What's Bully Reading 2024 #17 (During Jury Duty)?: And Four to Go by Rex Stout

Greetings, pals, from the big-ass waiting room (filled with hundreds of people and yet only one bull) at Kings County Supreme Court in Downtown Brooklyn. Yes, that's right, I'm on jury duty! I asked for an exemption on accounta me being 1) a stuffed animal and 2) only seven, but they wouldn't allow it under the new "Stuffed Animals Must serve Jury Duty" legilature they put through last year. That's okay, Pal John had to serve on jury duty at the same time, so he's keeping me company while we wait to see if we'll be called to serve on a jury. I'm preparing my ACAB arguments in my head even now as we speak.


Because a bull's solemn motto is "be prepared," John and I have arrived with our messenger bag full of snacks, a thermos of cocoa, an iPad crammed full of comic books, and three, count 'em, three books. Because we are both really fast readers and I just know I'll be here all day; might as well make hay while the sun shines. I don't understand that adage, so I got some reading done instead.

First book: I have read Rex Stout's And Four to Go, a collection of four holiday-themed Nero Wolfe mysteries. If you ever wanted to read about Wolfe dressed up like Santa Claus, this is the book for you. I love Rex Stout's writing and I haven't read them in many years, so any of them I pick up now (you can see how used this one was when I got it from the thrift shop) are a lot of fun.


Also, I figured I could pick up some of Archie Goodwin's fast talk if I hafta deal with cops like Sergeant Purley.

Today in Comics History, April 2, 1915 and 1936: Nero Wolfe Explains It All

from Nero Wolfe: The Red Box graphic novel [scanlation of Collectie Detective Comics v.17: De rode doos] (Claude Lefrancq Editeur (Netherlands), April 1992), script by Jean-Claude de la Royère, adapted from the novel by Rex Stout, pencils and inks by Phillipe Wurm, colors by Kate
Wait, your wife died the day the baby was born or your baby died? Either way, which one of them was two on that day? Oh, but this seems like kind of a sensitive matter...do you want us to come back later?

Meanwhile, twenty-one years later...



Surely this will be an impossible case for Wolfe to crack, and


Oh, it's the old "Masquerade As a Dead Baby for 21 Years" con game. But that trick never works!

Well, that about wraps up the Mystery of the Red Box.

Today in Comics History, March 28, 1936: Nero Wolfe solves The Case of the Typewriter That Can Type in Different Sizes

from Nero Wolfe: The Red Box graphic novel [scanlation of Collectie Detective Comics v.17: De rode doos] (Claude Lefrancq Editeur (Netherlands), April 1992), script by Jean-Claude de la Royère, adapted from the novel by Rex Stout, pencils and inks by Phillipe Wurm, colors by Kate

Today in Comics History, March 23, 1936: Debut of new character "Batgirl-Red" is an unmitigated disaster

from Nero Wolfe: The Red Box graphic novel [scanlation of Collectie Detective Comics v.17: De rode doos] (Claude Lefrancq Editeur (Netherlands), April 1992), script by Jean-Claude de la Royère, adapted from the novel by Rex Stout, pencils and inks by Phillipe Wurm, colors by Kate