The Mad Book of Mysteries

Since I’m a fan of both Mad Magazine and classic detective fiction, a book like this couldn’t really miss. I also like that it’s full of original stories and not a grab-bag of previously published material, and that all the stories have the same author and artist (Lou Silverstone and Jack Rickard, respectively).

So the line-up of crime-solving all-stars here sounds like the cast of Murder by Death. There’s Hercules Pirouette, Archer Spillane Spayed, Shtick Tracer, Allergy Queen, Charlie China, Perry Maceface, and Shamus Holmes. And there’s also a spoof on G-Men movies now and then, a quick trip to Peanuts-land with Chuck Frown, Private Eye, and a bunch of gags about what cops say vs. what they really mean. Alas, there’s no Nero Wolfe or Miss Marple, though they’re on the back cover. I would have loved seeing them.

The gags aren’t terribly funny but Silverstone knows his stuff and the way he pokes fun at the material will make you smile. He takes digs at Poirot’s long, drawn-out and confusing explanations of the crime, and has Number One Son getting back at his dad for all the mean cracks made at his expense. But the style of humour is mainly geared around running a gag-a-page of snappy comebacks. When Shamus Holmes declares that a murder victim lived near a canal Dr. Whatso says “A canal? That’s eerie, Homes.” To which Holmes replies: “No, alimentary, my dear Whatso!” Because the deceased worked at a candy company you see.

Rickard often gives the supporting characters familiar movie-star faces. James Cagney and Robert Redford, for example, as their era’s representative G-Men. I loved the look of all the stories, though Mad‘s house style of square speech bubbles and sans serif lettering seemed out of place. I don’t know why they couldn’t have played around with that more. Lettering matters.

What I took away the most from revisiting this pocketbook today though is how much the cultural landscape has changed. In the late ‘70s-early ‘80s classic detective fiction could be sent up for a mass audience, here or in the aforementioned Murder by Death, because it could be assumed everyone had some familiarity with these characters. Today I think that kind of awareness belongs to a vanishing few older readers. To be sure, golden age detectives still have their cults, but they aren’t household names anymore. And what’s more, nobody has taken their place. Caricature exploits character, and the old guard had plenty of that. But how can you caricature Inspectors Morse, Rebus, or Gamache? They’re more realistic and psychologically grounded but not as memorable, and give satirists a lot less to work with.

Graphicalex