[MarkWarner]

A mixed response from last week's book. I didn't really get the moral message too much, it was the bizareness that hit me. Some very strange stuff and interesting art, well worth checking out.

Talking of interesting this week's book is VERY interesting. By popular demand we have ... drum roll ...  Detective Dan, Secret Operative No. 48. 

This very rare and important comic was scanned by Rangerhouse and edited by Yoc our good friends at The Digital Comic Museum. It was very kindly provided by Rupp's Comics - Fremont, OH. There is more information about it and how it was found on this page and also at the end of this book. And of course not forgetting Rupp's Comics website!

I thought rather than add this book to the queue of books we'd jump it straight to the top, as it is is still red hot off the scanner. Metaphorically that is, as from what I have seen and read of Rangerhouse's scanner it is more than likely liquid nitrogen cooled with its own dedicated energy source. Anyway, it should hopefully mean that those involved get the credit NOW for what they have done O and we get to read it earlier lol

The book is here https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=40624. Wonder what the reading group makes of this!

[SuperScrounge]

Well, having read the Dan Dunn comic strip that this was a precurser to I knew not to expect Shakespeare. 

Still I enjoyed it. I also recognized the story so Marsh clearly reused it for the strip, although I couldn't remember what comic & issues reprinted the comic strip version of the story to compare and contrast. (Anyone know?)

Some differences from the comic book version to the comic strip version that I noticed is that here he is Dan Dunne, but when he got to newspapers he dropped the E & became Dan Dunn. Fritz in the book became Irwin in the strip.

The hype for next issue that showed up 3 or 4 times was annoying as each time it came up I thought, "Oh, is the story over?"
Then again as this was the first original content comic book that trope hadn't been built yet.

Anyone else feel that a "famous secret operative" is a bit of an oxymoron?

The murder mystery... hmmm... does anyone know if a solution was ever given?

Being used to two-page text stories the length surprised me, but again Unbuilt Trope and with a $100 on the line I suppose they really wanted to come up with something they thought was worth it.

[narfstar]

Crooks are always bad shots. With three shots the crook only nicks Dan. Dan being the tough guy he is gets laid out by the scratch. Then the story just could not keep my attention. It was hard to muddle through. Setting mattresses on fire is an interesting detective trick. It all just did not make good sense.

[crashryan]

When I was in college I spent a lot of time in the library's bound newspaper archives. It was there I first encountered the Dan Dunn newspaper strip. I came away with a negative impression; it seemed like just a boring Dick Tracy knock-off.

Learning about this Detective Dan comic and its place in history, I was determined to give the Secret Operative a fair reading. And you know, in the context of comics of the time it isn't that bad. There's no doubt Dan is an imitation of Dick Tracy. The yellow hat is no accident. But Dick Tracy had only been running two years when Detective Dan launched, so Norman Marsh was influenced by Chester Gould's early work, before he developed his famous characters and unique art style. Gould drew the earliest Tracy's in a somewhat more realistic style. This is the direction Marsh takes. The secondary characters are caricatured, but Dunn himself looks like a real person (and a rather homely one at that).

The two approaches clash throughout the book. Some characters strike realistic poses, others cartoony ones. Backgrounds and props are now realistic, now holdovers from the Big Foot strips. A typical example would be the cars, which have realistic bodies and cartoon balloon tires. But honestly, Marsh  isn't any worse than countless other comic artists of the period. He follows the era's fashions: everything is played in long shots, no attention is paid to the action line, fight scenes are classic lickety-pow, and bad guys wear suits with huge checks. Marsh is no trend-setter, but he rates a solid C+.

The same can be said for the story. It moves well enough. There's plenty of tough talk (sometimes a bit strained) and violent action. It's lazily plotted and relies too much on coincidence, but that's true of many early adventure strips.

Others have mentioned some of the book's odd features. Like the gigantic text story, which I confess I didn't wade through. And the unexpected next-issue teaser panels dropped into the story. The one that really stopped me was the one featuring a genuine Naked Woman. That sort of thing was uncommon even in pulp magazines. Depending on where you were you could get into big trouble publishing it. Maybe the fact that the woman was menaced by a mandarin-headed octopus made it safe.

In sum, the story was worth reading. Now I'm curious about the publisher's other two detective comics. They seem to be even more rare than Detective Dan.

[Drusilla lives!]

I found the story entertaining, but a little "choppy" in execution... in other words, the plotting and pacing was rough in places.  Not to be unexpected with such an early GA work though.

