Originally Published In Issue 60
Reprinted In Issue 119
First published back in June of 1973, Issue 60 of the ‘Pocket Chiller Library’ comic series was titled ‘The Bat’. The comic was later reprinted under the same title within Issue 119.
During the 1970s the ‘Pocket Chiller Library’ was a pocket-sized mainstream horror comic which ran for a total of 137 issues between 1971 and 1977. Each month, two issues of the comic were published, amounting to a total of twenty-four issues of the comic published each year.
However, it should be noted that issue 83 and then from issue 86 onwards, the publishers started reprinting the earlier stories. Of these reprints, the first 29 reprints (issues 83 and then 86 – 113) retitled the story. As such, there were only ever a total of 84 unique stories within the series, despite there being more titles.
Unfortunately, each issue was undated, making it difficult to be sure of the date for first publication of each issue. However, it is widely understood the comics were monthly publications, with two publications released simultaneously each month, with the original stories running from January 1971. Therefore, the above date of publication is a relatively reasonable assumption.
Additionally, each issue was unfortunately uncredited to either the writer or the comic artist(s).
Doctor Derek Stanton had been seeking to develop a virus which would provide humans with the characteristics of animals. He’d been working on bats, with the idea that if he could capture the bat’s incredible built-in radar within his formula, then maybe he could solve the problem of incurable blindness.
The press were having a field day with the story. Wild claims of the doctor grafting parts of animals onto people were rife. But Stanton was fairly sure he’d managed to perfect the virus. It was strong. A concentrate which would invariably need diluting.
However, his wife – Bella – was more interested in what her husband had been getting up to outside of the laboratory. She knew he’d been out at a nightclub with Tanya Martin. His blatant infidelity had pushed her too far. However, she had just the idea for how she’d make him pay.
Before Stanton’s evening meal it had been his routine to take an injection of vitamins. But that evening Bella chose something different. Six injections of the highly concentrated bat virus.
Within seconds the first physical signs of Stanton’s change could be seen. A fine coating of fur across his ears. Within minutes his ears were lengthening, and his teeth took on needle-sharp points. Slowly but surely, he was changing. Mutating into something inhuman. Within a matter of minutes, Derek Stanton had become a creature of nightmares. He’d become half-man half-bat…
This one is everything that the cover depicts!!! It’s a wacky B-Movie-esque story, with a similar concept to the movie ‘The Fly’ (1986) with an anti-superhero style vibe to the whole affair. Essentially, we have a womanising mad scientist who’s been injected by his pissed off wife with his experimental bat virus. Subsequently the egotistical doctor mutates into a sort of half-man, half-bat creature.
On the surface it’s all very cheesy, however, there’s also a slightly sinister undertone, with Stanton killing his wife and then gradually going bat-shit crazy. In fact, the writer capitalises on Stanton’s misogyny throughout the story, emphasising the doctor’s womanising even further after his wild mutation into a man-sized bat thing.
The end result is Stanton’s ‘bit on the side’ – Tanya Martin – being held captive by the now utterly insane bat creature, carted off to Stanton’s isolated seaside cottage in lonely Gull Bay. Of course, the hapless Tanya tries her best to flee from his grasp at every opportunity. But the increasingly insane Stanton has other ideas.
Yeah, it’s all a bit silly, but it’s a darn entertaining read. One particular point of note is that the illustrative artwork throughout the comic was done by Ian Gibson, of 2000AD fame. For a PCL, the art is very different from the majority of comics. Instead, it’s very distinctive, wonderfully stylised, whilst also being almost sketchy in places, with a huge amount of energy and movement within each of the comic’s panels.
The ending of the story is a tad cliched, with a tragic finale that weirdly alters the general mood of piece. It’s not a bad ending, but perhaps there could’ve been a better one which would have been more in tune with the rest of the wild comic book ride.
Nevertheless, it’s still a thoroughly entertaining read, awash with mad scientist and damsel-in-distress moments that’ll have you grinning away at the ludicrously over-the-top nature of the whole thing.
The comic book runs for a total of 64 pages.
© DLS Reviews
