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.

Your Annual Reminder that Moonstone is Publishing a Black Bat Compilation Some Day

In February 2014, writer Ron Fortier announced a Black Bat / Domino Lady comic book to be published by Moonstone. It had originally been meant to feature a teaming of The Spider and Domino Lady but the publisher had lost the license to The Spider so the Black Bat was going to take that character's place. Cool beans.

In February of the following year, Mr. Fortier sent out a call for an artist to help put together this book, now knows as "Danger Coast to Coast". Cool title, too!

In May 2017, the project was said to in "its last stages of production" yet in October 2018, we were told that the Black Bat and Domino Lady would return in a huge compilation "this winter". Both claims were made on the Black Bat Facebook group.

And now here's another, from the same source, on Friday night.

...DANGER COAST TO COAST, thanks to letterer Patrick Williams is almost finished...at long last...Our best guess is this giant comic will debut early in 2020 and we couldn't be any happier.

Two preview pages are shared, only one which of features the Black Bat. That one is copied below. If you want to have a look at the other, the post is right here.

No knock on anyone here, I'm sure no one wants to see this book published more than Mr. Fortier and Moonstone books. There have been so many of these messages though that I can't get excited for it anymore. Wake me up when it's available, if that ever comes to pass. With Moonstone, it's usually best to not get your hopes up too high.

The Black Bat's ASPC Streak to Resume!

Airship 27's 55th podcast, released earlier today (on YouTube at least) dropped a little bit of good Black Bat news.

Airship 27 publishes novels and anthologies, but Redbud Studio is comics-focused. they have published, among many other books, four volumes of All-Star Pulp Comics, the first three of which included Black Bat stories.

Unfortunately, the character's streak ended after issue #3 but he appears set to start a new one.

Ron Fortier: John Helmer, The Publisher of Lucky Comics...this is according to Mark Davis...supposedly has a new 8-page Black Bat script that he wants to offer us for this volume.

This is somewhat surprising because Lucky Comics has its own Black Bat book in Black Bat Tales. They have two, in fact, if we consider the modern-day version of the character, The Bat.

Now the stories set in the 1930s (Tales) are written by Lou Mougin so perhaps Mr. Helmer preferred to not interfere with that process and/or to ship his own story out because it didn't quite fit into the plans. Regardless, cooperation between publishers is rarely (never?) a bad thing.

Rob Davis warns that there is no set release date for this book so let's not sit on the Redbud website and refresh our browsers repeatedly, but it's good to hear the Black Bat mentioned on an Airship 27 podcast in any case.

Here's the cover to the book which contained the Black Bat's last appearance. Hey, being that he's been a part of most of these books, maybe he's due for cover treatment?

Other stories will include the Crimson Mask and a Purple Scar / Secret Agent - X team-up. You can listen to the show here but the ASPC portion in particular is at the 15:30 mark or so.

The Black Bat is an Amazing Hero!

We knew this of course, but it turns out that he has been officially given that label by Fresh Monkey Fiction. FMF has included the Black Bat in their third wave of 4.5" plastic action figures.

While the pre-order period will only last another week or so, I shall post the link here anyway. I believe whatever number of figures are left will then move to the general store page at some point.

Anyway, let's have a look...

I know to expect these to be a little plain but I wish they'd have included a belt, holster...hell, footwear, even! It's clear that they based themselves entirely on cover images and no part of the character description within the stories themselves.

On that basis, I understand the lack of gloves, of a full face mask (or "hood") and so on.

The unfortunate thing is that the guns in the image of the action figure are "for display purposes only" and are not included with the package. I also wish that the scarring around the eyes had been added to make the figurine a bit more distinctive (and, frankly, authentic).

Nevertheless, I'm glad that the Black Bat made the line-up. I've known of Fresh Monkey Fiction for some time and even considered suggesting to them that they create a Black Bat action figure at some point but decided against it thinking that the character was not flashy enough for them. They seemed to prefer more colourful types like Silver Streak and the American Crusader. I'm pleased to have been incorrect on all counts.