Caliber did a number of Holmes projects, including the aforementioned BAKER STREET that I did with Guy Davis.

We collected two mini-series into graphic novels from Martin Powell and Seppo Makinen…”Scarlet in Gaslight” and “A Case of Blind Fear” and did a one shot reprint of “Return of the Devil.”

We also did a new one shot, “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Holmes” and a two issue series, “Adventure of the Opera Ghost.”

We reprinted a few of the Renegade issues where the Day Brothers provided illustrations for the original tales and then had Warren Ellis adapt “The Sussex Vampire”.

I’ve always been a fan of Holmes and in fact, as I explain in the preface to a Holmes story I did, it was what got me into writing. However, the only story I did was a 14 pager that originally appeared in “The Sherlock Holmes Reader”, a series about Holmes with some stories that ran four issues. The story, “The Amazing Mr. Holmes” appeared in one of those issues and is part of the collection, “Of Scenes and Stories” which just came out from Transfuzion Publishing.

I am working on a new Holmes series but not sure when it will come out at this point.

Of course, Illustrated Classics did a number of Holmes stories back in the 1950s, I believe.

And if you’re at all interested, I blog about Sherlock Holmes on The Baker Street Blog.

#2 ends with dialogue so bad that it still makes me and Dawn giggle: “I will not be made a fool! I will see you punished, even if I have to CREATE evidence myself!”

“There WILL be justice!”

And #3 has Holmes tearing through London on a cocaine bender…

There’s little physical action in most Holmes stories, so there’s little visual dynamic there.

I dunno. I just don’t buy this. There’s a fair amount of running and jumping and sneaking around and so on, and I can think of quite a few out-and-out chase scenes and fight scenes in the original Doyle. But even so — the easy way out of this is to do new stories, pastiche. Baker Street worked great, Ruse worked fine… you can quibble about quality but certainly as stories told in the comics form they functioned perfectly well, and if those worked it seems to me that an out-and-out Holmes comic with new material would work fine too.

Not to go on and on about it. It just seems to me like a possible comic-book genre property that’s essentially just lying there unused for no good reason. Really any kind of ongoing mystery/detective/action comic would satisfy me, but Holmes strikes me as having enough superheroic qualities that it would be an easy one to do.

Holmes is a series happening during the time Holmes was thought dead. Only a short (32 pages) book has been published yet, but it was immensely cool! A preview (in french, sorry):
http://www.bdgest.com/prepub.php?IdPrepub=215

A brilliant parody comic, Baker Street shows Holmes as a bumbling detective that bullies Watson around.
http://www.editions-delcourt.fr/serie.php?id=140

Best,
Hunter (Pedro Bouça)

I’m a bit disappointed that you didn’t mention Guy Davis and Gary Reed’s BAKER STREET series, published by Caliber Press in the early nineties, Greg. Surely you have some love for that series?

Just plain forgot it. But I own every issue and it really is great, though I don’t think it made a big splash either.

(I own the Bat-Book about the television show, for instance, which I think is far nerdier than this one).

Well, I own that one too, and it IS pretty nerdy; my feeling, though, was that Vaz takes it because his book reads as so breathlessly awestruck by the wonder that is Batman. I love all my nerd books though so it’s hard to choose one.

My theory as to why Holmes hasn’t made a bigger splash in comics: the canon’s general lack of physical action. Holmes stories don’t lend themselves to chase scenes or fistfights that often, and you can only go over Reichenbach Falls so many times.

The best Sherlock Holmes comic I’ve ever read is “The Curious Case of the Vanishing Villain” by Gordon Rennie & Woodrow Phoenix. Dr. Henry Jekyll hires Holmes & Watson to track down Mr. Hyde, who has escaped from the Robert Louis Stevenson story. It’s a surreal story, but it really captures the characters. Watson has the priceless quote: “It certainly gives a fellow a start when he finds out that he’s only a character in a book!”

Also, that Batman/Sherlock Holmes page looks like Alan Davis, not E.R. Cruz…

…and that’s one of the few times I’ll willingly put Davis and Killraven in the same post…