The Black Bat Returns!

Credit to First Comics News for breaking this because NO ONE else seems to have it.

Cover art: Mike Fyles 

6” x 9”, sc, 270pgs, $13.95 

The original Black Bat returns in this thrilling collection of all NEW action-crime stories! 

Read the character that was created at the SAME TIME as Batman! 

Ex-District Attorney Tony Quinn is blinded in a courtroom assault! 

He now seeks justice outside of the law as the relentless hero who can see in the dark: The Black Bat! 

Guest-starring: The Green Lama, Domino Lady, and Golden Amazon! 

Stories by Ron Fortier, Bobby Nash, Adam L. Garcia, Colin B. Harvey, Sean Taylor, James Palmer, David Boop, David White, and Josh Vogt!

The publisher is not named, and FCN uses a Dynamite banner in the announcement, but the book's logo appears to be the Moonstone logo. It seems clear that this is the anthology book that Ron Fortier has talked about a few times in recent months and that the character will be be done far more traditionally than Moonstone's earlier version. I assume this is an October solicitation.

I absolutely LOVE that cover and I need to get my hands on a bigger version. Check out some of Mike Fyles other work on his Facebook page.

Edit: Moonstone posted about it on their seldom-used Facebook group. It is actually a November solicitation, not October.

Another edit: Ron Fortier stated on Facebook that his Black Bat story involving Dr. Satan is included in this book.

The Black Bat meets The Rook!

Well...Met The Rook.

While on an internet search, I found out about a Black Bat guest-appearance I had not been aware of previously. He is included in one of the short stories in the third volume of The Rook. The promotional pitch for that book (at least the one I found) makes no mention of it so it was difficult to know about it. I was brought up to speed when I came across the following (partial) illustration of writer Barry Reese's website.

I mentioned yesterday that I’ve been getting several pieces of production artwork from George Sellas lately.  He’s working on The Rook Volume Three – Special Edition and, as always with him, it’s going to look gorgeous! Today we see an interesting piece featuring The Black Bat and Doctor Satan, both of whom play a large role in “The Burning Hells,” a story that kicks off the third book in The Rook series. Again, this is just a production sketch but you can already tell that George is knocking it out of the park!

Again with friggin' Doctor Satan. A couple of months ago, I'd never heard of this guy. Now I can't seem to get away from him.

I've come across The Rook a couple of times while looking up pulp news/history and have never heard a bad word said about that series of novels. This third volume was released early in 2009 and has since sold out but a special edition is planned. I believe it was originally expected to be out by the end of 2014, but I don't see any evidence that it's currently available.

When it does hit shelves, it will look like a little something like this...

The original edition's cover was a nod and wink to one of John Byrne's classic X-Men cover during the Days of Future Past storyline.

Here's a neat deal though; The Rook is currently included at bottom right of the poster, unlabeled either "slain" or "apprehended", in order to sell the fact that he is the proverbial last man standing. But as the cover was being created, The Black Bat actually held that position on the poster.

Damn.

"Slain".

But at least there's still a chance that Domino Lady and Miss Fury will escape, team up, and avenge his death. A pulp fan can dream, right?

Cool stuff. When this comes out, The Black Bat may well serve as my "gateway drug" to the Rook universe.

Guns of The Black Bat

Not the upcoming comic series from Moonstone. This is a two-story novel by Wayne Skiver.

First things first. I want to throw some flowers Tom Johnson's way. I contacted him in regards to Double Danger Tales recently, specifically about whether the first volume of DDT was still available for purchase. Not only did Mr. Johnson respond quickly, he provided me with a list of Black Bat stories from various authors, published in a number of different books. It's a great resource for this obsessive collector and the gesture was very much appreciated.

This helped me to avoid duplication. Double Danger Tales has two Black Bat stories and two Dr. Satan stories. I'm not terribly interested in the latter two and I can get the Bat stories elsewhere with additional content so...why wouldn't I do that?

One of those other options is Guns Of The Black Bat, available by print-on-demand from lulu.com.

The Dark Detective of the Pulps returns in two exciting new mysteries! 

In "Death Smiles Back" Tony Quinn (AKA The Black Bat) must figure out the connection between two warring crimelords, and a strange string of murders.  Hindering his investigation is a diabolical frame up which paints the Bat as a Cop killer! 

Next up The Dark Detective squares off against the world's weirdest criminal, Doctor Satan in a deadly concert of Bullets and Brimstone.  Can the Bat survive the "Symphony in Shadows"?

