Reed Richards, Genius Inventor

Mister Fantastic, Reed Richards! One of the most brilliant minds of his universe. Creator of the Negative Zone portal, the Flying Bathtub Fantasticar, and one bajillion ways to turn the Thing back into Ben Grimm. (Uh, forget that last one.) Can turn a paperclip and a rubber band into a time machine faster than you can say "MacGyver." Able to calculate pi to a googol digits in his head. Inventor of the phone without a zero key:


"Reed, oh no! Franklin's choking on his Hulk-i-Os cereal! Quickly, dial the operator to get an ambulance!"

"Uhhhhhhhh..."

Oh well, it's just a phone. It's not rocket science, is it?


Reed Richards: Loving husband. Faithful friend. Doting father. Heckuva nice guy. Sometimes can't invent his way out of a paper bag.

A Wodehouse a Week #38: Carry On, Jeeves

A Month of Firsts continues this week with Carry On, Jeeves (1927). It's not the first appearance of Jeeves...that's in The Man With Two Left Feet from 1917, in a story that debuts Jeeves and a proto-Bertie who may or may not be Wooster, depending on which Wodehouse scholar you pay attention to. It's not the first collection of short stories mostly about Jeeves...that would be My Man Jeeves (1919), a collection of eight short stories, four about Bertie and Jeeves (and most of them re-written for Carry On, Jeeves). It isn't even the first full collection of Jeeves stories: that's The Inimitable Jeeves (1923). So why oh why, you cry, would Bully include Carry On, Jeeves in the mildly frantic Month of Firsts? Don't despair, true bull-liever, there's a very good reason: Carry On, Jeeves contains the short story "Jeeves Takes Charge," which explains how that inimitable valet first came into the life of Bertram Wilberforce Wooster. To make a comic book analogy, although this isn't issue #1, it's the special origin issue, or, as you might prefer to call it: "Jeeves and Bertie: Who They Are and How They Came To Be!":

I crawled off the sofa and opened the door. A kind of darkish sort of respectable Johnnie stood without.

'I was sent by the agency, sir,' he said. 'I was given to understand that you required a valet.'

Much like the words 'You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive,' this humble sentence heralds the arrival and partnership of two of the greatest characters in English literature, and from the moment that door opens we're in for delight. Carry On, Jeeves is one of my favorite Bertie Wooster collections, and an ideal first book to press on a Plum-curious pal, not merely because it contains the origin of the Jeeves/Wooster team-up, but also because it's mouth-droolingly funny and beautifully written. I normally read my weekly Wodehouse with a small handful of plastic Post-It™ tags in my hoof, ready to mark a delightful or quotable passage I want to write about later, and Carry On, Jeeves is flagged with so many small Post-Its™ that it's starting to look like a textbook at four AM the morning of a final exam. In short, it's a cornucopia of fun, and that's what I'm all about:

'If half of what he has written is true,' said Florence, 'your uncle's youth must have been perfectly appalling. The moment we began to read we plunged straight into a most scandalous story of how he and my father were thrown out of a music-hall in 1887!'

'Why?'

'I decline to tell you why.'

It must have been something pretty bad. It took a lot to make them chuck people out of music-halls in 1887.

If you're critical of Wodehouse's formula, however, p'raps Carry On, Jeeves is not for you. Virtually all of the stories follow the same general plotline: Bertie adopts a habit, mannerism, affectation, or (most usually) an article of clothing that Jeeves objects to:

'Pardon me, sir, but not that tie.'

'Eh?'

'Not that tie with the heather-mixture lounge, sir.'

It was a shock to me. I thought I had quelled the fellow. It was rather a solemn moment. What I mean is, if I weakened now, all my good work the night before would be thrown away. I braced myself.

'What's wrong with this tie? I've seen you give it a nasty look before. Speak out like a man! What's the matter with it?'

'Too ornate, sir.'

'Nonsense. A cheerful pink. Nothing more.'

'Unsuitable, sir.'

'Jeeves, this is the tie I wear!'

'Very good, sir.'

Dashed unpleasant. I could see the man was wounded. But I was firm. I tied the tie, got into the coat and waistcoat, and went into the sitting room.

Bertie's triumphs of apparel are always temporary, however. It's not long after one of these opening scenes before he finds himself embroiled in a tangled scheme to help out one of his Drones Club pals or a boisterous aunt or two. While Wooster wobbles, Jeeves stands by stoically and watches the events, politely pointing out that he has no immediate idea on how to untangle the Gordian knot, sir. After a few more complications, Jeeves always does come up with a plan—frequently one that at first makes things worse for Bertie, landing him in hot water with his friends, a girl he's smitten with, a policeman, or worse than the law, his ballistic Aunt Dahlia. But never fear: Jeeves's machinations always save the day, often in ways unexpected and tongue-clickingly clever. Wodehouse plots are in this way frequently like a mystery story with a snappy and surprising twist at the end: you know he will come up with an answer, and you know that solution will embarrass or endanger Bertie, but until you flip the last few pages, you never quite know what Jeeves has up his starched sleeve. But you do know that in the happy end, Jeeves gets his just reward:

I champed my egg for a bit. I was most awfully moved, don't you know, by the way Jeeves had rallied round. Something seemed to tell me that this was an occasion that called for rich rewards. For a moment I hesitated. Then I made up my mind.

