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Everybody's Favorite Duck
Everybody's Favorite Duck is a 1988 parody of classic detective fiction and sensational crime stories. This short novel by cartoonist Gahan Wilson pits the detectives Enoch Bone and John Weston against the Professor, a British Napoleon of Crime; the Mandarin, a Chinese mastermind, and Spectrobert, a French rogue.
While few people read the Doctor Fu Manchu novels of Sax Rohmer at the beginning of the 21st century, his character has become iconic and is easily recognized in many of the traits of the Mandarin; while the Professor may be recognized as Professor Moriarty, the Original Napoleon of Crime; and Spectrobert is clearly based on the sadistic, exhibitionist French arch-villain and master of disguise Fantomas.
Bone and Weston are modeled on Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, Arthur Conan Doyle's archetypal crime solving team, although they may have more in common with the motion picture Holmes and Watson of the 1940s than the turn-of-the-century British, Baker Street originals. They may also owe something Sax Rohmer's detectives and Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin.
While few people read the Doctor Fu Manchu novels of Sax Rohmer at the beginning of the 21st century, his character has become iconic and is easily recognized in many of the traits of the Mandarin; while the Professor may be recognized as Professor Moriarty, the Original Napoleon of Crime; and Spectrobert is clearly based on the sadistic, exhibitionist French arch-villain and master of disguise Fantomas.
Bone and Weston are modeled on Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, Arthur Conan Doyle's archetypal crime solving team, although they may have more in common with the motion picture Holmes and Watson of the 1940s than the turn-of-the-century British, Baker Street originals. They may also owe something Sax Rohmer's detectives and Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin.
202 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published December 1, 1989
1 person is currently reading
41 people want to read
About the author
Gahan Wilson
283 books49 followersGahan Wilson was an American author, cartoonist and illustrator known for his cartoons depicting horror-fantasy situations.
Wilson's cartoons and illustrations are drawn in a playfully grotesque style, and have a dark humor that is often compared to the work of The New Yorker cartoonist and Addams Family creator Charles Addams. But while both men sometimes feature vampires, graveyards and other traditional horror elements in their work, Addams's cartoons tended to be more gothic, reserved and old-fashioned, while Wilson's work is more contemporary, gross, and confrontational, featuring atomic mutants, subway monsters, and serial killers. It could be argued that Addams's work was probably meant to be funny without a lot of satirical intent, while Wilson often has a very specific point to make.
His cartoons and prose fiction have appeared regularly in Playboy, Collier's Weekly, The New Yorker and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. For the last he also wrote some movie and book reviews. He has been a movie review columnist for The Twilight Zone Magazine and a book critic for Realms of Fantasy magazine.
His comic strip Nuts, which appeared in National Lampoon, was a reaction against what he saw as the saccharine view of childhood in strips like Peanuts. His hero The Kid sees the world as a dark, dangerous and unfair place, but just occasionally a fun one too.
Wilson also wrote and illustrated a short story for Harlan Ellison's anthology Again, Dangerous Visions. The "title" is a black blob, and the story is about an ominous black blob that appears on the page, growing at an alarming rate, until... He has contributed short stories to other publications as well; "M1" and "The Zombie Butler" both appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and were reprinted in Gahan Wilson's Cracked Cosmos.
Additionally, Gahan Wilson created a computer game titled Gahan Wilson's The Ultimate Haunted House, in conjunction with Byron Preiss. The goal is to collect 13 keys in 13 hours from the 13 rooms of a house, by interacting in various ways with characters (such as a two-headed monster, a mad scientist, and a vampiress), objects, and the house itself.
He received the World Fantasy Convention Award in 1981, and the National Cartoonist Society's Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005.
Gahan Wilson is the subject of a feature length documentary film, Gahan Wilson: Born Dead, Still Weird, directed by Steven-Charles Jaffe.
