Review: The amazing Adventures of Dennis Dorgan
dag...@yahoo.com
Cover by Jeff Jones
Zebra Books, December 1975
(Supposedly identical to Fax and Ace editions)
As the story goes, after retaining Otis Adelbert Kline as an agent,
Robert E. Howard branched out in his markets. One of those markets was
a magazine called "Fight Stories". For this magazine, Howard
created a two-fisted, tough-as-nails, none-too-bright sailor with one
of his favorite names: Stephen Costigan. These stories came so fast and
furiously, that he found he had 'way too many to sell to Fight
Stories. As a solution to this problem, Howard re-wrote some of the
Costigan stories as Dennis Dorgan stories. These were to be shopped to
other magazines, notably Oriental Stories
These stories have a lot in common with the Brekenridge Elkins stories,
including a kind of vernacular style meant to accurately represent the
way the star of the story would tell the tale. It takes a few pages to
get used to it, but once you do, it becomes part of the whole
experience.
Dorgan is the "chief bully" of a tramp steamer called The Python.
He sails all throughout the far east (what used to be referred to as
"the Orient"), places like Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Singapore, even
ending up in one story in the far off land of San Francisco. In his
adventures he is accompanied and aided by his white, man-eating bulldog
Spike, and variously aided and hindered by his shipmates. Dorgan is
also a fighter of rare ability, and fights make up the major portion of
each story.
The Dorgan series, as well as the Brekenridge Elkins, Bearfield Pike,
and Sailor Steve Costigan series, is kind of surprising if all you have
read are Howard's more serious works. They show something that some
of Howard's critics seem to have missed: Bob Howard had a sense of
humor. These stories all brim with rough humor and even some satire. No
grim barbarians, philosophical and moody antediluvian kings, or
wandering puritans here. Sure, we occasionally get bits of humor in
Conan and the others, but, let's face it; they are few and far
between.
While I feel that the Brekenridge Elkins stories are funnier, these are
at the very least amusing. They are also EXTREMELY violent. While there
is seldom any gunplay or knife-fights (and no swordplay at all), most
of the violence is from one hulking gorilla of a man beating the tar
out of another hulking gorilla with his bare hands. "Claret" flows
in floods, teeth splinter and fly, lips are split, eyes are blackened,
ribs are bruised and broken, people are "kilt", and arise from the
gore like zombies from the grave, and it is all FUNNY! The violence is
so outrageous and so exaggerated, it begins to seem like an old Warner
Brothers cartoon gone berserk. Descriptions going something like "I
hit him on the chin so hard, his head whipped up between his shoulders
so far he could count the freckles on his back", would inspire images
that could only be seen in an animated cartoon. They still aren't
quite as outrageous as Brekenridge Elkins.
Dorgan also admits to being no genius. Many of the stories involve
someone perpetrating the most transparent con on Dorgan, and taking
advantage of his basically good nature (and it would have to be,
otherwise he would have killed somebody), or cases of mistaken
assumption, mostly on Dorgan's part. The first story, "The Alleys
of Singapore", Dorgan "loses" a fixed fight, but finds himself
trying to save the sister of the referee who betrayed him. That is,
that's what Dorgan THINKS he is doing. He's actually been conned
into kidnapping the owner of a supposedly secret formula and turning
the man over to those who would torture him to gain that formula. When
he finds out he has been tricked, mayhem ensues.
In "The Jade Monkey", Dorgan hijacks a prize fight so he can win
money to buy what he believes is a priceless relic. Anyone who reads
the first couple of pages knows how the story will end, but the trip is
a roller coaster ride that should not be missed.
In "The Mandarin Ruby", Dorgan teams up with an oriental detective
to solve the theft of the eponymous jewel. And solve it he does,
although in a way that neither Dr. Watson, Dr. Petrie, Professor
Trowbridge, nor Jimmie Chan would have imagined.
"The Yellow Cobra" is the name of a society along the lines of the
Si Fan. Unfortunately, they are not led by anyone like The Devil
Doctor, and Dorgan puts a serious dent in their membership.
"In High Society" has a rather complicated plot. Dorgan,
temporarily blinded, discovers that he looks rather mild-mannered and
studious when he wears glasses (hey, it worked for Clark Kent). This
time, it's Dorgan who does the conning, and gets to go one-to-one
with a heavyweight champ (although that is not his intention).
In "Playing Journalist", Dorgan calls an upcoming fight like he
sees it, and ends up alienating both contenders. Outraged that either
party would disagree with him, Dorgan K.O.s them and leaves. He avoids
assisting a fight promoter of his acquaintance in "making a man"
out of his son (the young man wants to be a [shudder] MUSICIAN), but
finds himself all tied up in the plot anyway.
