Digital BBD

Want to read the original Black Bat stories on the cheap? An account named My Books And Magazines on Etsy offers an easy method by which to do so.

17 BBD books, each scanned as a pdf file. The entire issue is scanned, not just the Black Bat material, so you get the various other stories that were included in the original magazine, the art, the advertisements, letters to the editor, the whole deal.

Of course, you also get the occasional page tear, smudge, etc. I haven't come across any such flaw that affects the ability to enjoy the story, however. 

The first book in the collection is The Black Bat Strikes Again, the third in the original series. Sadly, the bundle does not include Brand of The Black Bat, the character's first appearance, but that one should be easy enough to track down in some format or other separately.

The last offering (chronologically) is technically the final Black Bat story as well, entitled Hot, Willing, and Deadly, however I believe that is strictly a Tony Quinn mystery and that he never appears as the Black Bat as such.

Applying that criteria, the final Black Bat story would be The Killer Who Wasn't, and it is included in the collection. 

It should be noted that not counting HW&D, three of the remaining stories were not written by Black Bat creator Norman Daniels. Those tend to be inconsistent with Daniels' work and, in my opinion, of lesser quality. 

All told, this is an excellent, inexpensive way to sample the character's adventures throughout his original publishing period. Have a look around, a great many other pulp novels are offered in the format as well. Click on the image above to be taken to the page in question. 

Bud's Closeout Sale!

Bud's Art Books website has a Closeout Sale section to which I'd like to draw people's attention. The Sanctum Books Black Bat reprint material has been on sale there for some time and continue to be as I write this, along with many others including The Phantom, The Shadow, The Avenger, The Phantom Detective and Doc Savage. Check that out here. 

I took advantage of the sale and snatched two books that I might have otherwise waited on. The first was Gentlemen Prefer Domino Lady from Moonstone Books. I had planned on ordering it when Moonstone's June 2022 Triple Threat issue became available, but I couldn't pass up Bud's sale.

I was aware of a Black Bat guest-appearance in one of the stories in this anthology. What I did not know was that the story in question is Kill The Lady Goodbye by Taylor Grant.

That story has been available for download for some time on Amazon. I purchased it shortly after its release in 2017.

I admit to being initially somewhat disappointed at not getting new Black Bat material, but I'm pleased that I have this one in print format now, and a bunch of Domino Lady stories to get into. I believe every story has a guest appearance from characters such as the Phantom Detective, the Woman in Red, and Ravenwood.

The other acquisition was the fifth issue of Sanctum's Black Bat reprint series. 

I've added Market of Treason to the Recommended Reading page. It's notable for being the book in which the Black Bat sheds his cape but is entertaining regardless of that milestone moment.

The rest of the team is heavily involved, particularly Butch, which isn't always the case. McGrath can be said to score a rare win in his rivalry with Anthony Quinn as well. A one-sided rivalry is no rivalry at all, so you can't help but be a little happy for him.

And we get to meet his wife again! In reviewing a past issue, I mentioned that Mrs. McGrath had a few lines and how that came as a surprise, as she so often seemed to be out of town or otherwise unavailable when a scene takes place at McGrath's house.

That book was from 1948 while Markets of Treason was published in winter of 1944. I was unaware that we'd heard from Mrs. McGrath so much earlier. It tickles me that she is given the first name of Mary in Markets of Treason while Lieutenant/Captain McGrath (rank depends on story) is never given one throughout the entire series.

Something else caught my eye. In a scene in which someone sees Tony Quinn for the first time, Quinn is said to look about 30 years of age. This is as specific as I've ever seen Quinn's age referred to. He is usually described as a being unusually young for a district attorney when he was attacked and lost his sight. That would put him in his mid-20's in 1939. Seems to fit.

Since much of the story was described on the Recommended Reading page, there's no sense in rehashing the rest of the information here. I instead want to point out that I love Sanctum's format for these books.

They are slightly wider than your standard DC/Marvel graphic novel. Perhaps it's a result of reading the original, faded, yellowed material of late, but I found the text and image restoration very clear.

This applies to the Mask comic strip. I'd seen a few of those in the past and I figured they would be tough to reproduce but Sanctum did a good job of it.

There were a number of typos, it needs to be said, but I found those in the original Black Book Detective as well. It doesn't ruin the experience or story clarity. I enjoyed the additional essay providing historical background on the two Bat stories as well.

