Dan Dunn
{{Short description|Comic strip detective, 1933-1943}}
{{other uses}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2025}}
{{Infobox comics character
|image = Detective Dan Secret Operative 48 (Humor Publishing, May 1933).jpg
|caption = Detective Dan: Secret Operative No. 48 (1933), cover art by Norman W. Marsh.
|character_name = Dan Dunn
|real_name =
|publisher = Humor Publishing
|debut = Detective Dan: Secret Operative No. 48 (1933)
|creators = Norman W. Marsh
|alliances =
|aliases =
|powers =
}}
Dan Dunn is a fictional detective created by Norman W. Marsh. He first appeared in Detective Dan: Secret Operative No. 48, a proto-comic book from 1933, produced by Humor Publishing. He subsequently appeared in newspaper comic strips from 1933 to 1943.
Publication history
=Comic book=
Writer-artist Norman W. Marsh's hardboiled detective Dan Dunn first appeared in Humor Publishing's proto-comic book Detective Dan: Secret Operative No. 48, copyrighted on May 12, 1933.{{cite book | url= https://books.google.com/books?id=SVxbAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA351 | title= Catalog of Copyright Entries. Part 1. [B] Group 2. Pamphlets, Etc. New Series | publisher= United States Library of Congress | year= 1933 | page=351}} Comics historian Don Markstein notes that this periodical and the only two others from this publisher were pioneering in that they contained "non-reprinted comics in 1933", though these periodicals were not "in modern comic book format. Theirs were done as tabloids"[http://www.toonopedia.com/dandunn.htm Dan Dunn] at Don Markstein's Toonopedia. {{webarchive |url=https://archive.today/20240525215153/https://www.webcitation.org/66tYCwfD4?url=http://www.toonopedia.com/dandunn.htm |date=2024-05-25}} from the original on April 14, 2012. with Detective Dan: Secret Operative No. 48 measuring either 9½ × 12 inches or 10 × 13 inches{{cite web | url = http://www.thecomicbooks.com/nsp1-01.html | first=James | last=Coville | title=Newsstand Period 1922 - 1955 | publisher=TheComicBooks.com | accessdate= October 6, 2016 | archivedate= June 3, 2016 | archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20160603180923/http://www.thecomicbooks.com/nsp1-01.html | url-status=live}} (sources differ), with black-and-white newsprint pages and a three-color cardboard cover.[http://www.comics.org/issue/640366/ Detective Dan: Secret Operative No. 48] at the Grand Comics Database. It sold for 10 cents. In addition to Detective Dan, also in 1933, the publisher also published The Adventures of Detective Ace King and Bob Scully, The Two-Fisted Hick, however, these characters did not have continuity.{{cite book|url=https://www.google.com.br/books/edition/Comic_Book_Culture/gW36Qs3rLB0C?hl=pt-BR&gbpv=1&dq=Bob+Scully+ace+king&pg=PA40&printsec=frontcover|title=Comic Book Culture: An Illustrated History|last=Goulart|first=Ron|authorlink=Ron Goulart|date=2000|publisher=Collectors Press, Inc.|page=40}}
The character appeared primarily in the newspaper comic strip Dan Dunn, syndicated by Publishers Syndicate beginning Monday, September 25, 1933, with a Sunday page added soon afterward. The strip, which ran through Sunday, October 3, 1943, eventually would appear in approximately 135 papers. Dan Dunn strips were reprinted in comic books, through publisher Eastern Color's Famous Funnies, Dell Comics' The Funnies and Red Ryder Comics, and Western Publishing's Crackajack Funnies from 1935 to 1943.[https://www.comics.org/credit/name/Norman%20Marsh/sort/chrono/ Norman Marsh] at the Grand Comics Database.
=Comic strip and other media=
{{Infobox comic strip
| fgcolor =
| bgcolor =
| title = Dan Dunn
| image =
| caption =
| author = Norman W. Marsh (1933–1941)
| current = Allen Saunders (1942–1943)
| illustrator = Paul Pinson, Alfred Andriola (1942–1943)
| url =
| status = Daily and Sunday; concluded
| first = September 25, 1933
| last = Oct 3, 1943
| altnames =
| syndicate = Publishers Syndicate
| publisher =
| genre = adventure
| rating =
| preceded by =
| followed by =
}}
On September 25, 1933, Publishers Syndicate began distributing Dan Dunn as a comic strip that eventually peaked at 135 newspapers. The Sunday color page began on October 1, 1933.{{cite book |last1=Holtz |first1=Allan |title=American Newspaper Comics: An Encyclopedic Reference Guide |date=2012 |publisher=The University of Michigan Press |location=Ann Arbor |isbn=9780472117567 |pages=118–119}} Marsh both drew and wrote Dan Dunn from 1933 to 42.{{cite web| url= http://www.bpib.com/comicsproj/creditsAD.html |title=Dan Dunn|publisher = (entry), The Comic Strip Project: Credits A-D| editor1-first=Paul |editor1-last=Leiffer |editor2-first= Hames |editor2-last=Ware|archivedate=June 25, 2016|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20160625063246/http://www.bpib.com/comicsproj/creditsAD.html |url-status=usurped}} One critic describes the artwork as the weaker aspect, calling it "arid", with a chronic, wintry aspect", "cavernous spaces" and "huddled, stiff-jointed postures".{{cite news|last=Phelps|first=Donald| title=Flat Foot Floogie|work=Nemo, the Classic Comics Library|issue= 17 |date=February 1986|pages= 33–38}} Assistants included Jack Ryan c. 1937, Ed Moore c. 1937–38, and Dick Fletcher.
