DAN DUNN ON THE TRAIL OF WU FANG (1938)

 Dan Dunn was the first fictional character to make his debut in a comic magazine, Detective Dan, Secret Operative No. 48, a "protocomic book" -- done as a tabloiid, rather than in more recognizable comic book fashion --  published by Humor Publishing.  Created by Norman W. Marsh, Dunn has a close physical resemblance to Chester Gould's Dick Tracy, (minus the strong jaw line), who had appeared two years earlier. The art was not a good as Gould's, but Dunn shared Tracy's penchant to shoot the bad guysThen, later in 1933, he then made his newspaper debut in the Dan Dunn comic strip for Publishers Syndicate, running until 1943; the strip would eventually appear in some 135 newspapers.  For nearly five months in 1935, the Sunday comic strip ran a topper strip, Dan Dunn's Scientific Crime Detection Laboratury.  Reprints from the comic strip were published in over sixty issues of several comic books:  Famous Funnies, The Funnies, Red Ryder, Mammoth Comics, Crackajack Funnies, and Popular Comics. There was a Dan Dunn Detective Magazine, a pulp which only lasted for two issues in 1936. A 1944 fifteen minute syndicated Dan Dunn radio show lasted for 78 episodes, only four of which survive.  From 1934 to 1941, Big Little Books published seven Dan Dunn adventures.  The comic strip was eventually cancelled to make way for a new strip, Kerry Drake.

In addition to being a cop in an unnamed big city, Dunn also acts as Secret Operative No. 48 for the FBI (or the Secret Service, or both -- it was never made very clear).  This allows him to occasionally chase after large threats to the country and to the world, rather than the usual criminal gangs.  He sometimes teams up with female government agent Secret Service Operative No. 185, or with his pet "Wolf Dog (conveniently named Wolf), or Babs (the orphan girl he unofficially adopted), or chubby, somewhat comic sidekick, Irwin Higgs.

One of his greatest enemies is Wu Fang, a Yellow Peril character -- actually several characters from the adventure and pulp era.  For example, Wu Fang is the evil Chinese crimniial master mind (complete with poison snakes and a pool of octopi) who goes up against Craig Kennedy in Arthur Reeves' 1914 novel The Exploits of Elaine.  Wu Fang was also the oriental villain in Robert J. Hogan's novels in the seven-issue pulp magazine The Mysterious Wu Fang (1935-1936).  Dan Dunn's Wu Fang is not related to these characters, or any of the other Wu Fangs who dot the popular literature landscape.  (It should go without saying that Dan Dunn has no relationship with Danny Dunn, the juvenile scientific hero of the juvenile adventure series written by Jay Williams and Raymond Abrashkin).  Nonetheless, Wu Fang was Dan Dunn's most memorable antagonist:  "Wu Fang, King of the Dope Smugglers, with diabolical, fiendish cunning, aided by a horde of depraved gangsters, and an endless stream of money squeezed from human blood, corruption and degradation."

Dan Dunn on the Trail of Wu Fang was the fifth in the Big Little Books series of his adventures.  It's a fairly fast read, due to small pages, large type, and simplistic language.  When we begin, Dan has just captured Eviloff, the hodd-wearing arch criminal, and his gang, and is ready for a new assignment...

Enjoy.

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