It's been quite some time since Sanctum reprinted Black Bat stories. They stopped after nine issues (a tenth was solicited, I believe, but never released).

I doubt that they'll resume doing so any time soon but if they do I'll now be more likely to purchase it. The only thing preventing me in the past was that I'd already acquired the material in some other format. But if you are new to the character and want to sample his stories, I would very much recommend these books as a means to do so.

The Murder Maker (June 1948)

After a significant dry spell in my attempts at locating some of the original Black Bat material from Black Book Detective, I recently had the good fortune to find The Murder Maker for sale and snapped it up.

The book gets off to a quick start. A gentleman named Gallaway comes to visit special district attorney Tony Quinn at the latter's office. Gallaway has spent years and large sums of money attempting to rid the city of crime. He now believes that there have been two attempts on his life and that there will be more. He hands Quinn an envelope containing the name of the person he believes will murder him, as well as the motive behind the attempts, but does not want the envelope opened until he is killed, should that come to pass.

Naturally, Quinn is intrigued and believes that if the man will not give Anthony Quinn more information, perhaps he will be more willing to do so for...The Black Bat!!

And that's all covered just in chapter one!

Sure enough Gallaway is killed in short order and the Black Bat and his team are on the case. The matter is further complicated in that the person named in Gallaway's envelope seems to have a very solid alibi.

A few things stood out in this story. 

One of the Black Bat's aides is not entirely on board with the team's perception of the primary suspect. It doesn't reach the point of conflict within the little crime-fighting club but it raises an eyebrow nonetheless. Disagreement within the team is something I've rarely, if ever, seen in the original Black Bat material. Normally, the Tony Quinn/Black Bat, Carol Baldwin, Silk Kirby and Butch O'Leary team are all on the same page with little hesitation or doubt.

Also...we meet Captain McGrath's wife! She even has a line of dialogue or two! She has been mentioned numerous times but always seemed to be visiting a relative out of town or some such whenever the Black Bat dropped by McGrath's unexpectedly. I thought she had never appeared in-story. 

Finally, writer Norman Daniels did a nice job with an action scene around the middle portion of the story. As more original material was acquired, it came to light that not all of Daniels' action scenes needed to be shootouts or fist fights. Sometimes, the Black Bat may be trying to find his way out of a burning building, or perhaps he's involved in a car chase.

In this book, the Bat needs to escape a battle on a ferry on a foggy night. Daniels does very well in describing the challenges caused by the water, the cold, etc, faced by the character. And while the Black Bat can normally see in darkness, fog is another matter. 

The only area in which I might criticize the story is in its lack of a true mystery. You may not know exactly how Gallaway's murder (and other illegal activity) went down, but you do get a sense early on of who is responsible for it. That aside, Murder Maker pretty well hits all the right notes.

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.

Murder Town

The previous post about 31 Deadly Guns was actually in draft for about four weeks. I had neglected to publish the post and only noticed this today.

At the time that I finished 31DG, I thought that it would be a while until I got my hands on more original material. Instead, I found a good deal on Murder Town (Winter 1950) and jumped at it. I finished Murder Town this past weekend and in beginning to write about it, I noticed the earlier unpublished post about 31 Deadly Guns. This is why the two posts appear on the same day.

So then...Murder Town. I enjoyed this one a great deal.

The story begins with a failed suicide attempt. The gentleman attempting to kill himself confesses to a murder but then is himself murdered while incarcerated, no less. What's going on? Anthony "Black Bat" Quinn and his team are out to find out.

There are a number of highlights in this book. I found McGrath hilarious. He's again working with Quinn more so than attempting to arrest him but his conviction that Quinn is the Black Bat has not gone anywhere and it demonstrates itself through sarcastic comments along the lines of "The Black Bat showed up tonight, Quinn...But you wouldn't know anything about that, would you??" He has a strong, hands-on role in this one and his back-and-forth with Quinn is highly entertaining.

This is good because Silk is essentially written out of the story at one point. It is hardly a Black Bat adventure without at least one member of the entourage being abducted and tortured or beaten. Normally he or she returns by story's end but not this time. For quite some time, Silk is out of circulation.

Silk's absence creates a challenge in that Silk tends to assist Quinn with the latter's pretense of blindness. Without someone to guide him around, Quinn struggles to continue to "act blind".

