SHERLOCK HOLMES - DOMINO LADY

SHERLOCK HOLMES – DOMINO LADY

Edited by Joe Gentile

Moonstone Press

120 pages

Normally we don’t care for “hybrid” publications.  By that we refer to books that have comics strips and prose stories mixed together between two covers; neither a full out graphic novel or a traditional prose anthology.  And yet, as the old saying wisely dictates, for every rule there is always an exception.  “Sherlock Holmes – Domino Lady” from Moonstone Press is that oh so rare, wonderful exception.

Edited by Joe Gentile, it reprints an earlier two-issue Domino Lady adventure by Nancy Holder and Bobby Nash, only now it is in full color, as are the other two short strips in this package. That in itself is a welcome upgrade to what was already a marvelous story.  Next we have two short prose pieces, one by Nash and the other by Holder.  Spaced between these is a solo Holmes strip Gentile and then the book wraps up with a solo Domino Lady strip by James Chambers and artist Scott P. “Doc” Vaughn.  If you are unfamiliar with Vaughn, he does a great pulp sci-fi webstrip called “Warbirds of Mars” and is no slouch when it comes to drawing sexy 1940s style pin-up beauties.  Thus his doing Domino Lady was an editorial stroke of genius.

Cap it all off with a gorgeous cover by the amazing Mike Fyles and you have a truly unique, fun and beautiful book any pulp fan would love to have in his or her collection.  As for the book’s overall theme, the pairing of a 70 year old Holmes and the vivacious, alluring Ellen Patrick from Los Angeles…well, honestly, it works a whole lot better than one could possibly imagine.  A tip of the pulp fedora to Moonstone Press.  Here’s wishing for more such hybrids.  You may make a believer out of us yet.