Renegade Press; $1.70

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet” gets a beautiful, memorable illustrated presentation in this May 1986 issue courtesy of artist Dan Day, kicking off what would be a fantastic series based on Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes short stories.

It’d had been at least 25 years since I last looked at this series, and Day’s craft and his artistic choices in telling the story have more than stood the test of time. Whether individual panels or full pages, the black and white illustrations are superb. If anything, they’re even better than I remembered at capturing the mood, atmosphere, and tone of both Doyle’s prose and the character of Sherlock Holmes.

The sole deficiency of the comic was the choice to use all capitals for the prose accompanying those glorious illustrations. It was a mistake back when the book was published, and it’s even more so now. It is, though, one that could be easily corrected if anyone were to publish a collection of this series.

For Holmes fans, mystery fans in general, and enthusiasts of good comics, Cases of Sherlock Holmes remains a great series to discover or rediscover.

– J.C. Vaughn