Mike Mist
Created by Max Allan Collins and Terry Beatty

It's been a long, long road for MIKE MIST, the handsome Chicago private eye with a taste for comic books and bad puns, and a flair for solving mysteries in a minute or two. A pet project of Max Allan Collins and Terry Beatty, co-creators of that other long-running comic book P.I., Ms. Tree, Mike has appeared in at least a hundred short shorts, in strips and books, updates of the old minute-mysteries, adapted to the graphic form.

Usually a dozen panels or less, usually also featuring the long-suffering, intellectually-challenged, appropriately-named Lieutenant Dimm as his baffled Watson, Mike first showed up as the upper third of a weekly syndicated, tabloid-sized page of six different comics by Collins and Beatty, ironically titled The Comics Page. The Comics page only ran for about a year, and only appeared in about a dozen papers, but The Chicago-Reader picked up Mike Mist near the end of its run. Mist then showed up in Mystery Magazine until that digest-sized mag bit the dust. Mike finally got a permanent home when he started appearing as the backup feature to Collins' and Beatty's Ms. Tree comic book. He also appeared in several adventures with the magazine's heroine, and even a few longer-length stories and even a few prose tales. As Collins' workload picked up, his wife Barb jumped in and took over the scripting chores on both the strips and some of the short stories. Unfortunately, when Ms. Tree made the jump to DC, Mike wasn't asked to tag along. But rest assured that he's bound to pop up sooner or later. Collins and Beatty's characters are more persistent than Energizer Bunnies, but a lot more fun.

One of the fun things about the series has always been the way they've managed to work in tons of winks at the audience, in the form of puns (some truly horrific groaners) and trivia (detective fiction, old movies and TV, comics and rock'n'roll). And when Collins and Beatty finally acquired the reprint rights to the old Johnny Dynamite series, they finally gave Mike a bit of backstory. Supposedly, Mike grew up on Johnny Dynamite comics, and when he was older, he actually went to work for his hero, the infamous "Chicago Wild Man" private eye, becoming a partner in his agency, and when Dynamite retired, Mike bought out the agency.

The Mike Mist Minute Mist-eries collected thirty-eight of Mike's adventures from The Comics Page, and many of his later adventures were collected in The Ms. Tree Casebook #3.

COMICS

• THE COMICS PAGE
  (Syndicated, 1979-80)
  Weekly

• "Death Takes a Powder" (first Mike Mist ever; reprinted in #6)
• "Death Comes Special Delivery" (September 10, 1979, #9)
• "Murder's a Messy Business" (September 17, 1979, #9)
• "His Last Act" (October 22, 1979, #9)
• "Trick or Trick" (October 29, 1979, #9)
• "Stamp of Suspicion" (November 5, 1979, #9)
• "Final Chapter" (November 12, 1979, #9)
• "It Happened in the Night" (March 17, 1980, #9)
• "Murder Cruise" (March 24, 1980)
• "Chill Will" (May 5, 1980)..

• MYSTERY MAGAZINE
  (Monthly mystery digest).

• "You Only Die Once"
• "Silence Isn't Golden"..

• E-MAN
  (1983, First Comics).

• "The Butler Didn't" (No. 2, May 1983, No. 2)..

• MS. TREE'S THRILLING DETECTIVE ADVENTURES
  (1983-84, Eclipse Comics)
  Back-up feature.

• "No Laughing Murder" (February 1983, #1)
• "Death in the Deep End" (April 1983, #2)
• "Crime Takes a Hike" (July 1983, #3)
• "Damsel in this Dress" (October 1983, #4)
• "Too Damp Bad" (November 1983, #5)
• "Death Takes a Powder" (February 1984, #6)
• "Death Has an Eerie Ring" (April 1984, #7)
• "If the Shoe Fits" (May 1984, #8)
• "Murder at Mohawk" (1984, #9; full length story with Ms. Tree)..

• MS. TREE
  (1984-85, Aardvark-Vanaheim)..

• "Long and the Short of Death" (August 1984, #10)
• "See No Evil" (September 1984, #11)
• "Wertham was Right" (October 1984, #12)
• "You Only Die Once" (November 1984, #13)
• "Claus for Alarm" (December 1984, #14)
• "Suitable for Framing" (January 1985, #15)
• "Snow Job" (February 1985, #16)
• "Four-Color Phony" (April 1985, #17)
• "Silence Isn't Golden" (May 1985, #18)..

• MS. TREE
  (1985-89, Renegade Press)..

• "Disappearing Act" (June 1985, No. 19)
• "Woman in White" (October 1985, No. 22)
• "Railroaded" (November 1985, No. 23)
• "Blood Will Tell" (December 1985, No. 24)
• "Shattered Alibi" (January 1986, No. 25)
• "Staged Suicide" (February 1986, No. 26)
• "Blind Suspicion" (March 1986, No. 27)
• "No Shot in the Dark" (April 1986, No. 28)
• "Lucky Number" (June 1986, No. 30)
• "Overdrawn Account" (July 1986, No. 31)
• "Tag! You're It!" (September 1986, No. 32)
• "Ticket to Write" (October 1986, No. 33)
• "Time Out for Murder" (November 1986, No. 34)
• "Dial "M" for Murderer" (December 1986, No. 35)
• "When Dynamite Explodes" (February 1987, No. 36)
• "Answer Phoney" (March 1987, No. 37)
• "Final Edit" (April 1987, No. 38)
• "Game Over" (May 1987, No. 39)
• "Witness Solution" (October 1987, No. 41)
• "Soaked" (November 1987, No.42)
• "Cold Cash" (December 1987, No. 43)
• "Fear of Frying" (February 1988, No. 44)
• "Murder Cruise" (April 1988, No. 45-November 1988, No. 48: 4-part story with Ms. Tree)
• "Death in the Driver's Seat" (November 1988, No. 48; short story)
• "Diamonds Aren't a Girl's Best Friend" (May 1989, No. 49)
• "Bum Rap" (July 1989, No. 50)..

• MS. TREE 3-D
  (August 1985, Renegade Press)
  One-shot.

• "Death, Diamonds and Danger" (August 1985, No. 1)
• "A Pair of Eyes" (August 1985, No. 1)..

• MS. TREE ROCK 'N' ROLL SUMMER SPECIAL
  (1986, Renegade Press).

• "Music to Murder By" (No. 1, August 1986; full length story with Ms. Tree)..

• THE DETECTIVES
  (1993, Alpha Productions).

• "Image of Death" (No. 1, April 1993)

COLLECTIONS

• The Mike Mist Minute Mist-eries (1981, Eclipse Comics)
• The Files of Ms. Tree #3: The Mike Mist Casebook (1986, Renegade Press)

RELATED LINKS

• Terry Beatty and Wendi Lee's Homepage
  Mike Mist co-creator Terry Beatty shares a website with his wife, author Wendi Lee, creator of Old West P.I. Jefferson Birch and modern gal private eye Angela Matelli.
  .
• F.O.M.A.C. (Friends, Fans, and Family Of Max Allan Collins)
  Max's Official Website!  Here you can find information on Max and his latest works, all done up in a most excellent fashion by his son, Nate, who wants to go to college. So, buy his dad's stuff!

Report respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.

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