"The Destiny Gorilla" has one of the funniest bits in the entire
series: Dorgan is engaged in demolishing a rival for a woman's
affections, when, during a slight break in the mayhem, a crooked fight
promoter and his assistants show up to kill Dorgan for refusing to
throw a fight. Dorgan's opponent is so outraged that they would kill
a man just for not throwing a fight, he joins Dorgan in grinding the
crook and his men into paste.
The cover is probably supposed to be based on the story "A Knight of
the Round Table", in which a promoter asks Dorgan to stage a boxing
match with himself and his opponent dressed in full plate armor. It
also involves promises to never engage in fisticuffs again, and the
digging of a mysterious pit in a spooky house.
"Playing Santa Claus" is a Christmas tale. That's right, a
Christmas Tale written by Robert E. Howard. It involves Dorgan
volunteering to play Santa Claus at an orphanage, and the being conned
into smuggling ammunition to a group of particularly nasty bandits. In
what you realize by this time is typical Dorgan fashion, the whole
thing goes to hell pretty fast and the bandits take Dorgan prisoner to
torture him into giving them their ammo. Lets just say that instead of
being surrounded, Dorgan finds himself in a target-rich environment,
and Santa arrives, if slightly beat up (yeah, but you should see the
other guy), with a smile on his lips, joy in his heart, and a sack of
toys.
"The Turkish Menace" starts with a case of mistaken identity:
Dorgan is being sought as the criminal in a payroll heist. He tries to
hide at a prize fight, but is discovered by pure chance. During his
escape, Dorgan inadvertently leads the police to the real thief, and
gets to stage his own prize fight with the prize being his freedom.
So we're not talking Pulitzer Prize material here, we are talking
about a little diverting entertainment and a couple of laughs. What
more could you ask?
dag...@yahoo.com
Nealus
I read a few if them in a collection entitled 'The Iron Man' which had a
Mandarin type bad guy on the cover which I recall vaugely tied in with the
content of one of the stories, which was a lot less vague than the Jeff
Jones cover to 'The Amazing Adventures of Dennis Dorgan'. Incidentally
according to his web site poor old Jeff Jones has been suffering recently
from a bout of mental illness.
Nealus
<dag...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
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Dr Hermes
Great review, very comprehensive. The Dennis Dorgan stories always
seemed much funnier and livelier than the (don't flame me) slightly
over-rated Breckenridge Elkins yarns. It's odd, but the only Sailor
Steve Costigan story I can remember off the top of my head was "The Pit
of the Serpent', which was much more straight-faced and normal adventure
with the only exaggerated element being the ability of Costigan and his
opponent to put up with enormous damage. So maybe Bob Howard
deliberately turned up the slapstick factor for Sailor Dorgan.
The beauty of the character is that he basically means well, has a
tender spot for orphans and wimmins, but is so dense he can be talked
into all kinds of outrageous scams. The fact that he has the punching
ability of a trained gorilla and has little restraint about using his
fists, just gets him in deeper. The Dorgan stories are funny partly
because the reader can see the meaning of events that the narrator just
doesn't get. This is not that easy for a writer to do without being
clumsy, and Howard was good at it. (Better than the critically acclaimed
H.P. Lovecraft, I think, with his highly educated professors and
journalists who cannot figure out the obvious horrors going on all
around them until the final paragraph.)
dag...@yahoo.com
I seem to have misremembered the genesis of the Dennis Dorgan stories.
A fellow REH fan set me straight, and is quoted with his permission:
Howard retained OA Kline as his agent in the spring of 1933. The
first Steve Costigan tale appeared in FIGHT STORIES in July 1929.
Howard didn't have "way too many" to sell to FS; they were buying very
regularly, and they were running them in their companion magazine,
ACTION STORIES, as well as FS, but there was no danger of him
producing too many for them. These magazines, though, ceased
publication in the early months of 1932, so Howard had to look for
another market for his boxing stories. It may very well have been
Kline who suggested trying ORIENTAL STORIES, to which Howard had been
selling regularly since 1930. At any rate, some time during 1933
Howard revised a bunch of unsold Costigans by changing the name to
"Dennis Dorgan," the white bulldog from "Mike" to "Spike," the ship
from "The Sea Girl" to "The Python", and that was about it. He also
changed the author's name on the title pages from "Robert E. Howard"
to "Patrick Ervin."
Of course, ORIENTAL STORIES -- by this time the title had changed to
THE MAGIC CARPET MAGAZINE -- folded after the January 1934 issue, in
which the first of the "Dorgan" stories was published. That was the
end of "Dennis Dorgan's" career -- Costigan appeared under his own
name in three stories in JACK DEMPSEY'S FIGHT MAGAZINE, but by this
time the Breckinridge Elkins stories had begun in the revived ACTION
STORIES, and Howard's interest in the West overtook his interest in
boxing.
Rusty Burke
Bish
a recent compilation of the Sailor Steve Costigan stories. However, I
think the title was The Incredible Adventures of Dennins Dorgan (as
opposed to The Amazing Adventures). Worth seeking out.
Bish