Hawkshaw the Detective was a

comic strip A comic strip is a Comics, sequence of cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often Serial (literature), serialized, with text in Speech balloon, balloons and Glossary of comics terminology#Captio ...

character featured in an eponymous cartoon serial by

Gus Mager Charles Augustus Mager (1878–1956), better known as Gus Mager, was an American painter, illustrator and cartoonist during the first half of the 20th century. He was the creator of several comic strips, notably ''Hawkshaw the Detective'' and ''Sh ...

from February 23, 1913, to November 12, 1922, and again from December 13, 1931, to 1952. (The revival was a topper to '' The Captain and the Kids''.) The name of Mager's character was derived from the common American

slang A slang is a vocabulary (words, phrases, and linguistic usages) of an informal register, common in everyday conversation but avoided in formal writing and speech. It also often refers to the language exclusively used by the members of pa ...

of the time, in which a ''hawkshaw'' meant a

detective A detective is an investigator, usually a member of a law enforcement agency. They often collect information to solve crimes by talking to witnesses and informants, collecting physical evidence, or searching records in databases. This leads the ...

—that slang itself derived from playwright

Tom Taylor Tom Taylor (19 October 1817 – 12 July 1880) was an English dramatist, critic, biographer, public servant, and editor of Punch (magazine), ''Punch'' magazine. Taylor had a brief academic career, holding the professorship of English literatu ...

's use of the name for the detective in his 1863 stage play '' The Ticket of Leave Man''.

Characters and story

Sherlocko

Hawkshaw the Detective was based on one of Mager's "monk" characters (so called because they looked a lot like

monkey Monkey is a common name that may refer to most mammals of the infraorder Simiiformes, also known as simians. Traditionally, all animals in the group now known as simians are counted as monkeys except the apes. Thus monkeys, in that sense, co ...

s), "Sherlocko the Monk," who made his first appearance in 1910. That name was scrapped after

Arthur Conan Doyle Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a British writer and physician. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 for ''A Study in Scarlet'', the first of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Hol ...

, the creator of

Sherlock Holmes Sherlock Holmes () is a Detective fiction, fictional detective created by British author Arthur Conan Doyle. Referring to himself as a "Private investigator, consulting detective" in his stories, Holmes is known for his proficiency with obser ...

, threatened legal action over the parodied name. (Sherlocko's bumbling partner Watso did not survive the renaming, either; he became "The Colonel.") Sherlocko used careful examination of clues and his knowledge of human nature to solve the crimes. Almost invariably they were done by some other "monk" character in the course of his regular activities (Groucho, Forgetto, Henpecko, Nervo ...). On 12-1-1911, a genuine criminal, Black Pete, makes his first appearance. Sherlocko the Monk - the Mystery of the Many Fires

Sherlocko the Monk - the Mystery of the Many Fires

Knocko

Groucho

An earlier version of Sherlocko, entitled ''Knocko the Monk,'' spawned a fad of nicknames ending in O, which prompted a vaudeville

monologist A monologist (), or interchangeably monologuist (), is a solo artist who recitation, recites or gives oral interpretation, dramatic readings from a monologue, soliloquy, poetry, or work of literature, for the entertainment of an audience. The te ...

named Art Fisher, while playing poker with four

brothers A brother (: brothers or brethren) is a man or boy who shares one or more parents with another; a male sibling. The female counterpart is a sister. Although the term typically refers to a familial relationship, it is sometimes used endearingl ...

who performed together, to give them all such names.Joe Adamson, ''Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Sometimes Zeppo: A Celebration of the Marx Brothers '' New York: Simon and Schuster, 1973. One of the brothers got a name that belonged to one of the characters in the strip: Groucho, one of the monks. Fisher named the other brothers Harpo, Chicko (later re-spelled " Chico") and

Gummo ''Gummo'' is a 1997 American experimental drama film written and directed by Harmony Korine (in his directorial debut), and stars Linda Manz, Max Perlich, Jacob Sewell, Jacob Reynolds, Chloë Sevigny, and Nick Sutton. The film is set in X ...

. At various times, however, the different Marx Brothers provided different reasons for the names, so ''Knocko the Monk'' may not, in fact, have been the inspiration.

Hawkshaw

Hawkshaw the Detective, played originally by Horace Wigan, debuted in the 1863 play of Tom Taylor, ''The Ticket of Leave Man''. His character was taken up by the ''

New York World The ''New York World'' was a newspaper published in New York City from 1860 to 1931. The paper played a major role in the history of American newspapers as a leading national voice of the Democratic Party. From 1883 to 1911 under publisher Jo ...

'' on February 23, 1913, and continued for many years in various

Pulitzer Pulitzer may refer to: *Joseph Pulitzer, a 19th century media magnate *Pulitzer Prize, an annual U.S. journalism, literary, and music award *Pulitzer (surname) * Pulitzer, Inc., a U.S. newspaper chain *Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, a non-pro ...

-owned newspapers. In 1917, some of Hawkshaw and the Colonel's newspaper antics were republished in book form by the Saalfield Company.

In popular culture

In 1912, the comic strip was adapted in two live-action comedy films, ''The Robbery at the Railroad Station'' and ''The Henpeckos''. The character was also referenced in two of

Dorothy L. Sayers Dorothy Leigh Sayers ( ; 13 June 1893 – 17 December 1957) was an English crime novelist, playwright, translator and critic. Born in Oxford, Sayers was brought up in rural East Anglia and educated at Godolphin School in Salisbury and Somerv ...

Lord Peter Wimsey Lord Peter Death Bredon Wimsey (later 17th Duke of Denver) is the fictional protagonist in a series of detective novels and short stories by Dorothy L. Sayers (and their continuation by Jill Paton Walsh). A amateur, dilettante who solves myst ...

novels: ''Unnatural Death'' (1927) and ''Busman's Honeymoon'' (1937).

Robert E. Howard

Included amongst

Robert E. Howard Robert Ervin Howard (January 22, 1906 – June 11, 1936) was an American writer who wrote pulp magazine, pulp fiction in a diverse range of genres. He created the character Conan the Barbarian and is regarded as the father of the sword and sor ...

's earliest published works were three stories featuring Hawkshaw the Detective and the Colonel.

References

External links

Hawkshaw
at Don Markstein's Toonopedia * {{cite web, last=Lambiek, first=Zoek , title=Gus Mager , url=http://lambiek.net/artists/m/mager_g.htm , work=Comiclopedia , publisher=Lambiek.net , access-date=2019-06-17 , location=

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...

, language=nl, en, year=2004 1913 comics debuts 1922 comics endings 1931 comics debuts 1952 comics endings American comics adapted into films American comics characters American comic strips Comics characters introduced in 1913 Comics spinoffs Crime comics Detective comics Fictional American police detectives Humor comics Male characters in comics Sherlock Holmes pastiches Comic strips started in the 1910s