'Jeeves!'

'Sir?'

'That pink tie.'

'Yes, sir?'

'Burn it.'

'Thank you, sir.'

So, you might argue: read one of 'em, read 'em all. Well, maybe, but you'd be missing a lot. Remember that each of these stories was written and published separately in magazine form (The Strand in the UK; The Saturday Evening Post in the US) and perhaps the slight similarity is forgivable. But even read as a book, there's often a formula to these short stories but never a tedious repetition. And Wodehouse frequently has fun with the formula too: the final story in the collection, "Bertie Changes His Mind," is narrated not by Wooster but by Jeeves, for a remarkably different effect—in edition to the measured, genteel prose of Jeeves, we can actually see that amazing fish-fueled, quicksilver mind in action as he develops his plot. There's also a lovely matter-of-fact bit in which Jeeves calmly discusses exactly who is in command of the Wooster household:

...Rarely had I observed Mr Wooster more set on a thing. Indeed, I could recall no such exhibition since the time when he had insisted, against my frank disapproval, on wearing purple socks. However, I had coped successfully with that outbreak, and I was by no means unsanguine that I should eventually be able to bring the present affair to a happy issue. Employers are like horses. They require managing. Some gentlemen's personal gentlemen have the knack of managing them, some have not. I, I am happy to say, have no cause for complaint.

There's another couple Famous Firsts in this collection as well: the story of how Anatole, the talented French chef and frequently a Silver Cow Creamer object of desire from other of the landed gentry, first came into the employ of Bertie's Aunt Dahlia: he originally worked for Bingo and Rosie Little, and was stolen away in a complicated shuffle of servants complicated by their entangled amorous relations with each other (the servants, not Bingo and Aunt Dahlia, although what a story that would have made!). The same tale also features the first appearance of Bertie's oft-mentioned single foray into publishing: he's writing the article on 'What the Well-Dressed Man in Wearing' for Dahlia's fashion magazine Milady's Boudoir (despite the disapproval of Jeeves over a section advocating soft silk shirts with evening suits). We get our first glimpse of Jeeves's extensive but generally off-stage family, Jeeveses (Jeevii?) who spring to the rescue to help out in the final implementation of a particular tricky valet-devised scheme like some jeevus ex machina. But the focus is never fully off Bertie and Jeeves himself, and it's delightful when a tale contain Jeeves fully anticipating every aspect of what's about to happen next (even if we and Bertie can't):

'Jeeves,' I said, 'this is a time for deeds, not words. Pack and that right speedily.'

'I have packed, sir.'

'Find out when there is a train for Cambridge.'

'There is one in forty minutes, sir.'

'Call a taxi.'

'A taxi is at the door, sir.'

Carry On, Jeeves also contains another example of Wodehouse humor that he comes back to more than once: yes, like in Pearls, Girls, and Monty Bodkin and in Quick Service, we have yet another 'I've nothing against his morals" quip:

'Oh, Jeeves,' I said; 'about that check suit.'

'Yes, sir?'

'Is it really a frost?'

'A trifle too bizarre, sir, in my opinion.'

'But lots of fellows have asked me who my tailor is.'

'Doubtless in order to avoid him, sir.'

'He's supposed to be one of the best men in London.'

'I am saying nothing against his moral character, sir.'

(To tell you the truth, I'd thought we'd be at a higher counter than three by now. Wodehouse re-used the joke several times, but maybe not as many as I had expected. We shall see.)

So! In summary. A wonderfully entertaining collection of tales about two of the finest characters in literature—I'm not just talkin' British lit, or comic lit. I put Jeeves and Bertie up there with Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, with Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, with Luke Cage and Danny Rand.



Like most of the Jeeves books—Wodehouse's most popular series—Carry On, Jeeves won't present tricky problems in trying to track down a copy. I've got a few: a Penguin mass-market-sized paperback so old the spine is beginning to crack (and I'm very careful not to crack the spines of books I read!), a dustjacketless but lovely Herbert Jenkins UK hardcover edition, featuring a cover illustration which looks a bit like Bertie proposing to Jeeves ('I'm most honored, sir. You have made me the happiest gentleman in London, sir.'). Add to that an Everyman Library/Overlook Press hardcover edition (its rather curious cover illustration features a somewhat mouthy-lookin' Jeeves...not my favorite of the Everyman designs). Pick yourself up one of these editions and enjoy: you can buy the current Penguin edition at Amazon.com by clicking on the link above on the right. You could do worse than to crack open its cover once it arrives, begin with the introduction of the perfect gentleman's gentleman into the household, and be swept along with giggles and delight on every page, and where every happy ending also includes a fashion lesson:

...'I am putting out the brown suit, sir.'

