Bat Man: Pulp Avenger

You probably already know how the pulps influenced one of their successors, the comic books.

Shortly, Anthony Tollin’s Sanctum Productions and Nostalgia Ventures will put the spotlight on that topic with volume nine of its The Shadow reprints. It’s being billed as the “Foreshadowing the Batman” issue and will include “Lingo” and “Partners in Peril,” two novels that directly affected Batman’s early development and stories.

(Tollin talks about this pulp influence in a pair of postings at ComicMix.com.)

Andy Fish, Veronica Hebard and Mike Warshaw have taken this queue and are running with it. They’re collaborating on a graphic novel for DC Comics that puts the pulp back into Batman.

Right now, the graphic novel is called Bat Man: Pulp Avenger and the trio hopes to finish it this fall. (You can see a preview of it here.)

“The Bat Man as created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane is very much a child of the pulps,” Andy Fish said recently via e-mail. “He’s essentially The Shadow or The Spider in tights and a cowl. It’s also an era of Americana which I like very much. The blood and thunder of pulp novels seemed to fit the chaos of an oncoming war in Europe and tough times at home.”

Fish says the graphic novel tells “how The Bat Man goes from being a grim death dealing avenger to The Batman we know today, who is against killing.

“The story follows the events of Detective Comics (numbers) 27-37 pretty closely and during that time period Bat Man killed something like 20 people in the comics. Our story delves into what happened to change that.”

Fish loves the pulps. “I’m a big fan of Doc Savage, The Shadow, The Spider, The Black Bat and The Phantom Detective. I gobbled up The Shadow radio shows when I was a kid, I’d often sit and listen while I drew comics, and when I found out how much cooler the pulp Shadow was, through the paperback reprints featuring Jim Steranko covers, I was hooked!”

To further the pulp connection, Fish hopes the graphic novel has a companion, assuming the folks at DC will go along.

“Bat Man: Pulp Avenger may also have a real pulp magazine that goes along with it called The Bat Man. It’s an integral part of our story – Bruce Wayne secretly funds a publishing house to put out a new pulp featuring Bat Man to add to the whole mystique of his existence.

“Mike and I are pitching the idea of doing a real pulp-style book along with the graphic novel which would feature ‘vintage’ ads and illustrations, too. We haven’t gotten the go ahead yet, but I think they’ll bite.”

That’d be exciting. Meanwhile, watch for news about Bat Man: Pulp Avenger in the coming months. “It’s probably going to be (part of DC Comics’) Elseworlds (imprint), since it takes place in the 1930s. It’s not scheduled yet but we plan on having it finished this fall, so it should be right along then,” Fish says.

– William