Starting today, my new weekly column, The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes will be up on Monday mornings over at Black Gate, the web’s leading fantasy literature and related website. I’ve been a long time reader and am quite excited to look at some of the more “off the beaten path” elements of Sherlock Holmes, as well as talk about some of the many movie and television features over the years. I think it will be fun and maybe folks will learn an interesting fact or two.
Here’s the start to my first post:
“Me? Oh, why, thank you for asking. I’ve been into Sherlock Holmes since the early eighties. Columnist, contributor, reviewer, short story writer, screenwriter, newsletter editor, website creator: I’ve found many ways to express my Holmes geekiness.
I used to run a Holmes On Screen website, which I dropped just before the first Robert Downey, Jr. movie: how’s that for timing? Swing by www.SolarPons.com to see my (not one, but) two free, online newsletters inspired by the world’s first private consulting detective.
If you have a pulse, you may have noticed that Sherlock Holmes is rather popular these days. In the mid-eighties, the British TV series starring Jeremy Brett had revived interest in the detective. That interest waned as Brett’s health deteriorated and the series quality fell off towards the end. A few made-for-television movies, including ones starring Matthew Frewer (that Max Headroom guy), Richard Roxburgh and Rupert Everett, didn’t generate much excitement. Sherlock Holmes and the Vengeance of Dracula, once the hottest script in Hollywood, lost its luster and became a dead property. Sherlock Holmes was as viable as Martin Hewitt.* “Who,” you say? Exactly.”
Almost Holmes 
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But I like Martin Hewitt!
You know, it would be neat if a good author wrote some new Hewitt stories since he’s in the public domain. Like, oh, I don’t know…(hint, hint!).
Lol. Solar isn’t in the p. d., is he? You see, I have this dispatch box with Parker printed on it…
Alas, Pons is still under copyright and the Derleth Estate doesn’t seem too interested in doing anything with the property (A group is trying to get Pons out in digital format. It’s a slooow process)..
Clearly your dispatch box is a clever forgery, since I’ve already included some of Parker’s unpublished writings in the Gazette. Was he THAT prolific?
Did you see the letter to the editor of The Strand from Brett, claiming Watson stole his account of a Hewitt case and chronicled it as the Bruce-Partington Plans? Shocking!
http://www.solarpons.com/BakerStreetEssays_4.pdf (page 4)