'No, I think I'll wear the blue with the faint red stripe.'

'Not the blue with the faint red stripe, sir.'

'But I rather fancy myself in it.'

'Not the blue with the faint red stripe, sir.'

'Oh, all right, have it your own way.'

'Very good, sir. Thank you, sir.'

A Wodehouse a Week Index.

Museum of Character Archetypes, Exhibit B

Display No. 1:. Born in the 1910s in the inner city to immigrant Americans. 1940s icon and idol of millions, but believed to be out of touch and an old fogie in the 1970s. Throwback to a simpler, more innocent age. Dead.


Display No. 2:. Debonair, dashing, a dynamo with the ladies. Renowned lush. Has alienated himself from his former partner.


Display No. 3:. Handsome heartthrob. Privileged son of the upper class. A ladies' man, exiled from his world of the aristocracy because of his boisterous antics. Worshipped by some as a god.


Display No. 4. Man of color. Suffered and fought back against irrational hate because of the color of his skin. Not allowed into the casinos his closest associates frequented. One of the hardest-working men in his field. Has dated Kim Novak.


Display No. 5: Suffered in the shadow of his more famous compatriots. Frequently referred to as the lesser member of the team. A demanding perfectionist. Known for an infamous and violent temper tantrum.


Display No. 6 Glamorous member of society. Known for her beautiful and extensive wardrobe. Sought to compete in a men's action-oriented world by working at their level. Went through a painful divorce. At times romantically linked to others in the group. A small but dynamic powerhouse.


Group disintegrated in its later years. Members remained close friends but faded in popularity. Others stake modern claim to the name of the group but will never replace these icons. The likes of them will never be seen again: The World's Mightiest.

Ben Grimm Totally Rocks! #16

Hey, I haven't done one of these, in a while, have I? Well, let's open this door and see what Mister Grimm is up to:


Splash page (literally!) from Fantastic Four Roast #1 (May 1982), story and layouts by Fred Hembeck, finishes by Ron Wilson

Why does Ben Grimm totally rock? Why, he's the cleanest superhero around, and he knows the value of a nice relaxing soak in the tub to calm his rocky nerves. Just some scented bubble bath, some aromatherapy candles, Yanni on the CD player and it's Benjy's very special "me time." We all need that, don't we?

Why, the only thing missing (and I can't believe Hembeck didn't include one) is


The Thing, everyone: he's big, brawny, orange, and he lies with his head at the wrong end of the tub, but he's squeaky clean and he smells like lavender. That, ladies and gentlemen, is another reason why Ben Grimm totally rocks.

Ten of a Kind: A Puzzlement, Indeed!

(More Ten of a Kind here.)

Separated at Birth: Laziest "Separated" Ever

L: Wonder Woman #1 (Summer 1942), art by Harry G. Peter
R: Famous First Edition #F-6 (April-May 1975), art by Harry G. Peter
(Click picture to lazy-ass-size)

I'm leaving on a jet plane...

...But I do know when I'll be back again! (Sunday or maybe Monday at the latest.) Stay cool, have fun, and above all, be good to yourself and others.

A Wodehouse a Week #37: Something Fresh

The back cover blurb on the dust jacket of the week's Wodehouse reads 'Take the 4.15 from Paddington Station to Shropshire and arrive in heaven.' Okay!


But, as you will see, there's no need to book a ticket or hop on board an express train: simply pick up a copy of Something Fresh (1915), published in the US under the title Something New (perhaps to avoid confusing it with definition 3e in the Merriam-Webster). Whatever the title, it's absolutely appropriate: not only for a lovely Spring-ish day here in January, not only because it's a brand fresh new year, but because it's A Month of Firsts here at A Wodehouse a Week. And here in my hooves I have the very first Blandings novel, the start to one of Wodehouse's most delightful series.