As I've said elsewhere, I like the artwork... primitive by modern standards, but it has a very 1920s-30s art deco like aesthetic to it (for want of a better descriptor).  Which in my opinion gives it an indie comic vibe.  Can't help thinking this comic is something that Fantagraphics might put out today.

The text story seemed well constructed as was to be expected I suppose, it being a "prize contest" piece.  But I only skimmed it, since there is no finished, fixed conclusion... and never will be since there is no follow-up issue.  I like the concept though.  Too bad this sorta thing has fallen out of favor... but then, they have enough trouble today just writing good, solid, interesting comic book stories imo.

[Drusilla lives!]

... Anyone else feel that a "famous secret operative" is a bit of an oxymoron? ...

Ha, ha... yeah!  Now that you mention it!    

At least they didn't put the "famous" bit in the cover title bar.  Did like that faux newspaper page though.  Must have been some paste-up job... nice touch on Marsh's part.

... The one that really stopped me was the one featuring a genuine Naked Woman. That sort of thing was uncommon even in pulp magazines. Depending on where you were you could get into big trouble publishing it. Maybe the fact that the woman was menaced by a mandarin-headed octopus made it safe. ...

I was surprised by that panel as well... and the negligee one on page 4... considering this was the 1930s.  But then they did have pinup pulps and some risqu

[bowers]

An interesting piece of comics history as well as a tribute to a real entrepreneur. It seems that Marsh's main reason for publishing this book was to show off his new strip. The whole story was produced in a strip style, with the author signing every page. This would also explain the odd placement of the "teaser" panels in the lower right corner- odd for a book, but not for a strip. Anyway, it worked! He sold his strip the same year so there was no need for a second issue. I agree that Dan Dunn was pretty much a Dick Tracy knockoff, but I think the art was much better. A wonderfully odd '30s style with strange perspectives and sometimes two-dimensional, sometimes three-dimensional drawing. The backgrounds were quite interesting, ranging from none at all, to minimal, to some rather elaborate city and country scenes. My favorite panel is on page 4 and features a slightly surreal portrait created by hatching imposed over a starry night and Dunn walking in the foreground. Marsh was definitely a good penman who paid attention to details. Look at "Two-Fingers" Murphy's checkered suit- drawn with razor precision, crisp and cleanly done. Aside from the art, my favorite element was the ad inviting young men over 17 to become a "highly paid Finger Print Expert". Yes, the right sort of fellow could count on "days full of excitement" and "high official position" just by sending the coupon! Who could resist? Cheers, Bowers

[paw broon]

Not being very familiar with Tracy, and not particularly liking the little that I have read, I can't comment on the similaities or lack of them.  This book, while appearing to be historically significant - and Ihave to take the word of other folk more expert than I am - seems quite poorly done with crude illos and a casual or careless approach to how the story runs. There are parts of the story where it seems to jump, almost as if a panel has been omitted.  All of which makes the story a bumpy ride.  I'm currently reading some detective stories from late 1800's to early 1920's, downloaded from gutenberg, and am enjoying them much more.  It's almost as if the pictures in  the Dan story take away from the story.

[Lorendiac]

Last week, I took a quick look at the cover and thought: "Tremendous debt to Dick Tracy, I'm guessing." Nothing inside the pages of the comic caused me to reconsider that assessment. I didn't enjoy it as much as I enjoy reading some of the early cases of Dick Tracy, but I'd give it a "passable" grade. (Say, 3 stars out of 5?) I don't think I've ever read any adventures of "Dan Dunne" before, although I'm sure I've run across the name from time to time.

Here are some stray thoughts about the story . . .

One thing that surprised me about Dan's false persona as "The Cozy Kid": Until that nickname was mentioned, I understood he was pretending to be a crook who had just arrived in town, but I didn't realize he was impersonating a specific fugitive from justice; someone the local hoodlums definitely would have heard about.

Later, I felt there was a major flaw in Murphy's "clever plan" to have "The Cozy Kid" (Dan) be the one who risked taking the rap for kidnapping if the police caught him escorting the captive girl away from the fire in the hotel. The flaw was that the girl had seen Murph and some other bad guys up close. If rescued by the cops, she could put the finger on all of them while stating for the record that this "Cozy Kid" fellow had nothing to do with the original abduction.

