Every time you turn around someone comes out with their own Sherlock Holmes novel these days. But almost from the very beginning other writers have wanted to get in on the Sherlock Holmes game. Some were kinder than others, but a special breed, the parodists, poked fun at the Great Detective and all his stories of detection. The very first to take on the Baker Street crew was Robert Barr with “The Great Pegram Mystery”(1892) from “‘Detective Stories Gone Wrong: The Adventures of Sherlaw Kombs’ as by Luke Sharp”. So it’s been going on for a while, in fiction, movies, television, comics, just about anywhere parody exists. Like Dracula and Tarzan, Sherlock and Watson are universally known icons that make for easy parody.
By no means a complete list, here are some that are available online:
2. “The Adventure of the Table Foot”(1894) by Zero (Allan Ramsey)
3. The Adventures of Picklock Holes (1893-94) by R. C. Lehmann
4. “The Sign of the ‘400’”(1894) by R. K. Munkittrick
5. “The Stranger Unravels a Mystery”(1897) by John Kendrick Bangs
6. “The Stolen Cigar-Case”(1900) by Brett Harte (PDF Download)
7. “A Double-Barrelled Detective Story”(1902) by Mark Twain
8. “Maddened by Mystery; or The Defective Detective”(1911) by Stephen Leacock
9. “The Adventures of Shamrock Jolnes”(1911) by O. Henry
10. “The Sleuths” (1911) by O. Henry
11. “The Adventure of the Clothes-Line”(1915) by Carolyn Wells
12. “An Irreducible Detective Story”(1916) by Stephen Leacock
13 “The Adventure of the Two Collaborators”(1924) J. M. Barrie and Arthur Conan Doyle
For more fun:
The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes edited by Ellery Queen (PDF Download)
In the comics, throwing a deerstalker on any character’s head immediately made them a detective. Some of the more developed ones include:
Fawcett Comics published “Sherlock Monk” in two comics in the 1940s. The first was the long running Fawcett’s Funny Animals (also known as Funny Animals), then in Hoppy the Marvel Bunny, meant to steal a little popularity from their best-selling characters like Captain Marvel. Beginning in the first issue of Funny Animals (December 1942) up to at least issue #65, Sherlock Monk and his sidekick Chuck the Duck solved cases as private detectives. The Sherlock Holmes references were not often, falling more in line with the American Private Eye model. Sherlock and Chuck would appear as back-up in Hoppy and even be reprinted in X-Mas Comics #3 (1947) before being replaced by new characters like Teddy Bear and Buzzy Bee. He returned in the Charlton version of Funny Animals in 1954 though these may all be reprints. The series was created, written and drawn by Chad Grothkopf.
“Bow-Wow Beagle, Dog Detective” appeared three times in Ha Ha Comics. Bow-Wow’s attire is a checkered version of Sherlock’s deerstalker and his calabash pipe. Most likely inspired by the popular Basil Rathbone movies, which started in 1939. Artwork was credited to Gordon Sheehan.
“Padlock Homes” by Ed Wheelen began in Champ Comics #18 (May 1942) and ran to #24 (December 1942) before going changing the title to Speed Comics with #25 and running to issue #37 May1945). The last appearance is Part 6 of “the Green Ghost” a mystery that was never finished. The wartime racism makes this no great loss.
“The Great Homlock” Merry-Go-Round #1 (American Comics, 1944) by Ken Hultgren
“Sherlock Costello – At It Again” (Abbott & Costello, August 1971) Probably written by Joe Gill and drawn by Frank Robinson.