It also creates an unusual anger in The Black Bat. The hired gun who takes out Silk also threatens Carol. He comes across as more psychotic, and therefore threatening, than the muscle usually does in these stories. When The Black Bat catches up to him, Tony Quinn let's him have it a bit. I found it more intense than usual.

There was another moment which I found interesting. The Black Bat and McGrath are reviewing evidence when...The Black Bat suddenly disappears on McGrath.

"You may keep the picture," The Black Bat said. "There isn't much we can do tonight. Show it to Quinn in the morning." 

"Okay," McGrath nodded. "I'm done in anyhow. Let's go!" 

The Black Bat had been moving toward the door as McGrath still studied the picture. When there was no reply, McGrath turned. He was alone in the room.

According to this cbr article, it would seem that Batman first pulled that sort of trick on Commissioner Gordon in 1972 or so. I doubt that it was inspired by a Black Book Detective issue from 1950 and there would be no evidence I'm aware of to support the notion that it was. Still, like the use of the name Red Hood in a Black Book Detective story well before it was applied to the Joker, it appears to be another of a great many coincidental similarities between the two characters.

This is just one small, enjoyable moment in an overall good book. The Black Bat entered his final full year of publication in full stride with this one.

Edit: I read The Black Bat's Justice during a mid-October vacation and the Black Bat pulls the disappearing act twice on McGrath in that book. I can't believe this didn't jump out at me upon my first reading of the story a couple of years ago. It is cover-dated March 1941 so well before the book above and, obviously, even much earlier than when Batman first did it to Gordon.

31 Deadly Guns

My reading of original Black Bat material continues with 31 Deadly Guns from January 1949 (cover date).  It was the character's 50th published story and it's a pretty good one, though many of the elements that made the early stories interesting are not present.

Shortly after making an urgent phone call to Tony Quinn to arrange a meeting, a prominent politician named Victor Dermont is shot dead on the courthouse steps. The shooter, named Ernie Ward, is apprehended but he is expected to succumb to a terminal disease in a short amount of time.

Tony Quinn believes that Ward was put up to to the task of killing Dermont and wants to track down who pulled the strings before the case dies along with the uncooperative shooter. There are, of course, several people with a variety of motives to investigate.

An interesting aspect of Ward's character is that Quinn knows him from one of his first cases as a young lawyer starting out. Black Bat stories, at least those penned by Norman A. Daniels, often to appear to be written in "real time". Tony Quinn is said to have worked Ward's case 13 years prior which would put us in 1936, prior to Quinn being a young district attorney that would become the Black bat in 1939.

Among the Black Bat's crew, Silk Kirby is the only one to be featured. Carol Baldwin and Butch O'Leary have only small roles. McGrath is present but very much working with the Black Bat rather than trying to apprehend him. I believe that by this far into the series, that was the norm. Still, it does feel like something is missing but overall this was an entertaining read.

City of Hate

City of Hate is another book I've owned for several months and only recently got to reading. And if Murder Deals in Ersatz was somewhat disappointing, City of Hate (Nov. 1948) got things back on course.

Once again, Tony Quinn and his crew take their skills to a different setting. The story would not work otherwise. Quinn is hired to prosecute a man accused of double murder in a town called Norwood. The man is named Jonathan Bolton and he is despised by the majority of the population, hence the name of the book. Quinn suspects, correctly, that Bolton is innocent and seeks to clear him of the charges whilst appearing to prosecute him. Nice twist.

There are several suspects to the killings with a variety of motives (in addition to the common trait of loathing Bolton) making the actual guilty party difficult to pin down.

Of course, being that the story takes place out of New York, McGrath is not present to harass the crime-fighting foursome, however he is mentioned several times. One the Norwood cops is trouble enough for the team so it doesn't feel like as much of a loss. Butch provides the comic relief here, He has been given a private investigator's badge by Tony Quinn and he can't get enough of flashing it around.

There is plenty of action in the middle parts of the book. I found a chase in an office building to be a little tricky to follow but there is plenty of excitement later as well as Quinn and Carol Baldwin attempt to evade capture from police.

So a fun, fast-paced read. I'll be directing my attention to other material for a bit but then will tear into 31 Deadly Guns, the story that followed this one.

Murder Deals In Ersatz

Ersatz: (of a product) made or used as a substitute, typically an inferior one, for something else.
"ersatz coffee" 

synonyms: artificial, substitute, imitation, synthetic, fake, false, faux, mock, simulated; 

antonyms: genuine

Don't pretend you knew, I know you're lying. :-)

I've owned this book for a while now but had held off reading it. For a while, I succumbed to my obsession with readings things in order, but between Altus no longer reprinting the character's stories, and an inability to find The League of Faceless Men at a price I'm willing to pay, I was able to overcome my self-imposed limits.

