Private Eye Popeye

Created by E.C. Segar Pseudonym of Elzie Crisler Segar (1894-1938) POPEYE, everyone's favourite spinach-chugging sailor man, gets the P.I. treatment in "Private Eye Popeye," a lame, low-budget cartoon from the mid-fifties, put out by Famous Studios. It was not Popeye’s greatest moment. Despite the fact this was produced smack-dab-in-the middle of the hard-boiled P.I. craze, with … Continue reading Private Eye Popeye

Duck Twacy

Created by E.C. Segar "Snake Eyes! Agh! Eighty-Eight Teeth! Hammerhead! Oh, no, Pussycat! Pussycat Puss! Bat Man! Double-Header! P-p-picklepuss! P-p-p-pumpkin Head! Neon Noodle! Juke Box Jaw! Wolf Man! You're all under arrest!" "The Great Piggy Bank Robbery," a 1946 Looney Tune cartoon short from Warner Bros., directed by Robert Clampett and featuring Daffy Duck, is … Continue reading Duck Twacy

See Ya in The Funny Papers

P.I. Spoofs and Callouts in Comics & Cartoons   If Mickey Spillane Wrote NANCY… from MAD Magazine In the Tradition of Hammett, Chandler, Macdonald and Snoopy (Peanuts) by Charles Schultz Arlo, Janis & Spenser Private Eye Popeye (1954, Famous Studios) Meat Hamburg (Pogo) by Walt Kelly Tracer Bullet (Calvin & Hobbes) by Bill Watterson  Sam Spayed (Garfield) by … Continue reading See Ya in The Funny Papers

Lester March (It’s Only Money)

Created by John Fenton Murray “Nay, hence, and get outta there.” — Lester speaks Somebody make it stop! While there have been any number of miscast or just surprising actors slotted to play private eyes, their performances careening wildly from inspired to simply head-scratching, surely one of the most painful to watch is uber-dweeb Jerry Lewis … Continue reading Lester March (It’s Only Money)

Fester Bestertester

Created by Don Martin (1931-2000) Billed as "MAD Magazine's Maddest Artist," Don Martin's long tenure there (thirty years!) was marked by his his outrageously surreal cartoons, featuring the humungous schnozzes, large hinged feet, sleepy eyes, unfortunate body hair and elastic and seemingly indestructible bodies of his oddly-named characters and the cacophony of bizarre sound effects that … Continue reading Fester Bestertester

Are You Trying to Be Funny?

The Funniest Eyes No, really. Call it "Humour in a Severed Jugular Vein," if you must, but people have been poking fun at the P.I. genre -- and the whole mystery genre, for that matter -- almost as soon as it appeared. But there were a few brave souls over the years who dared to … Continue reading Are You Trying to Be Funny?

Dick Spanner (Dick Spanner P.I.)

Created by Terry Adlam "The detective who puts the P.I. in stuPId!" Private eyes are GO! Mild-mannered private detective DICK SPANNER was the suitably square-jawed (but tiny-brained) titular robot hero of Dick Spanner, P.I., a tongue-in-cheek British series set in "a parallel universe not far from here," featuring puppets, filmed entirely in stop-motion animation. Occasionally … Continue reading Dick Spanner (Dick Spanner P.I.)

Meat Hamburg

Created by Walt Kelly (1913-73) "A question was burning a hole in my brain..." Say what? Walt Kelly, one of America's most beloved comic strip artists and writers--not to mention political satirists--wrote not one, but two, parodies of Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer? Right in the heart of Hammermania! Hard to believe, eh? But it's true. … Continue reading Meat Hamburg

Sammy “Two Toes” Tiffin (Noir)

Created by Christopher Moore "She had the kind of legs that kept her butt from resting on her shoes--a size eight dame in a size-six dress and every mug in the joint was rooting for the two sizes to make a break for it..." Noir (2018) by satirist and professional piss-taker Christopher (Lamb, Secondhand Souls, … Continue reading Sammy “Two Toes” Tiffin (Noir)

Van Trillo and Sam Suede

Created by Jonathan Geffner "Can a dummy find justice in a human world?" Is the world ready for... Dummy Noir? VAN TRILLO & SAM SUEDE aren't your typical 1940s private eyes. For one thing, Van Trillo is a ventriloquist. For another, his partner Sam Suede, is a real dummy. No, really. An actual dummy. Wood … Continue reading Van Trillo and Sam Suede