Let's meet the contestants, shall we? When vigorous, in-shape, energetic mystery writer Ashe Marson meets his neighbor, the lovely and personably Joan Valentine, sparks fly instantly. (With a name like Valentine, it's got to be love!) Far from being immune to her charms, Ashe is utterly mune, and he isn't alone: once upon a time, before our story begins, Freddy Threepwood was enamored of Joan when he saw her on the stage, and tho' he never met her, sent her a stack o' letter professing his undying love. Now Freddy is engaged to Joan's friend Aline, the daughter of millionaire J. Preston Peters, and fears that Joan might use those letters to force a breach of promise suit upon him. (Ah, the days when breach of promise suits would fall upon young bachelors at the drop of a hat!) Freddie needn't worry—Joan had long ago destroyed the letters—but Freddy doesn't know that, and hires shady Dickie Jones to recover the letters. Jones sees an opportunity to make money for himself and rake Freddy over the coals. All clear so far? Good, because here's the catalyst that starts the whole adventure off with a bang:

Enter Clarence, Lord Emsworth, the centerpiece of all Blandings tales: the elder statesman of the Threepwood clan, established early on as a pleasant but absent-minded and easily distracted man:

'Tell me, Adams, have I eaten my cheese?'

'Not yet, your lordship. I was about to send the waiter for it.'

'Never mind. Tell him to bring the bill instead. I remember that I have an appointment. I must not be late.'

'Shall I take the fork, your lordship?'

'The fork?'

'Your lordship has inadvertently put a fork in your coat pocket.'

Lord Emsworth felt in the pocket indicated, and with the air of an inexpert conjurer whose trick has succeeded contrary to his expectations produced a silver-plated fork. He regarded it with surprise; then he looked wonderingly at Adams.

'Adams, I'm getting absent-minded. Have you ever noticed any traces of absent-mindedness in me before?'

'Oh, no, your lordship.'

Far from being simply a comedy bit of juggling with a club fork, it's an important plot point when Emsworth makes a father-in-law to father-in-law visit to J. Preston Peters and accidentally pockets the prize centerpiece of Peters's Egyptian scarab collection. The scarab becomes the Silver Cow Creamer—the object of everyone's intent to steal it—throughout the book, and in a Blandings book that means imposters at the castle. Ashe is hired by Peters to pose as his valet and recover the scarab during Peters's visit. When Aline confides her father's distress to her friend Joan, Joan poses as a lady's maid and accompanies Aline to Blandings—both couples trailed by Jones in an attempt to steal the scarab first. Add to the mix Lord Emsworth's personal secretary, the Efficient Baxter; police officer George Emerson, in love with Aline (and vice-versa? Hmmm...) and of course, butler Beach, presiding over the regular runnings of the household in his usual buterlish way.

With various thieves sneaking in the night in search of the scarab, this is very clearly not an ordinary stay at Blandings—and yet, it sets the stage for the other novels and stories in the Blandings saga: sought-after secret item, imposters at the Castle posing as servants to sneak into the household, dastardly manipulators plotting their plots from the relative safety of the Emsworth Arms inn in Market Blandings town, and a midnight how-do-you-do in which residents fall downstairs, tables are broken, windows are smashed, and Lord Emsworth fires a pistol wildly into the dark:

Lord Emsworth raised his revolver and emptied it in the direction of the sound.

Extremely fortunately for him, the Efficient Baxter had not changed his all-fours attitude. This undoubtedly saved Lord Emsworth the worry of engaging a new secretary. The shots sang above Baxter's head one after the other, six in all, and found other billets than his person. They disposed themselves as follows: The first shot broke a window and whistled out into the night; the second shot hit the dinner gong and made a perfectly extraordinary noise, like the Last Trump; the third, fourth and fifth shots embedded themselves in the wall; the sixth and final shot hit a life-size picture of his lordship's grandmother in the face and improved it out of all knowledge.

One thinks no worse of Lord Emsworth's grandmother because she looked like Eddie Foy, and had allowed herself to be painted, after the heavy classic manner of some of the portraits of a hundred years ago, in the character of Venus—suitably draped, of course, rising from the sea; but it was beyond the possibility of denial that her grandson's bullet permanently removed one of Blandings Castle's most prominent eyesores.

While it sets the groundwork for the eventual Blandings sequels, however Something Fresh has several absences and early versions that show how fully the rich cast of characters evolves. One of the occupants of Blandings Castle in this first book is Lady Ann Warblington, Clarence's widowed sister, but Ann remains off stage for virtually all of the novel and shows none of the vigor and overbearing grace that the Threepwood sisters introduced later—particularly doyenne the intimidating Connie. Beach the butler is a rather stiff version of his later self, prone to dramatic pronunciations on his health and ruling over the household staff with an iron hand in a silk glove, decorum and propriety always prime in his mind.

"It has been," said Mr. Beach, summing up, "a most unfortunate occurrence. The modern tendency of the lower classes to get above themselves is becoming more marked every day. The young female in this case was, I understand, a barmaid. It is deplorable that our young men should allow themselves to get into such entanglements."

