Talk:Sexton Blake

Untitled
I would like to add something like: "Although clearly influenced by Sherlock Holmes, Blake's adventures were often more action-oriented."

-- Beardo 16:36, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Not poor
I agree with Beardo, above. Richards' radio feature may have mentioned this unpleasant pigeon-holing of Blake, but (usually in the nastier form of "the office boys' Sherlock Holmes") it was being remembered - and countered - long before. For instance, in E.S.Turner's "Boys Will Be Boys".

Rogersansom (talk) 07:38, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Needs division
The page needs sorting out - dividing into sections etc. -- Beardo 20:30, 1 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Once again, this article needs sorting, especially first paragraph of sub-section "Publications" - it isn't always clear which publications the dates refer to as they seem to spill over each other. Refsworldlee(chew-fat) (eds) 01:26, 7 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I know they prefer "straight prose", but would a list of first publication dates be better in this circumstance? I transcribed the dates from this article into a list for a Facebook group, and added a couple of extras taken from two SB articles i have. 86.144.98.56 18:36, 2 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Here is a timeline of Sexton Blake i have written. Not straight prose by any means, but it is clear! should it go into the article?

1893 - First story published in the Halfpenny Marvel issue 6 1894 - Union Jack launched, Sexton Blake appears in issue 2. 1897 - The first of Sexton Blake's long-term assistants appears, a Chinese boy called We-Wee. He remains until 1901. 1904 - His assistant Tinker appears, he also moves to Baker Street. The Halfpenny Marvel appears to have ceased publication too. 1905 - Longer stories with more character development appear in the form of serials in The Boy's Friend. More significantly the Union Jack becomes "Sexton Blake's Own Paper", and he now appears in every issue, ushering in the "golden age" of Sexton Blake. 1907 - Short stories appear in the Penny Pictorial. "Sexton Blake in the Congo" and "Sexton Blake's Honour" are published this year. 1908 - Very short stories begin to appear in Answers, a more "magazine"-like publication. A series of long serials of Sexton Blake at School, Sixth Form and University begin in the Boy's Realm, a similar publication to the Boy's Friend. 1915 - Sexton Blake Library launched, these novel-length tales become the mainstay of Sexton Blake for many decades. Stories are by now appearing in The Boy's Journal, The Dreadnought, Pluck and The Penny Popular too. 1917 - Shortages and other streamlining see SB stories reduced to publication in the SBL and Union Jack. With occasional appearances in issues of the Boy's Friend Library, Detective Library and other publications. 1919 - Sexton Blake hit by the Spanish Flu pandemic. If the reviews on sextonblake.co.uk are anything to go on, the series really got into high gear at this point. Story quality would barely dip for another 10 years. 1920 - Serials appear in an extremely rare and little-known publication called Nugget Weekly, apparently only in this year. The Union Jack gains colour covers and increases price to 2d. The detective is now regularly duelling with supervillains such as Zenith The Albino, as well as the all-encompassing Criminal's Confederation. 1923 - Now Blake steps into The Magnet (home of Billy Bunter!) for a one-off crossover. 1933 - Union Jack ceases publication, replaced by Detective Weekly. This starts off well but the quality later drops and a lot of reprints creep in. 1936 - SB vanishes from Detective Weekly for a time, though a single story appears in the London Evening Standard, of all places. 1937 - A re-write of "Sexton Blake at School" from 1908 appears in a comic called Pilot, revealing his 'real' name to be Ronald Blakeney (though the many stories about the detectives past contradict or confuse one another) 1938 - The Golden Age is largely over by now, and many stories are reprints or re-hashes. Despite this the first of the Sexton Blake Annuals appears. Serials continue to appear in Pilot and he even returns to regular (reprinted) publication in Detective Weekly. 1939 - The first Sexton Blake picture-strips appear in the very first issue of a new comic named Knockout. Serials also crop up in The Thriller (which appears to be similar to the old Union Jack discontinued 6 years previously) and Wild West. 1940 - "Graveyard week" marks the end of many publications, including The Magnet, The Gem, Magic... and more importantly Detective Weekly. Sexton Blake now only appears in the SBL, still going strong despite poorer stories, less issues, fewer pages and more reprints. In the Knockout comic Sexton Blake is on "special service", easily the longest of all the stories, it runs for over three years and encompasses much travelling around the world in a bizarre amphibious submarine called the Rolling Sphere, piloted by a Chinese man called Hoo Sung. 1942 - The last Sexton Blake annual appears. 