The Black Scorpion Collected

Redbud Studio is not based in Canada (I believe they are in Colorado) but they recently sent out feelers about a project they are considering taking on which initially involved a Canadian publisher. The following was posted on Facebook on June 3rd:

The Black Scorpion was a 3 issue mini-series written by Ron Fortier & David Darigo (sic) under a pen-name back in the 90s. We're giving some thought to putting them all together in one volume and making the collection available. Any thoughts?

The Joe Shuster Awards website offer a very thorough biography of Dave Darrigo, including his time as publisher under the Special Studio banner in Brantford, Ontario. It was during this period that Black Scorpion was published. All three issues appeared in 1991.

Darrigo co-wrote the stories with Ron Fortier using the name George Stryker. That name was a not-particularly-subtle nod to The Green Hornet's creators, George Trendle and Fran Stryker. Fortier had written Hornet for Now Comics for some time but that gig had come to an end. Black Scorpion is essentially Darrigo's version of the Green Hornet so few people could be better suited to help write the character than Fortier.

To be clear, for those unfamiliar with the character, Black Scorpion is not identified as being either Canadian or American. I had to refer back to my post about him in my previous blog to be reminded that he operates out of a town called Ravenia. I do seem to recall that some of the names of buildings or streets seemed to have a bit of a Canadian sound to them, however.

If you have any interest in an arguably-Canadian version of The Green Hornet, then I would suggest you head on over to Redbud Studio's Facebook page and make them aware of it. Apparently the project would involve a significant amount of work and Redbud will only follow through if interest appear to be high. At the very least, it would be the restoration of a book created predominantly by Canadian talent at the time.