This is quite a change from the later Beach, who has a niece named Maudie who is a barmaid herself. As we see in Pigs Have Wings, Beach is very fond of her indeed. The unstarching of Beach as the saga goes on is one of the finer evolutions of characters in Wodehouse: the Beach in Something Fresh is a bit unlikable and serves is a suspicious antagonist towards Ashe's impersonation of a valet. There's an extended section in the book, reminiscent of the movie Gosford Park or the TV series Upstairs, Downstairs, which takes us into the lives of the castle's servants; Wodehouse seldom repeated this in-depth serving-class examination later on, which gives Something Fresh a slightly more social-novel feel than the others.

Oh! I almost forgot another, very vital, very important difference: in Something Fresh, there is no Empress of Blandings!


Yes, that's right: the greatest fictional pig of them all is not present in the first Blandings novel and will not make her debut for another 12 years (in the aptly named short story "Pig-hoo-o-o-o-ey"). It's a fine, fine novel, but it's poorer for the paucity of porcines.

On the other hand, it does have a lovely cameo appearance by a little bull (italics mine)!:

Baxter, then, as he bicycled to Market Blandings for tobacco, had good reason to brood. Having bought his tobacco and observed the life and thought of the town for half an hour—it was market day and the normal stagnation of the place was temporarily relieved and brightened by pigs that eluded their keepers, and a bull calf which caught a stout farmer at the psychological moment when he was tying his shoe lace and lifted him six feet—he made his way to the Emsworth Arms.

The other major element of a Blandings novel is there, however: love, love, love, which makes the world go 'round. It's January right now but it's sixty-plus degrees outside, and it feels like Spring, and in the Spring a young bull's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love. (Sigh.)

In every man's life there is generally one moment to which in later years he can look back and say: 'In this moment I fell in love!' Such a moment came to Ashe now.

Betwixt the stirrup and the ground,
Mercy I asked; mercy I found.

So sings the poet and so it was with Ashe.

In the almost incredibly brief time it took the small but sturdy porter to roll a milk can across the platform and hump it, with a clang, against other milk cans similarly treated a moment before, Ashe fell in love.

Which is why the tale of Ashe and Joan is a perfect one for a dreamy bull to read today: it's whimsical, witty, and has what every great romance story needs: a heist. After discovering they're both after the same big cash reward for the return of the scarab, Ashe and Joan agree to compete, and may the best thief win. But like the best Cary Grant/Grace Kelly movie, there's a lot of bantering and one-upmanship, and like the best of Wodehouse's spirited heroines, modern woman Joan Valentine is not to be swayed easily by a pair of strong shoulders and a dashing smile:

Joan laughed.

'It won't do, Mr. Marson. You remind me of an old cat I once had. Whenever he killed a mouse he would bring it into the drawing-room and lay it affectionately at my feet. I would reject the corpse with horror and turn him out, but back he would come with his loathsome gift. I simply couldn't make him understand that he was not doing me a kindness. He thought highly of his mouse and it was beyond him to realize that I did not want it.

'You are just the same with your chivalry. It's very kind of you to keep offering me your dead mouse; but honestly I have no use for it. I won't take favors just because I happen to be a female. If we are going to form this partnership I insist on doing my fair share of the work and running my fair share of the risks—the practically nonexistent risks.'

'You're very—resolute.'

'Say pig-headed; I shan't mind.'

Don't lissen to her, Ashe: don't call ladies 'pig-headed'—it isn't polite. You and I know that by the end of the novel Ashe and Joan will be enfolded in each other's arms, whether or not they get their hands on the scarab. That's the not-so-secret to a Wodehouse romance: no matter the problems, whatever the banter, they'll come together in the end. But well before that, there's a lovely parting line from Joan that mixes romance and rodents like no other love story has:

As they parted at the door, Joan made one further remark: 'There's just one thing, Mr. Marson.'

'Yes?'

'If I could have accepted the mouse from anyone I should certainly have accepted it from you.'

So. Something Fresh. Read it with the love of your life. And if, to paraphrase a very wise man, you can't find a partner, use your nearest rodent.



I've got a rather beat-up old 1970s American mass market edition (printed by Beagle Books, that paragon of publishers) of Something New, an ex-library edition from the Canton Public Library (not the one in China, but the one in New York State's North Country). Like the few other Beagle Books editions in my collection, it's got a rather odd and formal Aubrey Beardsleyesque illustration on the cover; I much prefer the Ionicus watercolor on my Penguin paperback of Something Fresh, with Lord Emsworth (always a bit thinner than I picture him, but never mind) showing off his absent-minded scarab display to Davies while the Efficient Baxter hovers in the background. Want to zoom in on that scarab? No worries: the Everyman Wodehouse/Overlook Press edition features a lovely close-up cartoon of the beetle scarab on its cover, and if that doesn't make you want to go out and get a scarab for yourself, I don't know what will. Hmmm, let's see...ah yes, here we go:

Crickey! A sterling silver scarab poison ring. I would like to have one of those and no mistake. Don't worry, everyone, I will not put poison in it. (I wouldn't even know where to get poison!) I will instead fill it with confectioner's sugar to sprinkle on dessert treats to make them even sweeter. A sugar scarab! Now that would be a beetle worthy of burgling. (Please don't steal, though. It's wrong.)