Wilson's cartoons and illustrations are drawn in a playfully grotesque style, and have a dark humor that is often compared to the work of The New Yorker cartoonist and Addams Family creator Charles Addams. But while both men sometimes feature vampires, graveyards and other traditional horror elements in their work, Addams's cartoons tended to be more gothic, reserved and old-fashioned, while Wilson's work is more contemporary, gross, and confrontational, featuring atomic mutants, subway monsters, and serial killers. It could be argued that Addams's work was probably meant to be funny without a lot of satirical intent, while Wilson often has a very specific point to make.
His cartoons and prose fiction have appeared regularly in Playboy, Collier's Weekly, The New Yorker and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. For the last he also wrote some movie and book reviews. He has been a movie review columnist for The Twilight Zone Magazine and a book critic for Realms of Fantasy magazine.
His comic strip Nuts, which appeared in National Lampoon, was a reaction against what he saw as the saccharine view of childhood in strips like Peanuts. His hero The Kid sees the world as a dark, dangerous and unfair place, but just occasionally a fun one too.
Wilson also wrote and illustrated a short story for Harlan Ellison's anthology Again, Dangerous Visions. The "title" is a black blob, and the story is about an ominous black blob that appears on the page, growing at an alarming rate, until... He has contributed short stories to other publications as well; "M1" and "The Zombie Butler" both appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and were reprinted in Gahan Wilson's Cracked Cosmos.
Additionally, Gahan Wilson created a computer game titled Gahan Wilson's The Ultimate Haunted House, in conjunction with Byron Preiss. The goal is to collect 13 keys in 13 hours from the 13 rooms of a house, by interacting in various ways with characters (such as a two-headed monster, a mad scientist, and a vampiress), objects, and the house itself.
He received the World Fantasy Convention Award in 1981, and the National Cartoonist Society's Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005.
Gahan Wilson is the subject of a feature length documentary film, Gahan Wilson: Born Dead, Still Weird, directed by Steven-Charles Jaffe.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
June 7, 2021
This is a very amusing pastiche and parody of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Fu Manchu and other famous fictional characters, with cameos from everyone from Walt Disney to J. Edgar Hoover. Wilson was a very accomplished writer, though he will always be most remembered for his cartoon art. (This edition has a nice cover by guess who?!) Mystery fans will find a chuckle or two on almost every page.
January 8, 2008
The best Sherlock Holmes parody I've ever read. The fact that is is also a parody of Fu Manchu, Fantomas, Walt Disney & many other sacred cows also helps.
In itself, it's a fun little adventure story, but adding the layers of parody just makes it better & better, like the green veins in Sage Darby cheese, or the little fudge fish in Phish Food ice cream. As long as you have the faintest idea who Sherlock Holmes was & what Disneyland is, & have a good sense of humour, you have every possibility of loving this book too.
In itself, it's a fun little adventure story, but adding the layers of parody just makes it better & better, like the green veins in Sage Darby cheese, or the little fudge fish in Phish Food ice cream. As long as you have the faintest idea who Sherlock Holmes was & what Disneyland is, & have a good sense of humour, you have every possibility of loving this book too.
December 11, 2024
In London, three criminal masterminds - who, we later learn, are known (when they are known at all) as the Professor, the Mandarin, and Spectobert - meet in a wax museum and form an alliance.
Some time later, a Federal agent calls John Weston out of secrecy and retirement. If the name sounds familiar, it is because it sounds a great deal like John Watson, companion, aide, and Boswell to one Sherlock Holmes. The Feds want Weston to come and talk his former boss into taking a case.
Weston, however, is an American, as is that former boss, Enoch Bone. Bone seems to be a cross between Holmes and Nero Wolfe, with perhaps a bit of Nayland Smith thrown in. Weston himself has more than a little bit of Archie Goodwin in him. Bone, now old and even crankier than before, is refusing to take up a case: it turns out that there has been a multiple homicide in the Oval Office, which the President escaped only by luck, having been called away for a minute. The would-be assassins prove to have arrived and escaped by a set of hidden passages in the White House of which nobody seems to be aware.
