GCD doesn't list an artist here on this late SUPER-MYSTERY story but the strip was signed "Al Camy" in earlier installments and this looks to be the same artist. Al Camy was the pen name for Al Cammarata. I like the art style.
Mostly a well conceptualized story, but having the horse die at the end was far less funny than sad.
I might note, en passant, that the idea of disguising blackmail pay-offs as failed gambles was used in Raymond Chandler's most famous novel, The Big Sleep (1939). That twist might have figured in one of the earlier stories by Chandler that were reworked to become the novel; I don't have my copies at-hand, and it has been decades since I read them. But, in any case, I wouldn't bet that Chandler had been the first to use that idea.
Mostly a well conceptualized story, but having the horse die at the end was far less funny than sad.
ReplyDeleteI might note, en passant, that the idea of disguising blackmail pay-offs as failed gambles was used in Raymond Chandler's most famous novel, The Big Sleep (1939). That twist might have figured in one of the earlier stories by Chandler that were reworked to become the novel; I don't have my copies at-hand, and it has been decades since I read them. But, in any case, I wouldn't bet that Chandler had been the first to use that idea.