A Wodehouse a Week Index.

I got a pink baby pig just like I wanted!

Thank you Miss Miranda! XOXOXO!

Sherlock Holmes Weekend Concludes: "...the best and the wisest man whom I have ever known"

So, by now you're asking: Why Sherlock Holmes Weekend?

Today is January 6, Twelfth Night. Although Arthur Conan Doyle doesn't mention it in the Holmes canon, Sherlock Holmes fans and scholars generally propose Holmes was born on January 6, 1854. Today, thanks to a vigorous regime of exercise and royal jelly from the queen bee, he quietly celebrates his 154th birthday from his retirement cottage in Sussex.

Raise a glass of port or your preferred drink of toasting (I'm fond of cocoa or steaming bishop myself) to Mister Holmes today, and celebrate his life and legacy by diving back into the words of Doctor John H. Watson, his confidante, best friend, and biographer:




Sherlock Holmes seemed delighted at the idea of sharing his rooms with me. "I have my eye on a suite in Baker Street," he said, "which would suit us down to the ground. You don't mind the smell of strong tobacco, I hope?"

"I always smoke 'ship's' myself," I answered.
—from A Study in Scarlet




"But one false statement was made by Barrymore at the inquest. He said that there were no traces upon the ground round the body. He did not observe any. But I did—some little distance off, but fresh and clear."

"Footprints?"

"Footprints."

"A man's or a woman's?"

Dr. Mortimer looked strangely at us for an instant, and his voice sank almost to a whisper as he answered:

"Mr. Holmes, they were the footprints of a gigantic hound!"
—from The Hound of the Baskervilles




Holmes had been seated for some hours in silence with his long, thin back curved over a chemical vessel in which he was brewing a particularly malodorous product. His head was sunk upon his breast, and he looked from my point of view like a strange, lank bird, with dull gray plumage and a black top-knot.

"So, Watson," said he, suddenly, "you do not propose to invest in South African securities?"

I gave a start of astonishment. Accustomed as I was to Holmes's curious faculties, this sudden intrusion into my most intimate thoughts was utterly inexplicable.

"How on earth do you know that?" I asked.

He wheeled round upon his stool, with a steaming test-tube in his hand, and a gleam of amusement in his deep-set eyes.

"Now, Watson, confess yourself utterly taken aback," said he.

"I am."

"I ought to make you sign a paper to that effect."

"Why?"

"Because in five minutes you will say that it is all so absurdly simple."
—from "The Adventure of the Dancing Men"




"There's an east wind coming, Watson."

"I think not, Holmes. It is very warm."

"Good old Watson! You are the one fixed point in a changing age. There's an east wind coming all the same, such a wind as never blew on England yet. It will be cold and bitter, Watson and a good many of us may wither before its blast. But it's God's own wind none the less, and a cleaner, better, stronger land will lie in the sunshine when the storm has cleared. Start her up, Watson, for it's time that we were on our way."
—from "His Last Bow"




...If I have now been compelled to make a clear statement of his career, it is due to those injudicious champions who have endeavored to clear his memory by attacks upon him whom I shall ever regard as the best and the wisest man whom I have ever known.
—from "The Final Problem"

Mad Movies with the L.A. Connection presents Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon (Sherlock Holmes Weekend Continues!)

One of my favorite TV series that's never been released on DVD (yet!...we can but hope) is the 1980s Mad Movies with the L.A. Connection. Before Mystery Science Theater 3000 added heckled riffing over the soundtrack of a cheesy movie, Mad Movies, originating from an improv group in Los Angeles, took old public domain movie, chopped them up and re-edited them into a half-hour show, and re-dubbed them completely with a new comedy soundtrack. The show ran in syndication and on Nick at Nite for several years in the eighties—I'm lucky enough to still have my much-watched VHS tapes of the show...but it hasn't been seen publicly for ages. Until the age of YouTube, that is! All hail YouTube!

Tonight, get in the mad moodvie by watching their version of 1943's Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon, one of the many Universal Basil Rathbone/Nigel Bruce Holmes vehicles that brought the Victorian sleuth to contemporary times to battle Nazis. (Well, somebody's gotta.) Mad Movies re-spins the film as Holmes's search for missing library books. Let's watch!



(A fair warning: the host segments and introductions with Kent Skov are usually...to be honest...absolutely missable. If you want to start right off with the movie portion of the show, start at 2:00 into the YouTube clip.)

