Tuesday, October 25, 2011

KEN SHANNON "Vampire Mob"

It's almost Halloween, so let's present a scary private eye story...
...from the 1950s, the era when horror comics were all the rage!
Ken Shannon started in 1950 when Police Comics dropped all their superheroes (including Plastic Man and The Spirit) in favor of crime stories.
Beginning with #103, Ken took the cover and lead story slot until #126.
Simultaneously, Ken received his own title, which ran for 10 issues.
As you can see from the story, Ken was the typical hard-boiled private dick with an internal monologue, obviously patterned after already-popular detectives like Sam Spade and Mike Hammer.
His only distinctive characteristic was that he was of Irish descent.
(In fact, his premiere tale was called "The Mad Irishman"!)
The art for almost all his tales (including this one) was by Reed Crandall, one of the best illustrators in the business who went on to become one of the mainstays of EC Comics, handling horror, war, romance and sci-fi with equal panache.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

SHERLOCK HOLMES "Adventure of the Empty House"

When Last We Left Our Heroes...
Sherlock Holmes is DEAD!
And faithful Dr Watson soldiers on as best he can, assisting the police whenever possible...
Much more adventure and excitement awaited the duo!
From The Return of Sherlock Holmes to His Final Bow, the Greatest Detective of All and his best friend continued to solve crimes that baffled even Scotland Yard.
There are those who say his adventures continued even after that, 
but it's only speculation and half-hidden truths...
In the mid-1970s both Marvel and DC launched Sherlock Holmes titles in the hopes of doing ongoing series.
Though this was the only issue of this book from DC, this particular version of Sherlock has made several appearances throughout the DC Universe since...

The Joker #6 (1976)
Detective Comics #572 (1987)
The assembled comic detectives meet the original! (Detective #572)
Join us next week for another tale of mystery..

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

SHERLOCK HOLMES "The FInal Problem"

What better way to begin our re-presenting of classic crime comics...
...than with Sherlock Holmes...and what was intended by his creator to be his last tale!
As all Sherlockians know, there was such an outcry by the public to the apparent demise of Holmes that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was all but forced to bring him back!
Join us Next Week for that tale...
The Adventure of the Empty House!

Visit the...
"The Gifts are Afoot, Watson!"
Collectibles Shop

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

DICK TRACY "Happy 80th Birthday"

On October 4, 1931, Chester Gould introduced Dick Tracy...
...since then, Dick and a parade of villains and supporting characters has made it's way thru four color funnies, novels, radio, movies, tv (both live-action and animated)
Here's the ones created by Gould himself (click on the art to enlarge)...
His successors have added new characters and revived some of those who were long gone.
Heck of a way to begin a new blog, eh?