To start off the new year, here is a new set of detectives in "The Detective Scribbles" Series. They are the father and son duo, Ellery &, his father, Richard Queen. I quite stumbled onto these detectives when I was in dire need to find some new detectives that should adorn this series. I thought that they were quite interesting as characters, with the slightly foppish and highly educated Ellery Queen and the retired Police Inspector, his widowed father, Richard Queen. What I think is most interesting is that I think that this sort of team consisting of family is merely interesting, much like how I think that the relationship with brothers Mycroft and Sherlock Holmes is quite interesting, mainly because such a team is considered rare in the realm of Detective Fiction, at least in my opinion. Anyway, I am getting quite ahead of myself, back to the characters that this post is dedicated to...Ellery and Richard Queen.
Ellery and Richard Queen made their way into the realm of Detective Fiction in 1929 with the premiere of The Roman Hat Mystery and although the author in question also went under the pseudonym of "Ellery Queen", the author of these various mysteries were actually authors. The dandy detective was created by cousins Frederic Dannay (1905-'82) and Manfred Lee (1905-'71) (which is probably why the family portion of this detective series is so very evident, I know that I am stating the obvious, but I just thought that it was interesting). The cousins where very fond of the stories of Doyle's character of Sherlock Holmes and this dandified detective of Ellery is basically the repercussion of such a love for the legendary character. Since the small hype for the first Ellery Queen mystery (mentioned previously) the two cousins collaborated from 1929 in over thirty books and many a short story was written including the foppish detective and his father. To have a little description of the character of Ellery, he was introduced as being a bit of a snob. He is a well-educated, well-dressed Ivy-league graduate and wore pince-nez spectacles, as if he hadn't looked pretentious enough. What is interesting, in the story structure, is that all the evidence is presented to the audience, unlike with most mysteries in which all the evidence which is presented in a quick way, but too quick for the audience to notice, or it is far too minute, and all the evidence in question is kept very close to the chest of the detective and isn't revealed until the end. This is what I find interesting, it is much like an actual puzzle in which the audience has all of the pieces before them, but it is both the detective's, as well with the audience's, task to find the culprit with the pieces before them. The Ellery Queen stories are quite interesting from both a reader's aspect and also from a critical standpoint, inviting the audience to pitch-in, so to speak, with the mystery. I would highly recommend reading some of the Ellery Queen stories due to terrific writing of the two cousins.
The character of Ellery Queen has such a towering reputation in America, he might even be like how Sherlock Holmes is to England, basically. The character of Ellery has been portrayed both on radio and the small screen. An interesting fact is that the father of one Mr. Timothy Hutton, who plays the character of Nate Ford in the TV show Leverage (which is very good indeed), and his father's name is Jim Hutton and he starred as Ellery Queen in the TV show in the 1970's. Also, and I thought that this was clever, is that in one particular episode of Leverage that is entitled "The 10 li'l Grifter's Job" in which the main characters masquerade as various characters of detective fiction, Timothy Hutton's character dressed up as Ellery Queen, in dedication to his father (which brought a smile to my face, at least). Right-o, to finish up the first post of the new year, as this series is drawings down to a close, I simply cannot wait for the last few detectives, I hope that you will enjoy their stories as much as I have.
Keep a sharp eye out for my next post.
Notes: The drawing was made in the same fashion as the previous ones, drawn with waterproof ink and drawn with a dip pen and pencil.
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