That's Part 1. Here's Part 2 and here's Part 3.

Today's 21st century L.A. Connection still features live stage shows with improv, stand-up and the modern version of Mad Movies: "Dub-A-Vision." Plus, there's other classic Mad Movies clips and shows on YouTube. Only a few of them are Sherlock Holmes Weekend-appropriate, of course, but don't let that stop you.

A Wodehouse a Week: Wodehouse's introduction to The Sign of Four (Sherlock Holmes Weekend Continues!)

As far as great British genre fiction goes, I've been a fan of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle for longer than I have of P. G. Wodehouse...but only a little bit longer. I remember taking Sherlock Holmes mysteries out of the Liverpool Public Library as a small(er) stuffed bull and racing home to read them cover to cover, obsessed with the Adventure of the Red-Headed League and the Dancing Men and just where the heck did Doctor Watson get shot, anyway? (My theory? He's careless while cleaning his service revolver. Bang!)

Even tho' I am only six, the mid-seventies was a bang-on time to be a Holmes fan, thanks to Nicholas Meyer, who revitalized Holmes fandom with The Seven-Per-Cent Solution in 1974 as surely as he perked up the Star Trek franchise in 1982 directing Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. (Meyer is also responsible for a clever, if sometimes controversial among fans, line spoken by Spock in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country: "As one of my ancestors used to say, when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." On his mother's side of the family, I presume.)

There's been a mini-resurgence of Holmesean fiction over the past couple years with acclaimed writers like Michael Chabon and Caleb Carr contributing to the apocryphal non-quite-canon, but believe me, it's nothing compared to the massive Holmes publishing events of the 1970s. The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, teaming up Holmes and Sigmund Freud, is directly responsible for a massive boom in Holmes pastiches and "continuing adventures" published mainly in paperback throughout the 1970s, and especially stories and novels that teamed up Holmes with other fictional and real-life adventurers, heroes, villains and events from Dracula to the Phantom of the Opera, Jack the Ripper and John Merrick, even fighting the War of the Worlds. It's Wold-Newtrony in action!

But, as far as I can tell, Sherlock Holmes has never met Jeeves. Which is a pity. You might argue that Holmes would have been too old to team up with characters in the 1920s and 1930s, but one of the appeals of the non-Doyle fiction is Holmes's extreme longevity, usually attributed to royal bee jelly (yum!) from his beekeeping farm in his Sussex retirement home. An eighty-nine year old retired detective (who may or may not be Holmes) is at the center of a mystery, a visit to post-Hiroshima Japan, and musings on bees in Michael Chabon's 2004 The Final Solution, and a very-well preserved Holmes teams up with Batman (and even outthinks him) in 1987's Detective Comics #572. So there's no reason Holmes couldn't have been around for the Age of Wooster and Blandings, and I guess we just have to wait for some enterprising fan fiction writer to combine the two worlds. Of course, there's the next best thing: the Lord Peter Wimsey novels of Dorothy Sayers. And then there's this wonderful team-up: The Sixth Annual Cricket Match Between the Sherlock Holmes Society and the P. G. Wodehouse Society!

In the meantime—and the subject of this post—let me show you my treasured favorites of all my Sherlock Holmes books (and I've got a lot of 'em): a 1975 boxed set of Ballantine Books paperback editions:


Dated 1975, these reissues in mass market paperback came out the year the mega-successful Seven-Per-Cent Solution was released in Ballantine paperback, and were clearly designed to capitalize on its bestselling status. I'm pretty sure I got this for Christmas 1975 and probably devoured the entire set by New Year's Eve. It's not a complete Holmes: three later books are missing (The Valley of Fear, The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes, and His Last Bow), probably omitted to keep the set under a $10.00 retail price. Aside from being able to read the first six books for my first time in chronological order, I love these editions for their introductions: each has a short preface on Holmes and Doyle by a leading author, almost all of them in the mystery or detective field:

• A Study in Scarlet is introduced by Ed McBain, author of the 87th Precinct police procedurals, who discusses the difference between police work of Lestrade and Gregson and his own characters.
• The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is introduced by Ellery Queen, in one of my favorite short pieces on Holmes. At the time Queen had recently been revitalized on TV in the wonderful but short-lived Ellery Queen TV series starring Jim Hutton and David Wayne, and I'd been eagerly reading the various EQ paperback mystery reissues that had come out at the same time. "Ellery"'s essay on his he discovered Sherlock Holmes at a young age put a lovely background to the character that would eventually become my favorite mystery writer and character.
• The Hound of the Baskervilles has an introduction by Don Pendleton, who teams up his action-adventure character Mack Bolan (forerunner of Frank Castle) and Holmes in a mini short-story.
• The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes is introduced by mystery and television writer Joe Gores (and I'm astonished to learn there's not a Wikipedia page on him). Gores tells a fine detailed story of his own life as a detective and its differences from that of Holmes.
• The Return of Sherlock Holmes's introduction is by Nicholas Meyer, a fitting choice as The Seven-Per-Cent Solution proposed the theory of Holmes's return was not quite canon. (He draws close comparisons between Doyle, Holmes, and Dr. Joseph Bell, often acknowledged to be the inspiration for Holmes.)

