Comics based on famous detective characters are not uncommon. Sherlock Holmes alone has dozens in many languages. But what is rarer, and the focus of this piece, are actual adaptations of detective stories and novels. Not loosely based, sorta-kinda stuff but faithful renditions of the novels these famous writers penned back in the golden age of Mystery. Sadly some favorites never received this form of adaptation. Ellery Queen, for instance, had five or six comics, but none were adaptations of the novels or short stories. Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct got similar treatment in 1962, promoting a short-lived TV show. These are not what we are talking about today.
Only those detectives lucky enough to be adapted from literary works into comic versions are presented here. I have arranged them by when the characters were created, not the comics published, for new ones appear every year (case in point: Dark Horse Comics released a new Hound of the Baskervilles in 2013). Many of these comics are from Europe, where longer forms (and, lets be honest, more grown-up forms) of comics are the norm. The American comic books, comic strips and such tend to be linked to other mediums such as movies, radio or television. These are usually new adventures because the radio and TV writers don’t want to be saddled with a canon. The latest trend, through companies like Dynamite, is to expand on the original stories in new and unusual ways, not to adapt. This can be fun but again, is not what we are talking about here.
C. Auguste Dupin (1841)
The granddaddy of all detectives is Edgar Allan Poe’s C. Auguste Dupin. He appeared in Classics Illustrated #21 (July 1944) with a version of “Murder in the Rue Morgue”, drawn by Arnold L. Hicks and again in A Treasury of Victorian Murder Vol. 5: “The Mystery of Mary Rogers” by Rick Geary (2001). I have yet to see a version of “The Gold Bug” or “The Purloined Letter”. I’ll keep looking.
Sherlock Holmes(1887)
Sherlock Holmes (1887)
After Dupin comes Sherlock, of course. There have been many Holmesian comics, as well as many parody comics, but actual adaptations began with that same comic, Gilberton’s Classics Illustrated #21 which featured The Sign of Four (drawn by Louis Zansky) along with Poe and DeMaupassant. Issue #33 featured The Hound of the Baskervilles drawn by H. C. Kiefer and #110 A Study in Scarlet drawn by Seymour Moskowitz. Classics Illustrated Giants: An Illustrated Library of Exciting Mystery Stories would reprint “The Sign of Four” and “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” in 1949.
Marvel was slow to get Sherlocky but when they did, they did it big in one of their B&W magazines, Marvel Preview #5 and #6 (April 1976-Spring 1976). The script was by Doug Moench and the art by Val Mayerik and Tony deZuniga, who are better known for Conan comics. (Not Conan Doyle comics.)
Renegade Press was the most ambitious with twenty stories adapted in The Cases of Sherlock Holmes 1-20 (May 1986 – September 1988, then Northstar for the final 4 issues 1988-89), adapted by Gordon Derry and illustrated by Dan Day.
SelfMadeHero published “Hound of the Baskervilles”, adapted by Ian Edginton and illustrated by Ian Culbard, in May 2009 and Dark Horse did The Hound of the Baskervilles (2013) by Martin Powell and Jamie Chase.
Hercule Poirot (1920)
Agatha Christie is famous all over the world and it should be no surprise that the Poirot adaptations are from France (shouldn’t that be Belgium?). Published by Harper Collins in English in 2003, they feature the writing of Francoise Riviere and the art of Solidor. Novels featured were: Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile, The Secret of the Chimneys, Murder on the Links, The Murder of Roger Ackeroyd, The Man in the Brown Suit, The Big Four and The Mystery of the Blue Train.
The Saint (1928)
Leslie Charteris’s rollicking buccaneer, Simon Templar, had his own comic book in the 1940s but it was the 1969 comic strip by Fleming Lee that first adapted Bet on the Saint (1948). Moonstone Comics adapted The Saint On Guard (1944) in “Sizzling Saboteur” in 2012.
Sam Spade (1930)
There were plenty of original tough guys out there so the 1946 adaptation of The Maltese Falcon in Feature Books #48 (David McKay Publications) is unusual. Artwork by Rodlow Willard.
Maigret (1931)
Georges Simenon’s Inspector Maigret is one of the greats of Mystery fiction. He had a popular comic strip in France from 1950 to 1953. Fourteen Simenon novels were adapted. Artwork was by Jacques Blondeau. For more on Maigret comics.
Despite being big sellers in Europe, North America stayed away. So when a series of hard cover comic adaptations were done between 1992 and 1997, they appeared in seven language, but not English. In French these were:
1. Maigret et son mort (1992) – Maigret and his Dead (1948)
2. Maigret tend un piege (1993) – Maigret Sets a Trap (1955)
3. Maigret chez le Flamands (1994) – Maigret at the Flemish (1932)
4. Maigret at la danseuse du Gaii-Moulin (1995) – Maigret and the Spy (1931)
5. Maigret et le corps sans tete (1997) – Maigret and the Headless Corpse (1955)
These adaptations were done by Odile Reynaud and the artwork by Phillipe Wurm, Martine de Bast and Frank Brichau.
Nero Wolfe (1934)
Rex Stout’s gigantic detective Nero Wolfe had a comic strip but it was not an adaptation. The French stuck to the novels when Le Franco did: Champagne for One (1990) (based on League of Frightened Men, 1937) and The Red Box in 1992.
Mike Shayne (1939)
A delightful surprise was Dell’s Mike Shayne, Private Eye (November 1961-January 1962 – September-November 1962). These three solid issues were based on actual Brett Halliday novels: The Private Practise of Michael Shayne (1940), Bodies Are Where You Find Them (1941) and Heads… You Lose (1943). Script by Ken Fitch and art by Edd Ashe. They even remembered to make him a redhead.
Philip Marlowe (1939)
Philip Marlowe was another detective who found popularity in films and on the radio and finally in TV, so why bother adapting the originals? This did happen in 1995 when Fireside Books did The Little Sister, with the adaptation by Michael Lark. The short stories fared better with Raymond Chandler’s Marlowe the graphic novel (2003 by IBooks) Writers Tom DeHaven, Jerome Charyn, and James Rose Artists: Rian Hughes, David Lloyd, Lee Moyer, and Alfredo Alcala featuring “The Pencil,” “Goldfish,” and “Trouble in My Business.” Yesterday’s Tomorrows (2007) would reprint Rian Hughes “Goldfish” and again in 2011.
And that takes us only to 1939. Where are the Adam Dalgliesh comics? The Mary Higgins Clark’s, the Ed Hoch, the Simon Brett graphic novels? Don’t hold your breath. While Frozen Heat was released by Marvel in 2012, featuring an adaptation of a mythical book by Richard Castle (graphic novel was written by Brian Michael Bendis and Kelly Sue DeConnick, with art by Lan Medina), does this count? Or is it just a mind-bending bit of publicity for a TV show? The truth is most novels of ratiocination are too slow for comics. Too many talking heads. The major consumer of comics in North America are kids. Do they want to read a comic about stuffy old Poirot or Maigret? They haven’t read the books, you can be sure of that. DC may stand for Detective Comics originally, but there are so few of these around today…
Nice retrospective