1956 - Start of the "new order" stories, Sexton Blake now has offices at Berkely Square, and a new assistant named Paula Dane (though Tinker and the dog Pedro are still around). The stories start to become "tougher" in nature and some James Bond-style elements begin to creep in. Some stories in this era jump back into the war - perhaps to make up for the percieved "lean years" of rather uninspiring stories (such as "The Scrap Metal Mystery") during the actual war. 1962 - The Sexton Blake Library becomes paperback-sized, as opposed to the "commando" size used previously. Stories no longer appear in Knockout and the first (widely-read, at any rate) "fan fiction" appears in the Collector's Digest Annual. 1963 - The 'classic' Sexton Blake library ceases publication with a terrible story called The Last Tiger. 1964 - The first year since 1893 in which no SB stories at all are published or reprinted. 1965 - A new series of paperbacks, the Sexton Blake Library fifth series, begins. These are not published in as large a number as the old SBL's, but some are entertaining. They continue the "New Order" trend and feature Paula Dane. Some of them take on supernatural elements. A few serials also appear in Tit-Bits, seemingly a tabloid and newsprint forerunner of "Nuts", "Zoo" and the like! 1968 - New SB comic strips begin, in Valiant. These coincide with a TV series which came on at the time (of which almost all episodes no longer exist, it seems). These stories generally had some ghostly setting and played out like Scooby Doo, this was because the scripts where actually rejects from "Maxwell Hawke - Ghost Hunter" from the comic Buster! 1969 - End of regular publication of Blake stories, with a final few novels which appear to be part of the SBL fifth series (though are not labelled as such). 1970 - The last SB comic strips appear in Valiant. 1978 - A TV series, "Sexton Blake and the Demon God", with a lot of supernatural elements (and i don't doubt orchestral stabs and swirling disco-ball colours). A novelisation also appears which is the last "official" SB story. It's also awful, by all accounts. Since 1969 Blake stories have all been set in the 20's or 30's, including this one. 1979 - Victor Drago, a suspiciously Blake-like character appears in the Tornado comic until early 1980. He was clearly intended to BE Sexton Blake but the name was changed at the last minute. His car registration is even SB209! Again, this is set in the 20's 2000 - Some new fan-stories published in a Sherlock Holmes fan magazine 2005 - One new story appears in a US "pulp" anthology 2006 - Some new stories published on sextonblake.co.uk, some set in the 20's and 60's but others in the twenty-first century. It is revealed an event in 1908 has caused Sexton Blake, Tinker and Mrs Bardell, thier landlady and cook, to stop ageing. They are now attached to, but independent from, a top secret agency named The Craille Institute, set up in the 1970's by a secret agent they had worked for on numerous occasions. Pedro is revealed to be sucessive generations of dogs all named Pedro! 2007 - Blake crops up in a couple of US magazines dedicated to the Wold Newton Universe, which is based around the supposition that numerous characters from fiction (mainly ones that are out of copyright!) are all descended from a small group of original people who where affected by a comet near a town called Wold Newton, which gave them "singular abilities". A reprint, in novel form, of a 1905 Union Jack also pops up out of nowhere. 2007 - sextonblake.co.uk is back! 2008 - The first issues of The Red, White & Blue are "published" on a photocopier and sold at a comic convention, containing new fan-written stories of Sexton Blake. 2009 - A new anthology of reprints is due out. Hopefully a further issue or two of the RWB will appear too, though they may not be sold until 2010. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.31.50.93 (talk) 00:17, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

W.A.Ballinger
The reference in the article suggests that this name was one used by Wilfred McNeilly. The question of pen names and their exclusivity or otherwise is complicated, but I think W.A.Ballinger was primarily W.Howard Baker. The initials are two of his, and boulanger means baker. He was capable of writing as Bill Rekab!

