Thursday, October 31, 2024

Who is Sexton Blake anyway?

I was vaguely aware of Sexton Blake but until recently, I didn’t even know if it was the name of a character or an author. As it turns out, it turned out to be a much deeper rabbit hole than I expected.

Sexton Blake was an action hero/detective who was in constant publication from 1893 to 1978. In addition, he has been the subject of stage plays, comic strips, movies, radio shows and television programs. It’s estimated that at least two hundred authors (one of whom was apparently Michael Moorecock) wrote his stories and that there around 4000 Sexton Blake works.

I’m pretty sure there’s more Batman media out there but that’s still a lot of content.

Two things really strike me about Sexton Blake. One: how much the character seems to have faded from the public consciousness. (Of course, that might be different in his native England) Two: Sexton Blake seems like an extremely generic hero.

In Sexton Blake’s defense, with that many creators churning out content, it is going to be hard for him to have too many distinctive traits. I’ve also only read some of the ‘earlier’ works up that are public domain. I am 100% convinced each era of Sexton Blake must be distinguishable. However, his two traits seem to be hyper competence and an impeccable moral compass, which lead to a focus on plot, not character development. 

I do wonder what would have happened if Sexton Blake could have kept on going. I suspect he would have entered serious deconstruction territory, which might have kept the character going for decades.

While I am sure that with so much Sexton Blake mass produced, a lot of it is trash. But what I have read is pulpy, silly, utterly escapist fun. Pretty sure it has been heavily curated. I won’t try to read all (or even most) of Sexton Blake but I will read some more.

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