Dem,
May well move this one...
I mentioned to Cal that the next issue of The Fanatic is already written (by Phil Harbottle, Andy Boot and Steve Holland) with the exception of an article on Satanic Sleuths. As ever I was coming at it from a 60s/70s angle and was focussed on Night Hunter, The Guardians, Kolchak, Sabat, Spectros, Chill, Father Hayes, with some historical background on Carnacki and Jules De Grandin. (Aapparently there's no-one connected to this site in any way who knows anything about De Grandin.... )
'Til Cal knocked me for six with this e-mail...
"Kev' is obviously the world's greatest living authority on Jules De Grandin. I don't envy anyone else who has to write about Grandin!
This article could be a way of really opening PF up in new ways. Nayland Smith and photos from Fu Manchu films. Recently we learned about Mongo the Magnificent, a dwarf detective in novels which use SF and horror themes. I've recently downloaded audio books featuring Carnacki in The Gateway of the Monster and The Whistling Room - useful if reading time is limited. There's a Lee Coye Brown illustration for The Hog in Les Daniels' anthology Fear (can't find the picture on the net but will scan if you like). I've been thinking of doing a post on Hodgson when I get a moment. Listening to those two recently, I was struck by how visual the Carnacki stories were, with people being strangled by a giant hand; and the floor in a haunted room turning into an obscene whistling mouth.
Doc Savage of course. And The Shadow!
How about Dr Strange? It's just a thought. And there was a brilliant old comic, Will Eisner's The Spirit. Can't miss him out. There's Wheatley's Duke... who now I can't read about; the spirit is willing, etc. I wrote up Aylmer Vance: Ghost Seer and transferred it to the new Vault recently - one of the weaker entries in the field. Blackstone the Magic Detective was a radio show, featuring... Blackstone the magician - this is another weak one, though I liked the episode called The Reluctant Buzz Saw. Charles Black told me the name for stories where the ghost is explained away at the end - I forget it now, but Blackstone's stories were that type.
The comics seem to be full of them. Mandrake was another magician. And there was an occult adventurer in some British weekly comic I can't remember offhand - but possibly I have some of the stories.
Graham Masterton's Harry Erskine in The Manitou and Burial was the inspiration for my own Austin Chambers who will be making his debut in Black Book 3 in The Scavenger - a story Charles says he really enjoyed - though I'm afraid only a couple of people have read it yet, so it hardly counts!
We can hardly leave out Poe - Murders in the Rue Morgue - and Clive Barker did his own twist on that in The Books of Blood. The Hon' Charles Mortdecai takes on witchcraft and rape in Kyril Bonfiglioli's Something Nasty in the Woodshed.
Cornell Woolrich's stories were usually pretty sinister detective tales. Black Alibi, Night Has a Thousand Eyes - and the story starring Roy Castle and generally turned into a pig’s ear in Dr Terror's House of Horrors was Woolrich’s.
That’s all that’s come to me so far, but possibly one or two of them might be new to you. Lovely idea for an article!"
So many characters I hadn't even considered- you genius Rog. Over to you Vaulters. Who else should be covered off as a Satanic Sleuth/Psychic Detective?