An attempt to assassinate Bone and Weston makes the matter personal. Yet there are very few clues. One of them leads to Waldo World, the massive theme park owned by Art Waldo, creator of Quacky Duck and other beloved cartoon characters.
No.
Plot summary just won't work for this one. The plot is so twisty and turny that almost anything I can say about it beyond this point will be either misleading, oversimplified, or an outright lie - if not all three at once.
So I'll just observe that the characters, once established, stay delightfully true to their stereotypical personae; that Wilson writes (or, alas, wrote) far better than I would have expected; and that I had a blast reading Everybody's Favorite Duck . My one regret is that Wilson did not choose to compliment his prose with illustrations, the only exception being a cover which illustrates no scene in the book.
Those sensitive to disturbing, yet humorously described, violence, some of it quite grotesque -- in short, those who think Wilson's cartoons gross rather than funny -- should probably skip this one. I heartily recommend it to anyone else.
Some time later, a Federal agent calls John Weston out of secrecy and retirement. If the name sounds familiar, it is because it sounds a great deal like John Watson, companion, aide, and Boswell to one Sherlock Holmes. The Feds want Weston to come and talk his former boss into taking a case.
Weston, however, is an American, as is that former boss, Enoch Bone. Bone seems to be a cross between Holmes and Nero Wolfe, with perhaps a bit of Nayland Smith thrown in. Weston himself has more than a little bit of Archie Goodwin in him. Bone, now old and even crankier than before, is refusing to take up a case: it turns out that there has been a multiple homicide in the Oval Office, which the President escaped only by luck, having been called away for a minute. The would-be assassins prove to have arrived and escaped by a set of hidden passages in the White House of which nobody seems to be aware.
An attempt to assassinate Bone and Weston makes the matter personal. Yet there are very few clues. One of them leads to Waldo World, the massive theme park owned by Art Waldo, creator of Quacky Duck and other beloved cartoon characters.
No.
Plot summary just won't work for this one. The plot is so twisty and turny that almost anything I can say about it beyond this point will be either misleading, oversimplified, or an outright lie - if not all three at once.
So I'll just observe that the characters, once established, stay delightfully true to their stereotypical personae; that Wilson writes (or, alas, wrote) far better than I would have expected; and that I had a blast reading Everybody's Favorite Duck . My one regret is that Wilson did not choose to compliment his prose with illustrations, the only exception being a cover which illustrates no scene in the book.
Those sensitive to disturbing, yet humorously described, violence, some of it quite grotesque -- in short, those who think Wilson's cartoons gross rather than funny -- should probably skip this one. I heartily recommend it to anyone else.
September 9, 2017
A really good Sherlock Homes pastiche,
November 15, 2011
"The celebrated cartoonist/comic novelist Gahan Wilson presents a thundering and uproarious adventure -- with literature's nastiest bad guys and most heroic good guys battling to the death in today's New York."
"When the Professor (the fiendishly brilliant British Napoleon of Crime), the Mandarin (the cruelly diabolical Chinest mastermind), and Spectrobert (the blackheartedly crafty French rogue) are spotted lunching together at Manhattan's posh Le Rond-Point, the police department is baffled, the FBI is bewildered, the CIA is entirely up a tree. What deviltry are they plotting? Whose fate hangs in the balance? How can the forces of justice stymie their plans? Above all, what is their connection with famed cartoonist Art Waldo's universally adored creation, Quacky the Lucky Duck?
"Aid to the Force of Good comes in the form of the formidably brilliant Enoch Bone (who bears more than a passing resemblance to one of fiction's greatest sleuths) and his irrepressibly hard-boiled sidekick John Weston (ditto). But the wily villains do not underestimate their opponents: Bone and Weston are in short order subjected to Spectrobert's demonically booby-trapped kitchen, the Mandarin's mutation-laden torture tunnels, and the Professor's Flying Purple Cloud of Destruction.
