Pulp comics: ‘Black Scorpion’ and ‘Modern Pulp’

I have previously posted on Wordsmith, the pulp-inspired comicbook series by Canadian author Dave Darrigo (1954-2024). But I learned that he has more pulp-inspired works.

After a too-brief stint with The Green Hornet at NOW Comics, he later started his own comicbook company, Special Studio, which existed from 1989-91 under Diamond Press in Canada. There, he put out several pulp-inspired comics, most written by him. A total of 14 comics came from the company.

This time I’ll look at two of those titles: Black Scorpion and Modern Pulp. Another time I’ll look at some of the others.

Black Scorpion ran three issues and starred the Black Scorpion, who was a pastiche of The Green Hornet, but with a black man (newspaper publisher Ben Wright) as the Black Scorpion with driver/sidekick The Dart (David Cox). Each issue had two 16-page stories written by “George Stryker.” While the intros claim that Stryker is a comics fan who wrote several stories, it’s really a pseudonym.

In case it wasn’t clear, Fran Striker created and wrote the radio (and sometimes other media) adventures of The Lone Ranger, The Green Hornet, and Sgt. Preston of the Yukon. “George Stryker” was really Darrigo and Ron Fortier, who wrote many of The Green Hornet comics at NOW Comics and is a New Pulp author, editor, and publisher at Airship 27.

So who are these characters? Ben Wright is the publisher of Pulse magazine instead of a newspaper. It’s not clear what kind of magazine it is. David Cox is his driver and comrade-in-arms. His ethnicity is unclear. He is called The Dart because he uses small darts as weapons. The only other recurring character is Africa Thorpe, an investigative reporter for Wright. The Black Scorpion’s car is the Blue Stinger. We get no origin for the Black Scorpion. Like The Green Hornet, he is seen as a criminal.

As the stories are short, there is not a lot of extra time for anything but the main story. We get a vigilante killing drug dealers; the kidnapping of a pastiche of Nelson Mandela; after the Dart is hurt, the Scorpion has to go after a new female enforcer; a white supremacy gang, the White Lions, beats up Africa Thorpe, and are taken down; the mayor up for re-election is corrupt and is caught by a blackmailer, and the Scorpion is able to get the tape and gets it to Thorpe; and finally there is a serial killer after prostitutes, and Thorpe goes undercover to help stop them.

As a bonus I’ll cover another title.  Modern Pulp was a one-shot comic. It has two stories by Joe Zabel and Gary Dumm, who have contributed to Harvey Pekar‘s American Splendor. The two stories are expanded versions that saw print in their mini-comic called January Midnight.

The first story is about an undercover government agent who runs afoul of a madman who likes to see people getting killed and eaten by his tiger. But she turns the tables on him and exposes the corruption at his company. I could see this being a pulp story. Depending on how the writer did it, they could have turned it into a weird-menace tale or a spicy tale.

The second is a science-fiction tale set in the future and centers around an art thief with an interesting way of laundering his loot. Again, I could see this as a story in a sf pulp magazine.

I was saddened to learn that Dave Darrigo passed away in 2024. I had hoped that his Wordsmith series could be collected in a better edition. I don’t know if that will ever happen now. Ron Fortier also does comics through Redbud Studios. I wonder if there is any chance of them reprinting the Black Scorpion or even Wordsmith? Or whether we could see more stories with the Black Scorpion.