[crashryan]

Kevin Burton Smith's long-running Thrilling Detective website is a gold mine for fans of private eye literature. Though most of his posts deal with printed novels he also periodically delves into comics. He just re-posted "The Dingus," an eight-page noir short story which ran on his site in 2003. The story originally appeared in AC Comics' Femforce and was posted by Smith with the permission of author Christopher Mills and artist Joe Staton. Staton's art is pitch perfect. Horacio Ottolini's inks fit the pencils like a glove. This is some of the best Staton art I've seen. The story is both a respectable private-eye short-short and a lighthearted homage, with many in-jokes for fans. Check it out.

"The Dingus" Page One (with links to the rest of the pages):

https://thrillingdetective.com/2023/05/17/the-dingus-part-one/

Kevin Burton Smith's "Thrilling Detective" website:

https://thrillingdetective.com/

I suggest starting with the "The Latest Posts" and "Browse This Site" dropdowns.

The "Dingus" pages have a banner at the bottom which links to an alphabetical index of comic book/strip/TV private eyes. My mouth watered...but every single link I clicked on was dead. Guess Smith retired that arm of his site. Too darn bad.

LATER UPDATE: I went back to the private eye list and clicked more links. Some of them are still live. You just have to keep clicking until you get something other than "Sorry, Pal."