If the gang had been keeping her blindfolded the whole time -- or wearing ski masks themselves -- then the idea of leaving "Cozy" holding the bag would have made more sense.

(I remember that a similar lapse of logic about "why not just ask the kidnapping victim about it?" spoiled the supposedly-dramatic climax of the original "Ace Ventura, Pet Detective" film for me, way back when.)

By the way: On my first reading, I didn't think the girl in that teaser at the bottom of Page 16 (as numbered in the original comic, not in the scanned file) was "naked." I think I assumed she was wearing a form-fitting leotard or something similar over her torso, such as a circus gymnast might wear. Perhaps I'm just naturally clean-minded where interpreting black-and-white artwork is concerned?

But in going back and finding that picture so I could look at it again in the light of comments in this thread, I was suddenly reminded that on the following page, Detective Dan is suddenly describing the action to us in narrative captions written in the first person. Which is peculiar, because all the narrative captions on any other pages of the same story, both before and after, appear to be told by an "omniscient narrator" speaking about the actions of Dan and the other characters in the third person. Why the jarring discontinuity on that single page?

P.S. I've been holding off on posting in this thread because, while I read the comic-format story several days ago, I wanted to read the text mystery story too before commenting on the entire comic book. Tonight I finally forced myself to read the entire thing in one sitting.

It wasn't all that exciting. I have a strong opinion about who killed the Judge (or at least who hung up the body in a closet; I think only one of the three suspects was likely to have the muscle for that job). But I'm far less clear on who killed Eliza (since it didn't necessarily have to be the same killer each time). I resent the way we're told that Dan has figured it all out (or thinks he has?) with the help of such items as knowing which will is still intact, and what was written on a scorched piece of paper that seems to be all that's left of some other significant document -- but we are supposed to duplicate his reasoning regarding "whodunit" without our being told what those bits of written evidence actually said!

[MarkWarner]

I have been really busy this week, so the read was very last minute and I got found out! After finishing the main story I went to quickly deal with the text story only to discover it is a novel! So, as I am a cover to cover reader I have still to complete that and will put an update on when I do.

Firstly, I am not sure if people are aware, but we have some Dan Dunn(minus the 'e') newspaper strips here https://comicbookplus.com/?cid=1963.

I really like the cover on this book. Apart from the fact I think it is visually excellent, it also shouts out I am something special! However, I was imagining that I was going to be in for a disappointment, but far from it. A period book with two "You dirty rat"'s in can't fail!

OK, there were lots of flaws and just plain strange things. The grammar was very peculiar, especially at the beginning. It seemed to have been written by a non-native English speaker "else the country be flooded with money".

I chortled merrily when Dell (his girlfriend) hears Dan is alive: "Oh he's alive! Oh, I am so glad".

The other thing is rough tough Dan and his bedtime. I suspect he also has milk and cookies.

"Thanks fer th' ride - I'm goin' t'catch me a little nap - see yuh later!"

"I wanna get a little sleep - be goin' t'bed in a few minutes, -"

Now is it me being stupid??? But halfway though the tense suddenly changed and became first person as Dan begins to recount "Out of the corner of my eye ..."

It has already been mentioned that Dan is the most famous Secret Operative ever. Look at our page 27. His photo is splashed all over the front cover. BTW this is a great page!

But the story kept my attention, I liked the art and it was a hit for me. Historic and good! As the motorcycle messenger says: "Dan's OK - HURRAY!" .

[MarkWarner]

I have finally finished the VERY long story at the end. It is a Whodunnit? And as there was no follow up book  the real murder has evaded justice for 81 years and counting. Personally I am suspicious of Lizzie ... but I won't publicly state my reasons for fear of spoiling the read which is EXCELLENT!

[Lorendiac]

I have finally finished the VERY long story at the end. It is a Whodunnit? And as there was no follow up book  the real murder has evaded justice for 81 years and counting. Personally I am suspicious of Lizzie ... but I won't publicly state my reasons for fear of spoiling the read which is EXCELLENT!

I favor the idea that there was more than one murderer involved. But I was hoping you -- or someone -- would speak up and say that the "official answer" had eventually been revealed in some other publication, way back when.

[MarkWarner]

I am afraid not ... we are all left wondering (well those of us who have read it!)

Also, if you notice my comments do not discount your theory. In fact I wonder if everyone is who they say they are especially Lizzie.

SPOILER ALTER DON'T READ THIS (WRITTEN BACKWARDS)

nam a si eizziL kniht I