"Ellery Queen," as both an author and a fictional character made his literary debut in 1929 with The Roman Hat Mystery, which began a remarkable career that spanned novels, short stories, anthologies, critical works, radio, film, television, board games, jigsaw uzzles, a play, and a mystery magazine which is now in its 84th year of publication.
In comic books, Queen began as a character in 1940 in stories published in Crackerjack Funnies. In 1949, four issues of a self-titled comic book were issued by Superior Comics, and, in 1952, Ziff-Davis released two issues of an Ellery Queen comic book. Ten years later, Dell comics released three issues of their own title. In 1990, Queen was utilized as a guest star in Mike Barr's Maze Agency comic, and in 1996, he was referenced in Gosho Aoyoma's Detective Conan series of managa books.
In Superior Comics' Ellery Queen #2, Ellery is on hand to solve four intriguing puzzles (actually, three, but who's counting?):
- "Terror Tide" - where death omes to Surfside Manor in a weird and uncanny manner
- "Calamity Clock" - a deadly triangle and a murder in a quaint shop filled with clocks...and in which Ellery wear a perfectly ugly yellow-plaid suit
- "The Case of the Vanishing Phantoms" - a tale taken from "police files" and narrated by Ellery; the ghost wasn't a ghost and the redheaad wasn't a redheaad, but the diamonds were still missing...
- "The Devil in the Vault" - it was routine to open the bank vault for the day, but then up popped the devil...note that the bank vice president in this tale is wearing a perfectly ugly blue-plaid suit which could be kin the the ugly one Ellery wore two tales earlier; I suspect he got it from Ellery's evil twin brother
I read THE ROMAN HAT MYSTERY when I was about 12 years old (early 1960s). I loved the CHALLENGE TO THE READER! I went on to binge on several more Ellery Queen mysteries. My favorite at that time was The Egyptian Cross Mystery. Sadly, I've never seen a copy of SUPERIOR COMICS.
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