John tidied the waiting room of the surgery after a day's work, stacking the magazines, dropping the toys back into the plastic tub. It was supposed to be one of the receptionist's duties, but she had to pick up her daughter from the babysitter and John usually offered to help her out. He moved methodically around the room, tutting at the paper cups and debris left behind as he threw them away. There was a cleaning crew that came in after hours, but they only vacuumed and dusted. They wouldn't pick up anything saying, "We don't know if it's something important, guv." Thumbing through the magazines as he put them away, he saw that a comic book was mixed in among them. It didn't belong to the clinic; a child must have left it behind.
On the cover was a horse drawn carriage on a cobblestone street lit by gaslight lamps in sepia tones: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, the World's Only Consulting Detective.
As a child in the late '70's John had read comic books and while he had enjoyed the standard super hero stuff—The Truth League, the Amazing Tick Man—his preference had been for the detective stories. He liked the heroes who used their wits and intelligence instead of depending on super powers. Like "Dream Man Detective Tales." Dream Man had grenades that released harmless sleeping gas and he gathered clues and evidence to catch the criminals.
John thumbed through the pages. Unlike most comics, the pages weren't coloured, but black and white, dark with shadows and cross-hatching and it seemed to be about a detective in Victorian England. It was also issue three. John tossed it into the lost and found box, turned out the lights and headed home.
A week later the comic was still in the lost and found and at a loss for something to read during his lunch break, John pulled it out, meaning only to amuse himself for a half an hour or so. Strangely the author and artist was listed only as J.H.W., John's own initials.
The story was introduced by an unknown narrator, "On a rainy evening in 1895, my friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes continued telling me the story of his exploits with the Mark of the Clover…" Although it was issue three, it seemed to be wrapping up one story arc, and despite not having read the beginning, John was sucked into the world of the clever Victorian detective.
There was a tantalizing single page teaser for the next story at the back, "The Adventure of the Lapis Stone," that drew John in and so on his way home, he found himself going into London's famous comic book shop, "Things to Come." He felt quite absurd, but comic books seemed to have become big business since he was a child judging by the clientele and the startling prices on some of the figurines and comics in cases.
Nervously he approached the young man behind the counter who was nothing like the pasty adolescent or pathetic middle-aged man he'd expected.
"Um, I'm looking for a comic. I wonder if you could help me?"
"A comic, really?" the man asked with just a touch of irony. His name, according to his name tag was Mic.
"I mean one in particular. I mean a series. It's called The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
"Oh yeah, saw that one. New issue just came out. Alphabetical on the wall over there."
When John brought it up to the counter the young man asked, "Do you want a subscription?"
"What, like a newspaper?"
The clerk smiled at John's ignorance, "No, it means we put aside a copy of the comics you want so they don't sell out before you can come in to get them."
"Do they, do they sell out often?"
"Depends on the title."
John considered. No, it was silly. He wasn't a little kid. He'd read this story and that would be it. "No thank you. I'll just take this one."
"Suit yourself. New comics come out on Tuesday. New titles generally once a month."
But "The Adventure of the Lapis Stone" didn't end with one issue and John was forced to go back to get the second. And the end of that issue had a teaser for the next story, "The Silver Birches." John got a subscription. He also went online and purchased the first two issues of "The Quarter Sign" which was not ruined at all by his knowing the end.
The eponymous character, Sherlock Holmes, was described as tall and so thin that he looked taller. The narrator described his eyes as sharp and piercing in an unusual shade of light blue and his hair as thick and dark although his skin was pale. Despite not being in colour, John could picture the exact shade of blue when Holmes looked out of the frame. The artist's skill made it seem as if he were looking right at John, as if John were one of the puzzles he had to solve, even though John knew he was supposed to be looking at another character in the story. The stories were so engrossing that John felt nervous tension in his stomach when a story wasn't complete in one issue.
After the two part "Silver Birches," there was a single issue, rather comic story, "The Mystery of the Ginger Society." Then a three issue (John went to the comic store on Tuesday afternoons every week he was so eager) story, "The Doncaster Beast." John read every story two or three times, discovering new things in each rereading and examination of the illustrations. The author had done his research because the details of the time leapt off the page. John could feel and smell the yellow fog thick with sulfur dioxide, hear the heavy clop of the horse's metal shoes on the cobbled roads. There were subtle and clever allusions to the politics and events of the times that had John scrambling for Wikipedia. The mysteries were brilliant, full of clues for the clever and witty dialogue for the slow. John had to count himself as the later as he tried, but never guessed the answer before the end.
And there was the character of Sherlock Holmes. He was completely fleshed out. Besides the physical description and illustrations, his brilliant mind but sensitive nature came through on every page. John could sympathize when Holmes snapped at the idiots around him. He'd often wanted to do the same. Despite his sharp tongue it was clear that Holmes did care about the people around him, his housekeeper for instance, Mrs. Hudson, and even the blundering Detective Lestrade. His friends loved him and his enemies feared him. What more could one ask for in a hero?
Then, after the second piece of, "The Last Game," where Holmes was facing his mortal enemy, Moriarty, the only man as brilliant as Holmes himself, there were no more issues. John went back every week for seven weeks looking.
