June 1937 DC issue ~ cover art by Creig Flessel

Detective Comics #4 (DC, 1937) CGC Apparent FN+ 6.5 Slight/Moderate (B-2) Cream to off-white pages. This pre-Batman issue is a tough one to find in any grade, so much so that Gerber’s Photo-Journal Guide to Comic Books rates it an “8” (“rare”). The Speed Saunders cover is by Creig Flessel

September 1940 issue ~ cover art by Rafael DeSoto

September 1940 issue

cover art by Rafael DeSoto

~ Cleve Adams, “That Certain Feeling”, ‘Engelhardt & Dewey, Car 97, LA setting’, 2nd of 6 stories in BM

~ W.T. Ballard, “Pictures for Murder”, 22nd of 27 stories with ‘Bill Lennox, troubleshooter for Consolidated Films’, 34th of 43 stories in BM

~ William E. Brandon, “Danny, Once the Rat”, ‘police-stoolie & Nazi spies’, 3rd of 7 stories in BM

~ Dale Clark, “Killer in the Wind”, 2nd of 28 with house dick Mike O’Hanna story, at San Alpa Resort hotel, 4th of 32 stories in BM

~ John Lawrence, “Death in the Pluperfect”, 1st of 2 stories with ‘Ace McGuire, Broadway squad, 1st-person narrator’, 7th of 14 stories in BM

~ Robert Reeves, “Dog Eat Dog”, Cellini Smith and RR’s debut, 1st of 3 parts that will be published as the novel No Love Lost in 1941, reprinted in Dead and Done For: The Complete Black Mask Cases of Cellini Smith (Steeger, 2020), 1st of 12 appearances in BM

©Seattle Mystery Bookshop

May 1926 issue ~ cover art by C.W. Svensson

May 1926 issue

better image than previously posted

cover art by C.W. Svensson

~ Frank Bisson, “The Betel”, ‘South Seas’, only story in BM

~ Ben Lucien Burman, “The Needle of Osiris”, 2nd and last story in BM

~ Tom Curry, “Buck”, 4th of 23 with Macnamara (Mac), NYPD 1st grade dick, with ‘Buck, safecracker’, 7th of 39 stories in BM

~ Carroll John Daly, “South Sea Steel”, 13th of 53 with Race ‘Williams in the South Seas’, reprinted in Them That Lives By Their Guns: The Collected Hard-Boiled Stories of Race Williams, Vol. 1 (Altus Press, 2015), 21st of 71 appearances in BM

~ Erle Stanley Gardner, “Thisissosudden!”, 8th of 73 with Ed Jenkins, 15th of 99 stories in BM

~ Charles Somerville, “Walls Have Ears”, ‘Manhunters; 47th & last piece by CS in series which began in Feb 1923 issue’ [Haggeman notes this is the last of 47 but lists 49 total by CS, 2 of which are not Manhunters], last of 49 pieces in Haggeman and in BM

~ John Stanton, “A Fortune at Stake”, author’s sole appearance in BM

~ J. Paul Suter, “The Terror by Night”, pt. 2 of 2, 9th of 15 stories with The Reverend McGregor Daunt, ‘clergyman by profession and detective by choice’, 13th of 19 appearances in BM

©Seattle Mystery Bookshop