Jack Hagee

Created by C.J. Henderson
Pseudonyms include Robert Morgan
(1951-2014)

“Hagee’s Manhattan is the one the tourists don’t get to see. It’s those small twisty back streets in Chinatown, the reeking dumpster-filled alleys of midtown, the crumbling docks, the beer-drenched bars that stink of rotting foam and their patron’s indifference. It is a lump of land 14 miles long stuffed with seven million people every day–which is apparently five and half million more than it can handle. It is a violent, twisted, thieving, scumhole. It isn’t really hell on earth, it’s more what you get when you put too many rats in a cage and slam the door. If you picked the place up and moved it to Kansas and filled it with corn-fed farmers, in two weeks they would be littering, horn-blowing, sex crazed, in-your-****ing-face-every-damned-minute-of-every-***-licking-day, pissed-off, insensitive mother****ers with too much attitude who drink too much coffee.”
— blurb from Moonstone Comics, upon release of Jack Hagee, Private Eye

Pure pulp for now people!

Given the author’s fondness for both pulps and comic books, it should come as no surprise that former military intelligence op and NYPD cop turned low-rent, blue-collar private dick JACK HAGEE comes across as a 90’s version of Spillane’s Mike Hammer, about as hard-boiled, blood-thirsty and reactionary as might be expected.

No quiche-eating, health club-going, oh-so-politically-correct yuppy eyes here—just your basic working-stiff dick trying to get along, and doing the best he can for his clients.

And Jack always seems to find good reasons to justify his opinions of blacks, gays, politicians, lawyers, women and especially liberals. You may find his attitudes offensive at times, but there’s no denying they’re a perfect antidote for the “kindler, gentler times” they were written in. Recommended strongly for those of you who aren’t getting enough pulp in your diet.

The Jack Hagee short stories came out of the same late-eighties pulp renaissance stew that gave birth to rough-and-ready mags like Hardboiled Magazine, and gumshoes like Wayne Dundee’s Joe Hannibal.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

When author C.J. Henderson switched to writing novels in the nineties, it looked like the short stories had dried up, more or less. And then the novels petered out. But in 1999, Hagee returned, in a new short story on Shadow House Online, and the character has since appeared in a few graphic novels and made appearances in Moonstone Comics’ endless team-ups. Other comic work by Henderson includes writing for such crime-related titles as Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight and Lady Justice. Under the pseudonym of Robert Morgan, Henderson also writes about supernatural private eye Teddy London. Which shouldn’t come as much of a surprise–one of the very first Jack Hagee stories, “You Can’t Take It With You,” actually took Jack pretty deep into H.P. Lovecraft territory.

UNDER OATH

• “Raw vitality…Henderson is a born storyteller”
  — Armchair Detective
• “Henderson knows the mean streets….and makes them sing with the blood and sweat of life.”
  — Gary Lovosi, Detective Story Magazine

SHORT STORIES

• “What You Pay For” (1986, Hardboiled #4)
• “Nothing Comes Cheap” (1986, Hardboiled #6)
• “You Can’t Take It With You” (1987, Eldritch Tales #14; also January 1999, Shadow House Online)
• “Dance” (1987, Espionage Magazine, Vol. 3, no. 2)
• “Toothpick” (1987, Hardboiled)
• “Milk Run” (Fall 1988, Two-Fisted Detective Stories #2)
• “Nine Dragons” (Fall 1988, Two-Fisted Detective Stories #2)
• “Change From your Dollar” (Fall 1989, Mans Guts)
• “All The Money in the World” (Fall 1990, Hardboiled #10)
• “All’s Well That Ends Well” (1990, Hardboiled #12)
• “Bread Ahead” (1990, What You Pay For)
• “A Fine Officer” (April 1995, Noir, Vol. 2, #1)
• “The Best Meal” (March 1997, Classic Pulp Fiction Stories)
• “Woolworth’s … For All Your Defensive Needs” (November 2002, Thrilling Detective Web Site)

COLLECTIONS

• What You Pay For (1990) | Buy this book
• The Occult Detectives of C. J. Henderson (2002; contains one Hagee story) | Buy this book

NOVELS

• No Free Lunch (1992) | Buy this book
• Something For Nothing (1993) | Buy this book
• Nothing Lasts Forever (1994) | Buy this book

COMICS

• JACK HAGEE, PRIVATE EYE | Buy this book
  (aka “Jack Hagee, Private Eye: The Little Voice Inside)
  (2003, Moonstone Books)
  48 pages, painted grey scale
  Written by C.J. Henderson
  Art by Richard Clark
  Tones by Ken Wolak
  Cover by Doug Klauba
• JACK HAGEE, PRIVATE EYE | Buy this book
  (2005, Moonstone Books)
  Written by C.J. Henderson
  Art by Doug Klauba
  Three all new tales of the mean streets around us today, plus the previously published “The Little Voice Inside.”

FURTHER INVESTIGATIONS

• Moonstone Books
  For more information on the Jack Hagee graphic novels, this is THE place to start.

Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith. Jack Hagee illustration by Doug Klauba, from the 2003 Moonstone graphic novel.