Detective Fork

Created by Kevin J. Guhl

Okay, okay — so he may not have always been the most polished piece of cutlery in the drawer, but Silver City’s own private eye DETECTIVE FORK somehow managed to get the job done, in this heart-felt spoof by artist/writer Kevin J. Guhl that pleased fans of hard-boiled detective fiction and utensil noir everywhere.

No, really.

He made his debut in Guhl’s college newspaper, and soon started to appear semi-regularly as a web comic, and later right here in our old Web Comics section for a couple of years. I loved the slap-dash quality and bizarro humour of a piece of cutlery in a trenchcoat and fedora, but trying to explain it? 

I could never really do it justice (Honest! I really couldn’t!) so at the time, I let Kevin do it for ya…

“Detective Fork is a sleuth as quick with a punch to the prongs as he is at solving high-profile mysteries. His adventures take place in 1930s Silver City, where its utensils have hopes of a shiny future but cannot escape the rusty underbelly of their metropolis. If you haven’t guessed by now, all the characters in this comic are silverware. 🙂

I first drew Detective Fork in 1989 and the comic was a regular feature in my college newspaper form 2001-2002. I decided to make it a web comic only in late 2004 and continue to draw Fork’s adventures. Detective Fork has started to gain an online following and I’ve received many positive reviews in the relatively short time I’ve had the comic online. (Many of these reviews come from DrunkDuck.com, a web comic directory where I post the strips.) I’m told it’s very original and the readers have responded well to the badass nature of the noir detective. Some are even shocked when I put in dark twists in character, violence and predjudices I believe are part of the genre.

Detective Fork is something I plan to continue for a long time… If you wouldn’t mind returning the link in your comics links section, that would be great. If you saw fit to include Detective Fork in your Detectives A-Z section, it would truly rock my world. :-)”

Consider it rocked, Kevin.

And so it went. Detective Fork showed up more or less regularly every Wednesday and Saturday from 2004 to 2006 or so, and then the drawer was slammed shut, seemingly forever. But in 2020, as the world went crazy, Kevin J. Guhl pried open that drawer, got out some silver polish and went to work, and after thirteen years, Detective Fork was back, neither tarnished nor afraid, in a brand new four-part adventure.

As Kevin explained:

“A lot of people have asked me when (Detective Fork) would come back. As weird a concept as a talking, crime-solving piece of cutlery might be, there’s an air of originality there that I think is less prevalent in some of my other comic strip efforts (particularly using photos). I’m not going to pretend this is the best Detective Fork comic I’ve ever drawn. I’m out of practice, the art supplies aren’t optimal, and the end product is a little rough. But it came back to me a lot better and faster than I expected, and it was pure joy creating it. That’s what I really missed, even if I didn’t know I missed it – the tactile satisfaction of drawing and inking a comic by hand. I’d like to think I’ll add hand-drawn comics back to my life, maybe once a month or so. We’ll see. But as Detective Fork goes, he’s been with me most of my life. Good to see you again, old pal.”

STRAIGHT FROM THE AUTHOR’S MOUTH

• “How did that come out of my pencil?”

COMICS (Print)

• DETECTIVE FORK
  (2001-02, The Signal)
  Written and drawn by Kevin J. Guhl
  “The Signal” was the official newspaper of  The College of New Jersey, which Guhl attended.
  • “Killer Familiar” (2001)
  • “Leather & Steel” (2002)
  • “The Search For A Secretary” (2002)
  • “Janice Makes an Impression” (2002)
  • “Epilogue” (2002)

LOOSE SILVERWARE

Uncollected print strips and panels

• “Other Times, Other Forks” (2002)
• “Crimestopper’s Handbook #1” (2002)
• “Crimestopper’s Handbook #2” (2002)
• “Detective Fork Draws” (2002)
• “News Editor Fork” (2002)

WEB COMICS

• SILVERWARE NOIR
  (2004 -07, Duck Web Comics)
  Updated twice weekly (theoretically)
  Written and drawn by Kevin J. Guhl
  • “World’s Sharpest” (2004-05)
  • “Playtime” (2005)
  • “Christmas with the Forks” (2005)
  • “Crimestopper’s Handbook #3” (2006)
  • “The Night Invasion” (January 13-May 23, 2006)
  • “Floridian Fumes” (January 6-2006-January 2, 2007)
  • “Death Outside the Brothel” (March 15, 2007-September 6, 2007)
  • “None Such Legend (June 11-May 23, 2007)
  • “Killer Familiar” (June 16-27, 2007)
  • “The Wrath of Fork Jesus” (September 6-17, 2007)
  • “The Two Forks” (September 22-28, 2007)
• DETECTIVE FORK RETURNS
  Monthly
  (2020, Duck Web Comics)
  • “Air of Mystery” (September -December 2020)

SHORT STORIES

• “Killer Familiar” (October 30, 2016, Crimson Streets)
  A prose version of the comic story, with art by John Waltrip.

FURTHER INVESTIGATION

• The Detective Fork Archives
  A veritable cutlery drawer of goodies.
• Thrilling Detective Web Comics!
  The Magnificent Seven!
• “Oh mama I got dem cosmic anthropomorphic P.I. blues again…”
  Going to the dogs, the cats and worse.

Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.