As I understand it, Symphony in Shadows was originally a Doctor Satan story which was modified to include The Black Bat as the protagonist instead of the usual character filling that role, Ascott Keane. It'll be interesting to see if the Bat still feels authentic being that he's serving as a replacement.

Death Smiles Back, meanwhile, was one of the stories that I'd intended to get from DDT vol. 1. The other story in that book, Murder Under The Big Top, is included in Pulp Detectives by Altus Press (yep, those guys again...).

Every story in this book is written by Mr. Johnson. A second Black Bat story appears in addition to "Big Top", called Guns of Vengeance. I'm aware (now that Mr, Johnson has made his compilation of Bat stories available to me) of an older story that appeared in the original version of Double Danger Tales called The Black Bat's Vengeance but do not know if there's a connection between the two or if they just happen to have similar titles.

And so I dive into Death Smiles Back tomorrow morning. One thing I already know; the text is very small, yet the top quarter of every page is unused, for some reason. The layout is unusual and if small print is difficult for you to deal with, you may prefer to purchase the digital version and read it on a computer or an electronic device on which you can enlarge the text. Just a small heads up.

City of Phantoms

At the conclusion of my post about Tom Johnson's The Black Bat's War on  February 11th, I mentioned picking up another story written by Mr. Johnson author before long.

I followed through this past weekend. The story in question is called City of Phantoms and is a team-up with The Phantom Detective.

When an old case resurfaces, the world's greatest detective is pulled back into a new battle with a deadly enemy, while ex-fighting district attorney Tony Quinn's lovely secretary, Carol Baldwin is kidnapped by a vicious mob, hoping to force the prosecution to drop its case against their boss. Two champions of justice meet in a race against time!

Based on the cover, I was a bit concerned that The Black Bat's role might be limited. That wasn't the case at all. In fact, you could argue the opposite point. There were occasions I thought Phantom Detective fans might have been disappointed while The Black Bat dominated the story. But as a Bat fan, that worked for me just fine.

And it isn't just the Bat. I knew from the solicitation that Carol was involved, but Silk and Butch get plenty of "face time" as well.

Not that Phantom fans are shut out by any stretch. I am not familiar with The Phantom Detective (though judging by how often he's paired with The Black Bat, I guess I will be before long) but it seemed as though he had similar treatment in this story. The antagonist has ties to PD's past and a number of the supporting characters are clearly "regulars" in his adventures, not unlike Carol, Silk, etc.

Again risking that people far more knowledgeable about these characters than I am will read this and conclude that I'm a simpleton, I should point out that the story also appears in a Triple Detective volume (#4) by Altus Press. Except that it is credited to one Robert Wallace.

Now Robert Wallace is simply a pseudonym for Mr Johnson. I've found out that many original Phantom Detective stories were credited to the house name Robert Wallace. I'm not sure I see the point in Tom Johnson doing this, aside from the obvious; attempting to be faithful to the material as though it was published in 1956, as the cover suggests. I suppose what throws me off is that Johnson had another story published in the same book anyway, under his actual name.

Having only recently read The Black Bat's War, I can easily state that City of Phantoms is near identical in style, so there would be little question that Mr. Johnson did write it anyway. And again, his fondness for the characters and their history shines through.

Now then...In a bit of fortuitous timing, I've just received my copy of the Black Bat story from Pulpsploitation earlier this week and started reading it this morning. I'm not far enough into it to comment much yet, but it takes place in 1977 and seems like an interesting take on the character. It's certainly an unusual take, so I look forward to diving in further.

But while I'm working through that, I'll see if I can find a way of getting my hands on a copy of Double Danger Tales, volume one.

DOUBLE DANGER TALES, Vol. 1 

DR. SATAN & THE BLACK BAT return in 4 All-New Exciting Tales of Mystery, Magic, and Adventure! Pulp Fiction at its finest! 

Includes: DR. SATAN starring in "Symphony in Death Minor" by Wayne Skiver, and "The Prisoner" by Sean Ellis.   

THE BLACK BAT features "Death Smiles Back" by Wayne Skiver, and "Murder Under the Big Top" by Tom Johnson. 

Cover Art & Interior illustrations are by Rich Woodall. 

Join us in these Thrilling and Chilling set of stories featuring 2 Heroes & Villains, in 2 stories each... DOUBLE DANGER TALES!

I need to check to confirm, but I believe that would cover all original Black Bat material from Double Danger Tales. Frankly, I would prefer a compilation of that material in one volume but that I know of, that's not happening. DDT used to be available on lulu.com but that doesn't appear to be the case any longer, so acquiring this one might be a challenge. Wish me luck!