The Dan Dunn Sunday page ran a topper strip, Dan Dunn's Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory, from March 4 to July 22, 1934.
Marsh left the strip in 1942 following a disagreement with Publishers Syndicate. Allen Saunders, the syndicate's comics editor, took over as writer from 1942 to 43, with art first by Paul Pinson (June 1942 - January 1943) and then by Alfred Andriola (January to October 1943). Saunders and Andriola subsequently replaced Dan Dunn with a new detective strip, Kerry Drake, in 1943.{{cite news | last=Saunders | first=Allen | date= 1983–1986 | title=Playwright for Paper Actors | work=Nemo, the Classic Comics Library | issue=4-7, 9, 10, 14, 18, 19}}
Starting in 1934, Dan Dunn appeared in seven Big Little Books:{{cite web |last1=Lowery |first1=Larry |title=Big Little Books and Better Little Books: 1932-1949 |url=http://www.biglittlebooks.com/listings/Whitman-BLBs1932-1949.htm |website=Big Little Books.com |accessdate=8 July 2019}}
- Dan Dunn, Secret Operative 48: Crime Never Pays (1934){{cite web | url=http://www.biglittlebooks.com/dandunn.html | publisher = BigLittleBooks.com | title= Dan Dunn, Crime Never Pays | accessdate=October 9, 2016 | archivedate= March 15, 2015 | archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20150315071831/http://www.biglittlebooks.com/dandunn.html | url-status=live}}
- Dan Dunn on the Trail of Counterfeiters (1936)
- Dan Dunn and the Border Smugglers (1937)
- Dan Dunn and the Crime Masters (1937)
- Dan Dunn on the Trail of Wu Fang (1938)
- Dan Dunn and the Dope Ring (1940)
- Dan Dunn and the Underworld Gorilla (1941)
In 1936, Dan Dunn became the title character of a pulp magazine that lasted for two issues.{{cite book|last= Cottrill|first= Tim|date= 2005|title= Bookery's Guide to Pulps & Related Magazines|url= https://archive.org/stream/Bookerys_Guide_to_Pulps_Related_Magazines_2005_Cimmerian32-DPP_c2c/Bookerys_Guide_to_Pulps__Related_Magazines_2005_Cimmerian32-DPP_c2c_djvu.txt|location= Fairborn, OH|publisher= Bookery Fantasy|page= 74|asin= B000J1A05U}}
In 1944, Dan Dunn, Secret Operative #48 was produced as a 15-minute syndicated radio program which ran for a total of 78 episodes.{{cite book| last=Hickerson|first=Jay|title=The Ultimate History of Network Radio Programming and Guide to All Circulating Shows| publisher=Privately published|location = Hamden, Connecticut|edition=2|date= 1992|page =94}}{{cite magazine |author= |title= Shows of Tomorrows, 5th Annual Edition|pages= 195, 222 |url= http://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-Radio-Daily/RD-1944/RD-1944-07.pdf|magazine= Radio Daily|location= New York, N.Y.|publisher= Jack Olievate|date= July 3, 1944|access-date= April 30, 2018}} It was produced by Kasper-Gordon, Inc.{{cite news |author= |title= Radio Daily|page= 7|url= http://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-Radio-Daily/RD-1944/RD-1944-06.pdf|work= Vol. 27, No. 43|location= New York, N.Y.|date= June 1, 1944|access-date= April 30, 2018}}
=Reprints=
In 2017, The Library of American Comics reprinted one year of the strip (1933) in their LoAC Essentials line of books.
Analysis
Markstein calls the square-jawed Detective Dunn an imitation of Dick Tracy, killing criminals with the same direct resort to violence during the gangster era. Dunn never approached Tracy's popularity. The strip's successor writer, Allen Saunders, believed the comic rivaled Dick Tracy in pioneering themes and techniques of the American detective comic. In the Toho dub of the Lupin III film The Mystery of Mamo, Daisuke Jigen was given the name of Dan Dunn in the character's honor.
References
{{Reflist|30em}}
External links
- [https://books.google.com/books?id=K-OCBcT1O4UC&pg=PA196 Dick Tracy and American Culture by Garyn G. Roberts]
- [https://archive.org/details/DanDunn Dan Dunn radio episodes]
Category:1940s American radio programs
Category:1944 radio programme debuts
Category:American radio dramas
Category:Comics adapted into radio series