Friday, November 9, 2018

Dial E For Eternity--Brush Up Your Shakespeare!!

We begin with one heckuva lot of exposition:

So...a man brought in to authenticate a newly discovered Shakespeare play has been murdered!! Stabbed in the back!!

Now, it's a pretty good plot device. There are any number of purported "undiscovered" Shakespeare plays out there, either as existing manuscripts attributed to him, or apocryphal references to manuscripts that no one has found, or of course, outright frauds. And there are "new" plays that scholars have only recently admitted to the "canon." So with bad record keeping and fires and plagues and blitzes and time travelers and whatnot, it's always possible that there is some undiscovered or unrealized Shakespeare out there.

 But who would murder over them?

Oh, wait, we're no done with the exposition...

Still going...

Nope, not done yet...

Good God, just shut up already!!

Well, finally, it's Agatha Christie time!! A room full of suspects, no obvious motives, and MURDER!!

Kid heads on down...


Good point, Keeper.

Kid gets friendly with Delven's daughter...

But then...



And how do you deal with a jealous wannabe boyfriend?

Dan McGrew!! (Don't worry if you've never heard of him--he's a fictional character from a narrative poem by Robert Service...)


Kid, he had a gun--would he have stabbed the professor?

Anyway, you're taking up way too much of the millionaire's time!


Uh, isn't this all just a distraction from the murder, guys?

William Shakespeare!!

Well, I guess that settles the whole "was Shakespeare really Shakespeare" controversy!!

But as to the authenticity of Damocles? Well...like any author worth his salt, Shakespeare likes his drink!


Don't try to distract a playwright while he's drinking!!




So how to keep an author from drinking? A question that has plagued agents and publishers for centuries. But Kid Eternity has a solution!

Macbeth's witches!!



Aw, poor William.

But now, back to business. Is the play Shakespeare's?

Suddenly...

Dude, you can't kill Shakespeare!!

Launcelot!! This is you second summoning!!


Good question! This is getting confusing!!

So let's answer the least important question first!

Well, that settles that!!

But who did the killing, and why?

Wait wait. I'm not sure what Tate & Blevin's game was. If they kept killing everyone who could authenticate the manuscript, then Morey would never buy it! Right?!? Did they expect him to put out a ton of money without authenticating it? Did they think that after enough murders he would eventually relent, and say, "Well, we can't seem to find an authenticator who won't die, but I guess I'll buy it anyway?" Sure, killing Delven might have covered up their fraud, but it wouldn't help the sale go through--plus, now they're guilty of murder!!

Oh, by the way, Kid, look at--he has a gun!

Whew!

Kid gets the last punch in!

And so...

Dude is pretty casual about getting murdered for essentially nothing...

This was the 72nd Kid Eternity sotry, and our updated standings are...

Abu 1
Achilles 4
Adam 1
Antony, Marc 2
Apollo 1
Aramis 2
Arnold, Benedict 1
Arthur, King 2
Astor, John Jacob 1
Athos 2
Atlas 3
Attila The Hun 1
Attucks, Crispin 1
Baker, Lafayette 1
Barry's father 1
Barton, Clara 1
Bernhardt, Sarah 1
Bertillon, Alphonse 3
Blackhawk 1
Bloodhounds (Legree's) 1
Bluebeard 1
Bolivar, Simon 1
Boone, Daniel 1
Bowie, Jim 1
Boyd, Belle 1
Brady, Diamond Jim 1
Breitbart, Zishe 1
Bridger, Jim 1
British Tank crew 1
Bucephalus 2
Bunyan, Paul 3
Byron, George Gordon 2
Caesar, Octavian 1
Cagliostro, Alessandro 1
Calhoun, John C. 1
Canary, Martha “Calamity” 1
Cannon, John W. 1
Capulet, Juliet 1
Carden, Foster 1
Carpenter, Daniel 1
Cave Man 1
Cherry Sisters 1
Christian, Fletcher 1
Clancy, Patrick 1
Cleopatra 1
Cody, “Buffalo” Bill 2
Colt, Samuel 1
Columbus, Christopher 2
Corbett, Jim 3
Corcoran, Peter 1
Crockett, Davy 1
Cronson, Gerald 1
Crusaders 1
Crusoe, Robinson 1
Custer, George Armstrong 1
D'artagnan 2
d'Aubigny. Julie 1
Daedalus 1
Dagger Dan 1
Davis, Richard Harding 1
de Bergerac, Cyrano 2
de Leon, Ponce 1
de Rais, Gilles 1
Decatur, Stephen 1
Discus Thrower 1
Dockstader, Lew 1
Dracula 1
Drake, Sir Francis 1
Dupin, C. Auguste 1
Edison, Thomas 1
Emery 1
Ericson, Leif 2
Fagin 1
Fairbanks, Douglas Sr. 1
Faraday, Michael 1
Fink, Mike 1
Frankenstein's Monster 1
Franklin, Ben 1
Galahad 1
Geronimo 2
Goliath 1
Gotch, Frank 1
Gothicus, Claudius 1
Grant, Ulysses S. 1
Graymalkin 1
Greb, Harry 1
Griffiths, Albert 1
Gulliver, Lemuel 1
Hamilton, Alexander 1
Hatfield, John 1
Hathorne, John 1
Hauser, Kaspar 1
Henry, Patrick 1
Hercules 2
Hermann, Alexander 1
Hickathrift, Tom 1
Hickok, Wild Bill 1
Hippocrates 1
Hodges, Joe 1
Holmes, Sherlock 4
Hopkins, Matthew 1
Horatius Cocles 1
Houdini, Harry 3
Houston, Sam 1
Hyde, Edward 1
Hyer, Tom 1
Ikhnaton 1
Ismail, Yusuf 1
Jackson, Andrew 1
James, Jesse 1
Javert 2
Jeffries, Jim 1
Johnson, Martin 1
Jones, John Paul 1
Jove 2
Kamehameha 1
Khan, Genghis 2
Kidd, William 1
Lafayette, General 1
Lancelot 2
Larsen, Wolf 1
Laughing Cavalier 1
Laveran, Charles 1
Leander 3
Lee, Robert E. 1
Legree, Simon 1
Leonidas 2
Light Brigade 1
Lincoln, Abraham 1
Lister, Joseph 2
Macbeth's Witches 1
Marable, Fate 1
Marshall, John 1
Masterson, Bat 1
McGrew, Dan 1
Mercury 5
Merlin 1
Mesmer, Franz 1
Milo Of Croton 2
Minutemen 1
Mix, Tom 1
Montague, Romeo 1
Montezuma 1
Morgan, Henry 1
Mounties 1
Mulgrew, Jason 1
Murphy, Charles 1
Napoleon 1
Nation, Carrie 1
Neanderthal 2
Nefertiti 1
Neptune 1
Nightingale, Florence 1
Noah 1
Nobel, Alfred 2
Nobody 2
North Wind 1
Nostradamus 2
O'Brien, David 1
Oakley, Annie 1
Og 1
Orpheus 1
Osceola 1
Paddock, Charley 1
Pasteur, Louis 1
Penelope 1
Perseus 1
Pheidippides 2
Pied Piper 1
Pinkerton, Allan 1
Plastic Man 1
Pocahontas 1
Porthos 3
Post, Wiley 1
Prometheus 1
Quixote, Don 1
Revere, Paul 1
Richard the LionHeart 1
Rin-Tin-Tin 2
Robespierre, Maximilien 1
Robin Hood 3
Roc 1
Rogers' Rangers 2
Röntgen, Wilhelm 1
Russell, Lillian 1
Rustum 1
Ryan, Paddy 1
Samson 3
Sandow, Eugen 1
Sayers, Tom 1
Schleyer, Johann 1
Serra, Junipero 1
Shakespeare, Willaim 1
Siegfried 1
Silver, Long John 2
Skunk, Jimmy 1
Socrates 1
Solomon 1
Stanley, Henry 1
Steinmetz, Charles 2
Stogie 1
Sullivan, John L. 2
Tecumseh 1
Tell, William 1
Thalfi 1
Thor 3
Thumb, Tom 1
Thurston, Howard 1
Tiglath IV 1
Tuck, Friar 1
Tut-ankh-amen 1
Twain, Mark 1
Ulysses 1
Uncas 1
Valjean, Jean 1
Vercingetorix 1
Villa, Pancho 1
Villon, Francois 1
von Helmholtz, Hermann 1
Vulcan 1
Washington, George 3
Watson, John H 1
Webster, Daniel 2
Whittington, Richard 1
Xanthippe 1
Zbyzko, Stanislaus 1

NEXT--Wings Of DEATH!!

From Kid Eternity #12 (1948)

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