Tony Quinn and his loyal aides march into battle against a sinister crew of home front enemies whose despicable crimes of sabotage and treachery call for swift and sure punishment.

Sadly, this outing was a little disappointing. There is a note to readers prior to the start of the story that may partially explain why.

TO OUR READERS: Our new format preserves critical materials - but you will find that there has been no reduction in the amount of reading matter per issue.

I would be interested in finding out Ersatz's word count because that story felt shorter than the other Black Bat tales I've read. I suspect there is more "reading matter" in the various short stories in the back of the book than usual.

There are a few moments that stand out. Tony Quinn is immediately on the case as the Black Bat. Typically, at least in the early stories, Commissioner Warner would visit Tony Quinn and suggest that if Quinn happens to be in contact with the Black Bat (nudge nudge wink wink), perhaps he could ask for the vigilante's help. Writer Norman Daniels went off-pattern here and included the Black Bat before even introducing Quinn and it was a refreshing change-up.

Also, McGrath gets a pretty solid win in his ongoing battle (more or less) to unmask the Black Bat and expose Tony Quinn. He doesn't fully succeed, of course, but if he were truly, fully motivated to end the Black Bat's career, he could have done it here. Rivalries can't be compelling when they're one-sided. McGrath was reaffirmed as a threat here somewhat.

There is little mystery to speak of, unfortunately. The usual apparently-nonsensical-but-key clue made an appearance; in this case in the form of paper clippings of auto accidents. The suspects are revealed very early. One is a particularly good fit but so much so that you dismiss him as being too obvious which really only leaves two that are a little too interchangeable.

Another highlight is the full-page image below. If the mystery was lacking, the action was quite good, including a well detailed car chase it illustrates.

Oddly, it appears during the second chapter of the book but features a scene from chapter eight so perhaps its placement could have been better.

I certainly don't regret purchasing this book but while it had its enjoyable moments, it was among my least favourite Norman Daniels stories. It was the 30th published Bat story and is dated Fall 1944.

The Dangerous Corpse

There has been very little news involving the Black Bat of late so I've directed a little time towards updating some of the pages at the top of the blog.

The "Reprint Resource" page now includes a publisher named Mystery House. Or rather, Mystery House is an imprint of Fiction house.

Fiction House has reprinted three of the character's early stories, oddly enough three stories that have already been reprinted (though perhaps FH released theirs first, I'm not certain). It appears as though the three were released in 2014, presumably as a result of the character getting some exposure from the Dynamite Entertainment series.

Also, the "Blitz" page has been updated to display covers and rough synopses of that German publisher's upcoming reprints. In May, they will release volumes 19-22. Must be in nice, in North America, we appear to be stuck at #18 with Altus Press.

Finally, there are been small corrections and additions to both the Black Book Detective and Fledermaus pages. And speaking of BBD...

I took the time to read The Dangerous Corpse again, one of the last Black Bat stories published (spring 1951).

When I read The Killer Who Wasn't (the issue following this one), I thought it would have made a great conclusion to the series. That description may be even more applicable to this story.

There are a couple of references to how long this group has been in the crime-fighting business. McGrath, early in the story, mentions that he's gotten old for the job. Carol, referring to a prank played on McGrath, confirms that they've been hiding Anthony Quinn's secret for at least ten years. And we get a "as long as there is villainy, team Bat will be there" kind of speech at the end. Again, it may be just me projecting, but it sounded like the series was winding down. If we were referring to a film, credits would roll.

As for the story itself, it's a decent enough mystery. A young lady is making her way to various businesses around a city neighborhood looking for someone named Whitey. When she returns to her rented room, a man is waiting for her inside. In a fit of anger, he strangles her to death and runs off. The people she spoke to earlier in the day are also targeted so many questions are raised around her identity, who Whitey is, why she sought him, the motive for the assault on her, etc. Being that she is young and clearly in need of help, Norman A. Daniels created a compelling victim for his story.

There is another unique (or at least rare) aspect; someone else has concluded that Anthony Quinn is the Black Bat and attempts to expose him. It makes for a nice change from McGrath trying to do so.