"Will the combination of Bone's laser-sharp mind and Weston's quick trigger-finger be enough to undo the evil-doers? A breathtakingly riotous climax at New Jersey theme part Waldo World holds the answer."
~~front & back flaps
What a great title! I got the book because that title promised great things. Unfortunately, for me, the book never managed to achieve the stature promised by the title.
I got it that the main characters were all spoofs of famous detectives or famous villains. The Professor was easy to figure out, but I never managed to identify the other two. I don't read that sort of mystery, and so I missed the clever puns, the charming allusions to other stories, other triumphs, etc. Lacking those resonances, the whole thing was unutterably disjointed, nonsensical, and not very entertaining. With the one exception of when someone (inevitably) asked "Where's Waldo?"
"When the Professor (the fiendishly brilliant British Napoleon of Crime), the Mandarin (the cruelly diabolical Chinest mastermind), and Spectrobert (the blackheartedly crafty French rogue) are spotted lunching together at Manhattan's posh Le Rond-Point, the police department is baffled, the FBI is bewildered, the CIA is entirely up a tree. What deviltry are they plotting? Whose fate hangs in the balance? How can the forces of justice stymie their plans? Above all, what is their connection with famed cartoonist Art Waldo's universally adored creation, Quacky the Lucky Duck?
"Aid to the Force of Good comes in the form of the formidably brilliant Enoch Bone (who bears more than a passing resemblance to one of fiction's greatest sleuths) and his irrepressibly hard-boiled sidekick John Weston (ditto). But the wily villains do not underestimate their opponents: Bone and Weston are in short order subjected to Spectrobert's demonically booby-trapped kitchen, the Mandarin's mutation-laden torture tunnels, and the Professor's Flying Purple Cloud of Destruction.
"Will the combination of Bone's laser-sharp mind and Weston's quick trigger-finger be enough to undo the evil-doers? A breathtakingly riotous climax at New Jersey theme part Waldo World holds the answer."
~~front & back flaps
What a great title! I got the book because that title promised great things. Unfortunately, for me, the book never managed to achieve the stature promised by the title.
I got it that the main characters were all spoofs of famous detectives or famous villains. The Professor was easy to figure out, but I never managed to identify the other two. I don't read that sort of mystery, and so I missed the clever puns, the charming allusions to other stories, other triumphs, etc. Lacking those resonances, the whole thing was unutterably disjointed, nonsensical, and not very entertaining. With the one exception of when someone (inevitably) asked "Where's Waldo?"
April 7, 2014
The famed cartoonist turns his hand to prose in this book which is a parody of sensationalist literature and a wry, and often caustic, commentary on aspects and icons of modern society. Inside jokes abound on every page and in every character, but unless a reader is fairly well versed in the literature being parodied the book might come across as confusing, boring or gibberish. Sherlock Holmes and John Watson come across fairly well, I think, even to the casual reader, and perhaps Moriarty as well, in the characters of Enoch Bone, John Weston and The Professor; and I think most people should be able to see Art Waldo and Waldo World as stand-ins for Walt Disney and Disneyland. But the characters of The Mandarin and Spectrobert? Well, few people read Fu Manchu novels nowadays (most think it's just a moustache)and even fewer know of Fantomas. As far as the parodies of Ashton, Irene Adler and all the other minor characters drawn from mysteries, spy novels, adventure tales and American mid-century culture...most readers will give up, or, if persevering to the end, will wonder what they just read...you might feel like the only guy at the party who didn't get the joke. So, in that sense, the book just hobbles along till it comes to a truly amazing plot-twist of an end, which most people will get, even if they do not understand it. However, for the fan who has read read every word of Sherlock Holmes, Fu Manchu, and Fantomas, as well as devoured all the trashy sensationalist literature of the late 19th and early 20th centuries...yeah, you'll get all the jokes, and appreciate the thrilling adventure presented by Wilson.
