including BBD reprints). Being that there were nearly 600, you could probably create a whole other companion book specific to German story summaries (feel free to steal that idea, Altus).
At the moment, I'm reading the rejected
Black Bat story,
The Lady Is Out For Blood. It doesn't feel like a
Black Bat story at all. The lead character is totally different in name, profession and appearance, as is his female assistant, but it makes for a good read nonetheless. There are also reprints of nine comic book stories of The Mask, a character nearly identical to
The Black Bat but with minor name modifications to the cast.
From that point on, it is best to think of the book as a tribute to primary
Black Bat writer Norman Daniels. The next few chapters feature an interview with Daniels, excerpts from written correspondence by him, biographical information and payment records. If your interest is specific to the
Black Bat character, then you may not care how much money Daniels made for writing his stories, and even less for writing about other characters, but it provides a rare window into the scene at the time. Personally, I was pleased to have it all included.
Overall, while I would have preferred to have some sections filled out more (German Bat), and could have done without a few others (such as character profiles. If someone buys this book, he or she probably doesn't need to be introduced to Silk Kilby), The
Black Bat Companion is an excellent compilation of information. I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to gain deeper appreciation for the histories of the character, the genre and the era.
The Shadow, The Spider, The Avenger, Doc Savage, The Black Bat, The Phantom Detective — these swashbuckling heroes of mid-20th-century pulp fiction all had one thing in common: They fought crime from outside the law, unhindered by red tape and unmindful of such legal niceties as due process. They fought with fists and guns, for the most part hiding their true identities beneath outlandish costume and grotesque disguises.