Did I miss one? Well, yes, of course. The Sign of Four features an introduction by (go ahead, guess) P. G. Wodehouse. It's a piece I've not seen collected any other place, so it's fitting and appropriate I read and discuss it on this Sherlock Holmes Weekend. Plum begins

When I was starting out as a writer—this would be about the time Caxton invented the printing press—Conan Doyle was my hero. Others might revere Hardy and Meredith. I was a Doyle man, and I still am. Usually we tend to discard the idols of our youth as we grow older, but I have not had this experience with A.C.D. I thought him swell then, and I think him swell now.

This isn't just a homage, of course—Wodehouse has something much wittier up his sleeve: where did Holmes get all his money from? It's a clever and funny—and well-argued—essay. Holmes couldn't afford to rent rooms by himself (leading to his historic meeting with Doctor John Watson and their subsequent lodging at 221B Baker Street). He has a small income from cases, but while a handful are from dukes or barons, most of these are from clerks, governesses, landladies, undergraduates, or unpaid work for Scotland Yard. There isn't a grand or regular amount of money flowing into the Holmes bank account. Yet he has a steady purchase habit of tobacco, ammunition, chemistry supplies, newspapers, cab fares, and the like (not to mention cocaine), and is willing to spend money dashing off on trains around the countryside at the first hint of a case.

For what would the ordinary private investigator have said to himself when starting out in business? He would have said 'Before I take on work for a client I must be sure that the client has the stuff, the daily sweetener and the little something down in advance are of the essence,' and he would have had those landladies and those Greek interpreters out of his sitting room before you could say 'bloodstain.' Yet Holmes, who could not afford a pound a week for lodgings, never bothered. Significant!

Wodehouse's solution to the mystery? Holmes had a stack of cash he was hiding from Watson. But where do you get stacks of cash? Crime, my son, crime. Simply put, Holmes was a master criminal. Wodehouse qualifies that: Holmes was the master criminal: Professor Moriarty.

Wodehouse points out (absolutely following canon and completely accurately) that Watson (and we) never see or meet Moriarty: we are told of his existence by Holmes.

And Holmes made a little slip on the occasion. He said that on his way to see Watson he had been attacked by a rough with a bludgeon. A face-oscillating napoleon of Crime, anxious to eliminate someone who disliked, would have thought up something better than roughs with bludgeons. Dropping cobras down the chimney is the mildest thing that would have occurred to him.

Why, it's elementary! You might even gasp upon reading it. Such a revelation would startle and shock Holmesean scholarship and shake it to its roots. At least until Wodehouse adds

P.S. Just kidding, boys. Actually, like all the rest of you, I am never happier than when curled up with Sherlock Holmes, and I hope Messrs Ballantine will sell several million of him. As the fellow said, there's no police like Holmes.

Whew! Another of my childhood heroes preserved and saved.

(But I still wanna see Holmes team up with Jeeves to solve the Adventure of the Silver Cow Creamer.)

There's some other wonderful editions out there today—I'm especially fond of the chunky and comprehensive two-volume Bantam Complete Holmes and Norton's oversized three-volume New Annotated Sherlock Holmes—but the Ballantine mass-market paperback editions of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle are long out of print. Holmes in his day would have had to scout out a book by placing advertisements in every one of the multitude of afternoon London newspapers, or by meeting dark and mysterious characters in a shadowy mews off Charing Cross Road, or possibly by convincing his lethargic brother Mycroft to release the Queen's personal copy to him. Your job of detection is easier to hunt down these books: The Sign of Four with Wodehouse introduction is readily available online, and the other books in the boxed set series are plentiful and readily purchased online and at used book shops. Whatever the edition you pick up, however, you're in for a treat. Wodehouse is the creamy icing on a rich luscious Sherlock cake, but you can't go wrong either way.

A Wodehouse a Week Index.

Ten of a Kind: There's No Police Like Holmes (Sherlock Holmes Weekend Continues!)

No, not comics about Sherlock Holmes...



...but comics inspired by the image and legacy of Sherlock Holmes:




















(More Ten of a Kind here.)

Sunday Morning Sherlock Cartoon: Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson (Sherlock Holmes Weekend Continues!)

Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson: The Murder of Lord Waterbrook, Part One (Russian cartoon with subtitles, 2006), directed by Aleksandr Bubnov

Here's Part Two.