82.10.145.63 (talk) 20:48, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Sexton Blake.jpg
Image:Sexton Blake.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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BetacommandBot (talk) 08:36, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Sexton Blake.jpg
Image:Sexton Blake.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 05:25, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Sexton Blake.jpg
Image:Sexton Blake.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to ensure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 04:34, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Anthony Skene
Anthony Skene, creator of Monsieur Zenith is not mentioned as one of the important writers, and no date range is given (here or at that article) for this character's involvement in the Blake stories. —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93; ‹(-¿-)› 21:44, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Claims of copyright
I'm removing the line from the lead giving a history of copyright ownership up to some company the article claims currently owns the copyright, for three reasons:

1) The lead is supposed to summarize the article. The article does not otherwise talk about this topic.

2) There are no reliable sources provided for this information.

3) No company can claim current ownership of the copyright, as the character is clearly in the public domain:


 * "The first Sexton Blake story was "The Missing Millionaire". Written by Harry Blyth (under the pen-name Hal Meredeth) it appeared in the story paper The Halfpenny Marvel number 6, on 20 December 1893."

The copyright in UK now has a life of the author +70 years. Blyth died in 1898, meaning that story was public domain in 1968. In the United States, anything published before 1923 is automatically public domain. Lots of other works featuring this character would also now be public domain in multiple countries.

Without a very good source Wikipedia cannot just assign copyright to anyone. (And the source would have to be phenomenal to state that anyone currently owns copyright, as it's impossible.) DreamGuy (talk) 00:20, 24 September 2014 (UTC)


 * AIUI, Blyth was commissioned to create Blake and sold the rights to the character to his publisher Amalgamated Press early on (he possibly never owned them- the sources aren't clear) which over the years became Fleetway and IPC. Blake was always a corporate property. IPC certainly think they still have the rights to licence the character. But, you're probably right that this should be sourced and clarified. Rankersbo (talk) 19:54, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Tinker
Added the claim by Herbert Marshall in his autobiography that the character of Tinker was based on his real-life office assistant. Added Charles Henry St.John Cooper as an early Blake author - not to be confused with John Creasy's nom de plume Henry St.John Cooper. Bad-patches (talk) 21:11, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Sexton Blake. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20060326071527/http://www.sextonblake.co.uk/blakestory1.html to http://www.sextonblake.co.uk/blakestory1.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

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 * The link for "Jess Nevins' Sexton Blake Site" appears to be dead. Should it be removed or perhaps replaced with a link via archive.org? For example, I was able to find https://web.archive.org/web/20170307045534/http://www.reocities.com/jessnevi/blake.html from 2017. Shanen (talk) 18:30, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
 * The tool mentioned above for fixing links did not work. Various error messages and I finally gave up. Shanen (talk) 18:36, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

Some sources
This article needs more 3rd party sources. Here are a few links from G-books
 * Turner, E. S.. Boys Will Be Boys: The Story of Sweeney Todd, Deadwood Dick, Sexton Blake, Billy Bunter, Dick Barton Et Al.. United Kingdom, Faber & Faber, 2012.
 * 100 British Crime Writers. Germany, Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2020.
 * Wlaschin, Ken. Silent Mystery and Detective Movies: A Comprehensive Filmography. Ukraine, McFarland, Incorporated, Publishers, 2009.
 * Pitts, Michael R.. Famous Movie Detectives II. United Kingdom, Scarecrow Press, 1991.
 * Richards, Jeffrey. Cinema and Radio in Britain and America, 1920–60. United Kingdom, Manchester University Press, 2019.
 * James, Russell. Great British Fictional Detectives. United Kingdom, Remember When, 2008.

I'm sure there are more. Lamona (talk) 16:56, 6 December 2022 (UTC)