September 17, 2014
Gahan Wilson's renowned cartoons combine a macabre sense of humor, grotesque imagery, topical awareness, and a love of classic pulp and horror. It should come as no surprise, then, that a novel by Wilson would incorporate all of the same elements, along with plenty of winks to a knowing genre fan. Part mystery, part thriller, part ghoulish romp, Everybody's Favorite Duck skewers politics, pop culture, and Cold War paranoia in a story that evokes classic pulp heroes and villains and the cottage industry favorites, Holmes and Watson.
This isn't a deep novel unveiling hidden truths about the human condition; it's a loving homage and clever parody of Wilson's influences from the era of Fu Manchu and Fantomas, along with the kooky, obsessive genius of Walt Disney and the iconic imagery of classic monster movies. Sure, it sounds like a hodge-podge, but it all works together to make a fun romp of a tale, particularly satisfying for those who don't take their fandoms too seriously. Now I need to hunt up a copy of Eddy Deco's Last Caper, Wilson's send-up of the hard-boiled genre.
This isn't a deep novel unveiling hidden truths about the human condition; it's a loving homage and clever parody of Wilson's influences from the era of Fu Manchu and Fantomas, along with the kooky, obsessive genius of Walt Disney and the iconic imagery of classic monster movies. Sure, it sounds like a hodge-podge, but it all works together to make a fun romp of a tale, particularly satisfying for those who don't take their fandoms too seriously. Now I need to hunt up a copy of Eddy Deco's Last Caper, Wilson's send-up of the hard-boiled genre.
April 19, 2023
A beautifully done combination Holmesian pastiche and parody. And in addition to Doyle's Holmes and Watson (in the guise of Enoch Bone & John Weston), one will find in this short work parodies of the works of Sax Rohmer (Fu Manchu, whose stories in themselves were based on the Doyle writings), and Allain & Souvestre (Fantômas). Many familiar characters also appear, such as W.Disney and J.E.Hoover, and of course Professor Moriarty himself. A classic early 20th-century adventure story (think The Saint or Arsène Lupin) combined with Wilson’s strange and marvelous sense of humor, and all placed in the late 1980s. I have already, based on how much I enjoyed Favorite Duck, ordered a copy of Wilson’s 1987 Art Deco hard-boiled private-eye parody, Eddy Deco’s Last Caper.
April 28, 2012
How would you like to read a Sherlockian adventure, where the anatagonists include Professor Moriarty, Fu-Manchu and Fantomas (obviously, everybody includes the protagonists have different names), and the whole thing takes place in White House, a Hotel in New York, and eventually, Disneyland? It would be a curiosity, and in the hands of Gahan Wilson, it was rather more than that. But, the humour component was decisively small (unlike the cover illustration), and violence & gore excessively high. No, I am afraid, I didn't like this e-book that much.
June 16, 2015
Oddly enough, my brother recommended this book to me (I say oddly because our literary tastes are exact opposites). I shouldn't be too surprised that I enjoyed it since he mentioned this to me after I was raved to him how much fun I was having reading the Fu Manchu and Fantomas books. Wilson's book takes on these, Sherlock Holmes, Professor Moriarty, and even Walt Disney! I'm not a huge fan of Doyle, so I'm sure I missed some Holmes jokes in there.
This was a fun read and Wilson was clearly having a good time with it. Now I'm all fired up for more Fu and more Fantomas!
This was a fun read and Wilson was clearly having a good time with it. Now I'm all fired up for more Fu and more Fantomas!
June 10, 2007
Three of the most insidious villians the world has known band together in a consortium of evil. Two aging secret agents reunite to take them on.
Fast-paced. Laugh-out-loud funny.
Fast-paced. Laugh-out-loud funny.
July 23, 2016
Gahan Wilson wrote a NOVEL?? Yes, yes he did.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews