Created by Mike Grell "Jon Sable--big game hunter on the concrete jungle--I wish I was him." -- Gene Simmons, KISS Gee, Dr. Suess never carried a gun... Mike Grell's JON SABLE was a gun-for-hire who lived in New York City and seemingly had little problem kicking ass or blowing away the bad guys. Oh, and … Continue reading Jon Sable
Tag: Comic Books
Carmen Valdez
Created by Alex Segura Okay, so… Alex Segura’s Secret Identity (2022) is not a private eye novel per se, but it’s painfully clear where its protagonist, frizzled and frazzled 1970s comic book writer CARMEN VALDEZ, is getting her inspiration from when her writing partner is murdered and she decides to poke around a little. A favourite on many Best-of-the-Year … Continue reading Carmen Valdez
My Bookshelf: “The Graphic Canon of Crime & Mystery”
My Bookshelf The Graphic Canon of Crime & Mystery, Volumes One and Two Edited by Russ Kick Created and curated by activist, journalist, writer, editor, muckraker and comics buff Russ Kick, this ambitious anthology series by Seven Stories Press which kicked off in 2017 with The Graphic Canon of Crime and Mystery, Volume One: From Sherlock Holmes … Continue reading My Bookshelf: “The Graphic Canon of Crime & Mystery”
Easton Newburn (Newburn)
Created by Chip Zdarsky (text) and Jacob Phillips (art) "Okay, enough's enough. Who the fuck is this guy?" -- a confused cop "All I’ve ever wanted to do was get to the TRUTH. And being a cop stopped being the place for that.” —Newburn tries to explain to Emily why he left the police (#7). … Continue reading Easton Newburn (Newburn)
Murder in the Library: Comics
What? You thought I made this all up, or cut-and-pasted it all from Wikipedia? Nope. Here are the books that inspired me to create this site, and the books I've used to cobble it together over the years, as well as the ones I've discovered along the way, broken down into various categories. If you … Continue reading Murder in the Library: Comics
Barney Bailey
Created by Arthur Peddy (art) One and done. Like so many cookie cutter comic book private eye characters in the fifties, BARNEY BAILEY was pretty much instant toast--barely even there, and then he was gone. He appeared in exactly one (count 'em, one!) story in Crime Clinic, a crime comic that set itself apart from … Continue reading Barney Bailey
Spicy Tales: A Naughty Anthology
(1988-90, Eternity Comics/Malibu) Spicy Tales: A Naughty Anthology was a comic book from Eternity Comics/Malibu Graphics that ran for twenty issues in the 1980s and 1990s, and reprinted comics from the pages of the "Spicy" pulps of the 1930s and 1940s (Spicy Detective, Spicy Mystery, Spicy Advenutre, et al), and from the pre-code comic … Continue reading Spicy Tales: A Naughty Anthology
Mike Danger (Danger and Adventure)
Created by ?? "Come and get it, chumps!" MIKE DANGER was a so-so comic book P.I. out of New York who appeared in a short-lived run of so-so private eye tales back in the fifties, in short-lived, so-so anthology series, Danger and Adventure, published by Charlton, which featured several recurring characters. So??? Perhaps the most interesting … Continue reading Mike Danger (Danger and Adventure)
Roy Raymond, TV Detective
Created by "Jack Miller (?) and Ruben Moreira (art) Everyone loved this Raymond. The first great private eye to appear in Detective Comics, rough-and-tumble Slam Bradley, a two-fisted, hard-boiled throwback to the pulp era, made his last regularly scheduled appearance in 1949 in issue #152. The very next issue marked the debut of a decidedly more modern … Continue reading Roy Raymond, TV Detective
Crime Mysteries
Another short-lived comic book anthology series from the fifties, the claim to fame of Crime Mysteries was that it reprinted comic strips from various crime and detective pulps, including private eyes Jerry Jasper, Dan Turner and Don Grady ("The Man of a Thousand Faces"), Queenie Starr ("The Glamor Girl of Hollywood"), Dr. Lance Storm ("The Hunter of Enemies of Justice"), Sally the … Continue reading Crime Mysteries