"Excuse me, do you know if the next issue of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes has been delayed for some reason?" John finally broke down and asked.
The clerk, a young, attractive woman, typed in the computer. "It's been dropped."
"What?"
"Yeah, they're not going to publish any more. Frankly, I'm not surprised. You're the only person who buys it."
"But it was in the middle of a story. Surely they'll finish this story?"
"Doesn't look like it. Sorry. There's one that's kind of similar about an alternate earth where the Victorian era never really ended, kind of Steampunk feel, with a female detective."
"No, I don't want anything else. I just want to know the end of "The Last Game."
"Sorry. Can't help you. You might try contacting the press, see if they have the issue, but decided not to publish it. I don't know."
John called BC Comics and reached a very rude woman named Sally who told him in no uncertain terms that no, there was no final issue, no, there were no plans to pick it up again, no, she absolutely could not put him in contact with the author, goodbye.
John tried again and this time reached a woman named Molly who was more sympathetic.
"I know what you mean. There have been some titles that I just loved and thought were really well written and well-drawn, but if they aren't selling they get axed."
"I know this is a lot to ask, but is there any way that you could put me in touch with the author. At the very least, I want to let him know what his work meant to me."
"Um, I can't give you his address, obviously."
"No, of course not, but maybe you could get a message to him for me?"
"Just a sec., let me see if he's still in our database… Oh!"
"What?"
"His final check was returned, no forwarding address. I'm really sorry. Some authors are like that. Really secretive. I guess if they wanted fame they wouldn't be writing or drawing comics, ha!"
And that was that. John put all the issues into a box and shoved it to the back of the closet. He didn't want to see them. Rereading them now was too depressing, knowing that there wouldn't be any more.
A month went by, and another. John read detective novels. It wasn't the same. They all seemed like pale imitations of the Holmes stories.
He'd almost gotten over it. Resigned himself to the fact that he would never know the end of "The Last Game," when a large white envelope arrived in the post. There was no return address.
Inside was the last chapter or at least the proofs. It wasn't bound. There wasn't a cover, and John could even see white out and erasures. But there it was.
Holmes was being pursued through the streets of London by Moriarty's henchmen. There was a frame of him from the waist up wearing his signature coat and deerstalker hat, looking straight out at the reader and there was something like fear in his eyes. John couldn't imagine how the artist had rendered that in simple black and white lines, but there it was and it was chilling, because Holmes had never been afraid in any of the stories. He looked at the text.
"John," it said, "I need your help."
And then, John dropped the comic because in the next frame, Sherlock was holding his hand out to him. It looked so real. Three dimensional, as if Sherlock was reaching out of the comic, but that couldn't be true.
John picked up the comic. No the outstretched hand was very well drawn, but still flat.
He turned the page. Sherlock had staggered back against a wall and looked…annoyed. "Careful, John! Now help me get out of this!"
Again the hand seemed to reach out to him. John touched the page, it was warm and soft and moving. Sherlock was reaching up through the page to grip John's hand. Letters moved across the page to spell out, "Pull!" And then, "NOW, JOHN!"
He gripped the offered hand that was growing from the page to fit his and pulled, pulled as the weight became greater and greater and he had to put his back into it. Pulled as though he was pulling someone from quicksand. And someone did break free. Sherlock Holmes stumbled out of the page as if he were falling through a door, knocking John and his chair over.
The clothes had changed. No longer was it a Victorian coat, but rather a modern and very stylish long black tweed. Beneath it he seemed to be wearing a sharply cut black suit. But the deerstalker remained on his head, albeit askew. Instead of being slicked back in the Victorian style as it was in the comic, dark curls tumbled out from beneath the brim.
Despite the skill of the artist, the drawings were nothing compared to the reality of Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock Holmes, the world's only consulting detective, a fictional character from a comic book, now sprawled on the floor of John's living room.
John looked at Sherlock and then at the blank white paper, then back at the man in his living room.
Sherlock looked around the room and down at his clothes. He took off the hat, scowled at it and tossed it aside, then ran his fingers through his tousled hair.
He looked back at John with eyes so pale they seemed grey with just a hint of blue. His full lips curled into a sardonic smile.
"Doctor Watson? John? I think I need to borrow your phone."
NOTES: Obviously the superhero comics are recognizable, as are the titles of the stories. "Dream Man Detective Tales" is my variation on the original Golden Age "Sandman" comic which was reborn in the early 90's as a kind of tie-in with Neil Gaiman's "Sandman" as "Sandman Mystery Theater." They are quite good, and not supernatural in any way except in his dreams. I couldn't find, and even my husband, the font of all things comic, couldn't think of any detective type series from the 70's-they just weren't that popular then.
The comic that the woman recommends to John instead of the one he wants is "Baker Street" which I read first with my high school boyfriend and then the man who would become my husband (yeah, I gots a type). It's a Steampunk Holmes AU before Steampunk was even remotely a word. Female detective kicked out of the force for drug addiction, now the leader of a punk gang in an alternate world where the Victorian age never really ended. It is AWESOME!