Slylockian scholarship.

Sometimes, in the wee hours of the morning, arcane discoveries of something other-than-human are made, even if you aren’t a character in a Lovecraft tale.

You may never have wandered past the Comics Curmudgeon at joshreads.com , but if you did it yesterday, you might have noticed a blog entitled “The Statue of Liberty is probably a kangaroo now or something.” That really didn’t make sense as I read through the Curmudgeon’s comments on Hagar the Horrible or Hi and Lois for yesterday, but then I came upon the familiar figure of one Slylock Fox.

Underneath yesterday’s strip, the paragraph began: “In order for the Slylockian world anthropomorphic animals to exist, there must be some kind of apocalyptic event in our future and their past, during which the lower beasts achieved sentience and most of the human population was wiped out, presumably violently.”

The Curmudgeon continues with his thoughts upon that world of Slylock Fox, but his use of the word “Slylockian” caught my eye. Was this truly the first example of Slylockian scholarship to step forth upon our planet? Does it already exist upon Slylock Fox’s Earth, upon whatever dimensional plane it exists?

Probably so. Even Wikipedia treats the world of Slylock Fox and his partner Max Mouse as fictional, so my money is on the Curmudgeon breaking new ground here. With Pandora’s box now open, however, can a Les Klinger annotated edition of Slylock now be too far away?

P.S. The Baker Street Babes are on a roller coaster for their latest podcast, which probably sets off the butterfly effect of a Slylockian future somehow. O' brave new world that has such people in't!

The glass is half full. Enjoy today.

In retrospect, maybe I was a little hasty in prophesying the Sherlockian apocalypse based on a CBS procedural drama. I mean, bottom line: the show probably won’t be all that popular. And while it may not be good, and may not be true,  there a much worse futures awaiting us. How do I know this? Am I beginning my career as Nostradamus of Sherlock Holmes events ahead?

Naw, I just remember the last time I thought something was as bad as it could be.

Remember the horror genre’s vampire subgenre? Never known for its quality, vampires pulled generations of fans in with movies like the Hammer Dracula series, television shows like Dark Shadows and Forever Knight, and books like P.N. Elrod’s “Vampire Files” series (with it’s Sherlock connection) or Laurell Hamilton’s oversexed Anita Blake run. And those were some of the better vampire works out there. The bad stuff was really bad. But did any of us foresee the hijacking of vampires by tweener girls and their faddish moms with Twilight?

We thought we knew bad. And then the mob came and brought sparkle-vampires, that previously inconceivably silly concept (“We hid from the sun because it just makes us more beautiful!”), up to the ranking of most popular vampires of all.

As much I want to cite the-TV-show-that-must-not-be-named as the low point of Sherlock Holmes exploitation, I know in my heart that worse things await us. Maybe it will be the tweeners invading our niche of the storytelling universe. Maybe it will be some other massive multi-fan movement. Could it be a cuddle-tragic Dr. Watson and Mr. Holmes in one body? A lonely android Sherlock who just wants to be a real boy? Gender-neutral, fifty shades of gray-alien Sherlock with his probes of desire? Who can possibly know?

But we haven’t seen bad yet. But it’s coming.

It’s coming.

Flying the colors.

Ah, the good old days.

Yesterday, I pulled out a t-shirt that I bought months ago on Teefury.com to wear. The gray shirt features a silhouette of Benedict Cumberbatch’s profile on a British flag background, with all sorts of Sherlock-stuff going on in his head. It’s not a perfect design, but it was the first Sherlock shirt I saw on Teefury, on sale for that single day, and I find that I’ve grown quite fond of it . . . for nostalgia’s sake.

It takes me back to a better, purer time, when Sherlock Holmes on television was a celebration of Sherlockian culture and lore, a fresh, innovative attempt at pushing a character I dearly love into the modern day, and an attempt that succeeded. England seemed to be excitedly reclaiming its native son, and for all my previous “Sherlock Holmes was an American” theories over the years, I was glad to see it.

England seems to know what to do with its legends. Merlin, Robin Hood, Dr. Who, Sherlock Holmes – they have plenty, and treat them fondly it seems. America has bungled so many attempts at those characters over the years, while our native legendary sons and daughters seem to be left to the whims of the Walt Disney Company. Zorro, Davy Crockett, Pocahontas . . . if you’re not a princess, you’re on the shelf, and even the princesses often have a way of failing. Many corporate hands seem to want to reach into any American icon’s development, which is one reason Superman, a classic American legend if ever there was one, never seems to get a solid break.

But Sherlock Holmes! Whether it was the production values of the Brett series or the clever workings of the Cumberbatch, Great Britain has shown us that someone over there gets Sherlock Holmes. We could quibble about details, but on the whole, both of those were productions that brought Sherlock Holmes fans together.  Things are a little different these days.

While it might be taking it a bit far to say a certain current production’s use of the name “Sherlock Holmes” on its main character could be the beginnings of Sherlockian Civil War, I wouldn’t rule it out just yet. If someone brought a cat into the Westminster Kennel Club dog show and half of the participants called it a dog, the serious dog-loving half might be polite and go along with the delusion for a few minutes, but eventually trouble would erupt. And while Sherlock Holmes fandom isn’t as strict as Westminster (at least in most quarters), I do find myself looking at the comments of many an old comrade like they just brought a cat into the dog show.

And now I’m finding that I take extra special pleasure in wearing my BBC Sherlock t-shirt. Flying the colors. Planting a flag. Whether the other side becomes dedicated enough to take up their own banner, we shall see.

Yay. A comment.

My favorite comment on this blog so far came in this morning:

“Your low esteem of the Brett representation obviously comes from a lack of knowledge of the Canon and screen writing.”

The anonymous commentator plainly doesn’t know me, and went for the ad hominum sort of shot that is so popular in any sort of argument these days, especially on the web. He or she probably should have gone with “You’re fat!” and really got a dig in, but telling me I don’t know my Canon or screenwriting? Silly, silly anonymous commentator. (See, I can use ad hominum, too. But I do feel guilty about it.)

My main criticism of Jeremy Brett continues to be those lines that he delivered directly from the Canon itself, word for word. The screenwriters did no work at all, just copying the words directly from Doyle. And then Brett embroidered them with his own over-worked delivery.

The rest of the comment goes on about a certain CBS detective drama that is about some guy that’s not Sherlock Holmes. Not sure why Sherlock Holmes fans keep bringing it up. But keep those comments coming!

Forty bucks a chance? Nope.

Lately the catch phrase I hear the most about new Sherlocks seems to be “give it a chance.” Well, with the brand new video game The Testament of Sherlock Holmes, which I really was considering purchasing, I think I can definitely reply, “No chance.”

You see, as much as I value my own opinion of things, I really like reviews. Reviews are our early warning system for bad things coming, and even though your opinion might not be exactly the same as anyone else’s, a savvy review reader can pick out key elements that can tell you if a reviewer is close enough to your mindset to serve as your royal taster, so to speak, checking for entertainment poison.

The helpful decider for me this time out was a Kotaku blog entitled “I Wish The New Sherlock Holmes Game Respected My Intelligence A Bit More” by Kate Cox.

She had me at that headline alone, but double-tapped the deal in her first paragraph with: “Sherlock is a grade-A unrepentant jerk.”

Oh, but it gets worse. I’ll let you Google up the details on your own, but Kate Cox gives a lot of reasons that a fan of Sherlock Holmes from any other venue might find The Testament of Sherlock Holmes repugnant. (And what’s with that title anyway? “Testimony” wasn’t good enough? Does he die at the end and we get to read his will? Fancying up words just to fancy up words is a novice pasticheur vice.)

Kate Cox hits a lot of points that would stop me from picking up this game if it was absolutely free, much less cost forty bucks. The topper however, is her exposing of yet another jerk Sherlock. When I’ve run into people who think Sherlock Holmes is a jerk, as I have many times over the years, I have two theories I have to test out on them:

a.) Have they only been exposed to poor quality Sherlocks, who were actually portrayed as jerks? Or . . .

b.) Have they never been around any truly brilliant folks, who might not always have time to coddle those whose view of the world is constantly threatened by facts?

That last one has to be done subtly, as you can get accused of bullying pretty easily these days. (Sherlock Holmes, a bully? There’s a topic for another day.) Is Kate Cox, accuser of this latest Sherlock of being a jerk, such a person?

I don’t think so. She seems pretty clever in making her case. And her review strikes a sympathetic chord with me, so I suspect the makers of the game are the ones who think Holmes actually is a bit of a jerk.  If you’ve got a spare forty bucks laying around your change jar, you might want to give The Testament of Sherlock Holmes a chance. 

Me, I think I’ll do my gambling in the Sherlockian office pool for “What date do they first announce the cancellation of a particular much ballyhooed crime drama on CBS?” Seems a safer bet.