Keen Detective Funnies v. 2 #6 - pt. 1

I don't really want to like scientist/ventriloquist/adventurer Dean Denton as much as I do, but he's just such a good RPG gamer. In last night's Hideouts & Hoodlums campaign, triangulating to find the source of a radio signal came up. We just winged the science of it, but this what you'd have to do in order to triangulate a signal over a large area.

Dean knows where to go, but like a smart gamer, he stops along the way and talks to characters he meets to pick up rumors (no doubt "Ain't nothin' on it but a bunch of old Indian ruins" came right off the Editor's random rumor table).

This is from Spy Hunters.  One of the biggest challenges to running H&H is the perennial question -- could technology do that, circa 1940? In this instance, I now have confirmation that you could hook up a mechanical alarm system to a desk drawer.

I also like the Cinderella motif here. If the sandal fits, you've found your intruder!

I like how this army captain, instead of delegating the reconnaissance task to an underling, puts himself at risk by checking out the west hill. He knows you can't delegate and still earn XP!

I also appreciate that this page not only shows me what a helio-graph set looks like, but gives me a good sense of scale as well.

You know your Editor is going easy on you when there's breakable bottles and big wooden clubs just lying around your jail cell, plus a conveniently labeled box of TNT just outside your cell.

Hillmen could be statted as nomads (see Book II).

As new hero Dan Dennis learns, smart mobsters use more than one secret password in their hideouts.

Comic book writers, always prone to exaggeration, may be too quick sometimes to use the word "giant". This is clearly more of a thug than a giant Dan is about to fight.

This strip is Crane of Scotland Yard, but it's the trap I want you to look at. The victim is tied to a tree, a lion is chained up nearby. It's hungry so it lunges and lunges, always pulling the stake on its chain a little more loose until...

For a lower level version, you can replace the lion with a dog. For a higher level version, you could replace the lion with a dinosaur...

As common a tool as dictaphones are in comic books, it's rare to see a good picture of one. This might be the clearest visual of one I've seen yet, in this Dan Dix story.

Although...after seeing this bus, I'm concerned that maybe Dan Dix might not be a good source for historical accuracy. Did buses ever look like that?

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)