This was a pleasant read. The early Black Bat stories often feature large-scale organized crime, Nazis and/or flamboyant villains. These final couple of stories were far more down-to-earth and the variety was appreciated.

The Killer Who Wasn't

It's not entirely necessary to read the original Black Bat material in order of release but it had been my intention to do so when I began collecting the Altus Press Omnibus volumes some years back. I was happy to hear that Altus were "ramping up" (I believe that was the term they used) production of those compilations at one point but after releasing volumes 4-6 over the course of a few months, they have not issued one in almost two years.

If Altus still intends to reprint a complete collection of Black Bat stories, at this rate I'll be long dead before it's completed. Those stories became shorter deeper into the series so perhaps Altus can include four of them instead of three going forward but even if that's the case it would require another ten volumes or so to complete the series as promised.

So I've decided to treat myself recently (through ebay) to the last Black Bat story written by Norman Daniels, entitled The Killer Who Wasn't. If I can not continue reading the series in order from the beginning, I shall start anew at the end and work my way back.

In The Black Bat Companion, Tom Johnson writes that this story would have been a good choice with which to complete the series. Having read it now, by and large I agree with him.

The only downside is that it's a "road game" for the Black Bat and his team. Rather than solve a crime in New York, he travels to a town called Haverton. By then, commissioner Warner was no longer involved in the series and the Black Bat cape was long gone but the rest of the team is there, including McGrath.

In fact, once the mystery is set, when Tony Quinn first appears in the book he is at home playing checkers with McGrath. The dialogue is like that of two old friends who share a long, colourful history. Their relationship had evolved a great deal by then. I can't say with absolute certainty that Mr. Daniels knew this was to be the last Black Bat story he would write, and perhaps I'm simply projecting, but that opening segment had something of an air of finality.

Daniels did a good job of creating suspense in this one by dedicating a chapter towards explaining the outcome of the previous one. For example, one chapter ends with Silk getting a phone call and being told that Quinn has been kidnapped from the house in which they're staying. The following chapter explains how it happened while Silk was elsewhere in the house. Daniels applies that method of story telling a couple of times to set, then explain, an in-story cliffhanger and it works well.

The majority of these original Black Bat stories include a member of the team being abducted at some point and in this case, it is Quinn. His kidnapping creates concern among members of the team, naturally.

The book concludes with Carol jumping into his arms when Tony is reunited with his full crew. While Quinn acknowledges that there's plenty of work to be done as The Black Bat and as a special prosecutor in New York, he also wonders when he finally "won't have to let go" of Carol in order focus on his ongoing mission.

It may not have been intentional at the time but knowing how things worked out in the real world, that question, inserted in the final paragraph as it is, adds a small amount of doubt about Quinn's desire to continue putting his life at risk as The Black Bat. As a result, it would indeed have worked well as a conclusion to the series.

And to my mind, it is exactly that. Again based on the Black Bat Companion, the next story (called Hot, Willing and Deadly) lacks most of the features that made the Black Bat enjoyable including, you know...The Black Bat. Tony Quinn's alter ego is only mentioned occasionally and briefly. Furthermore, the story includes the following line:

...But it had been largely at her (Carol's) insistence that he'd agreed to drop his duel (dual?) role of public prosecutor and private avenger for one (sic) and forever..."

We are then led to believe that some time following the end of The Killer Who Wasn't, Quinn had an epiphany and hung up the black mask for good.

I can live with that. By all appearances, HW&D can only be marginally considered a Black Bat tale anyway. Fans of the character probably would want the series to end with Tony and Carol finally able to be together. As The Killer Who Wasn't ends with them in each other's arms, and is Norman Daniels' last contribution to these characters, let's consider it the final chapter and dismiss the material that came after. "Killer" is a perfectly respectable and satisfying way to go out.

Black Bat Omnibus Volume Three Now In E-Book Format

Are e-books your thing? If so, you're the target market for one of Altus Press' most recent releases, announced last week.

The Black Bat returns! This collection contains the next three adventures of the Black Bat: “The Black Bat’s Flame Trail,” “The Black Bat’s Triumph,” and “The Black Bat and the Trojan Horse,” uncut and restored. It’s the next volume of the complete reprinting of the series.

By purchasing them at altuspress.com for $4.99, you'll receive a .zip file containing both .mobi (for Kindle devices) and .epub versions (for IPhones, IPads and Nook devices.

The print versions are at volume 6 but I suspect 7 is on the way soon.