Getting to know: Doctor Satan

In an interview earlier this week, writer/publisher Ron Fortier mentioned that he had written a lengthy Black Bat story in which that character butted heads against one Doctor Satan.

I think it's safe to say that Doctor Satan is not among the better known characters from the pulp era. For that matter, everything I read about him seems to indicate that he's among the least popular. There were eight stories published about him in 1935 and 1936 in total. So we'll take a moment to find out more about him in anticipation of the Black Bat anthology to which Mr. Fortier referred.

"Doctor Satan. A man who took pride in his fiendishness! A man who robbed and killed, and broke the laws of man and God, not for gain, because he already had more than any one person could spend, but solely for thrills! A being jaded with the standard pleasures of the world, and turning to monstrous, sadistic acts to justify his existence and give him the sense of power he craved!" - Paul Ernst, The Consuming Flame, (Weird Tales, Nov. 1935).

The above was copied from the Vault of Evil message board.

So basically, if Bruce Wayne was a complete dick...

Apparently, Doctor Satan did have occult-based powers as opposed to being some stage magician charlatan who preyed on the superstitious. He had a nemesis of his own, a detective named Ascott Keane, as well as a couple of unusual assistants. I won't say any more about them in the event that Mr. Fortier plans on using them in his story but they may make a good counter to The Black Bat's entourage. This guy may end up being a perfect villain for The Black Bat if handled properly, and I certainly have no reason to doubt Mr. Fortier's ability to do so.

The cover above is from Altus Press' complete reprint of the character's adventures.  Click on it to be taken to their page.

Highlights of Ron Fortier's appearance on the Art's Reviews podcast

This is a rare two-post day on this blog, but I take that as additional proof that 2015 will be the year of the Bat.

Airship 27's Ron Fortier was a guest on Art's Reviews podcast yesterday and talked about the huge amount of projects occupying his time over the next few months. The bulk of the first half of the conversation was about Sherlock Holmes projects (past and future) but at about the 30 minute mark, the attention turns to The Black Bat for a few minutes.

I attempted to capture the information as best as I could, starting with a project that I'm hearing about for the first time. All quotes are by Mr. Fortier (host Art Sippo may as well have not been involved, he contributed very little besides the occasions "wow").

"Last year I wrote a long Black Bat vs. Doctor Satan story which will be appearing in a new Black Bat anthology from Moonstone."

Fantastic! I was getting tired of The Black Bat appearing in one story in anthologies for Domino Lady, The Spider, and so on. About time the tables were turned in that regard. I knew little about Doctor Satan but have done a little research and this could be quite cool. More on him later.

We are also given a bit more information about the team-up with The Purple Scar.

"Basically it's a novelette...It will have ten interior illustrations by none other than Rob Davis."

Onwards from prose books to comic book projects. The image below is several months old, but for those who may not have seen it yet, you could probably guess that it is meant to be the cover to the Black Bat / Domino Lady book. The art is by Mike Dorman.

"I've taken over writing two series for Moonstone. One of them is called 'Black Bat and Domino Lady: Danger Coast to Coast'...

What I've done is, every two issues we tell a complete story. In the first storyline, the Black Bat story is the 'A' story whereas interspersed between it is the 'B' story of Ellen Patrick out in Los Angeles.

When you get to issue #3, it reverses. The A story becomes the Domino Lady story, in between some of those pages you're going to find the continuation of the Black Bat saga but it's the B story now."

"And then as if that wasn't enough to fill my plate, he (Moonstone's Joe Gentile) turns around and had another comic project in the works that for whatever reason, the gentleman who was writing it took a hike...And it was going to be a pulp team book, much like a pulp version of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen but with The Black Bat as the primary, central force collecting these pulp heroes...The series itself is going to be called Guns of The Black Bat".

"Any public domain character that you can possibly imagine is sooner or later going to pop up in this series. In the first two issues we've got...Domino Lady is there, The Phantom Detective, Air Boy, I.V. Frost, Ki-Gor The Jungle Lord, Jim Anthony Super Detective and...I got to throw in my own character Nighthawk (sp?), is going to appear there, in comic book form."

So basically, in terms of Black Bat content, the exact opposite of Mask and Masks 2. Where he appears to be a bit part player in those books, he will be the hub character in Guns.

There was also a brief reference to a third volume of Black Bat Mystery. So all very good news, aside from the fact that we don't have a release date for any of them yet.