Fanzine Focus: ‘The Pontine Dossier’

I’ve posted several times about Solar Pons, a popular character inspired by Sherlock Holmes that was created by August Derleth, continued by Basil Copper and more recently by David Marcum. (I think calling him a pastiche doesn’t do him justice.)

We’ve gotten reprints of the original works and collections of new stories, and recently we got the return of the scholarly journal on Solar Pons: The Pontine Dossier.

The original The Pontine Dossier came out from 1967 to 1977 for 15 issues. It was put out by the Praed Street Irregulars and PSI founder Luther Norris, and had articles and later short fiction on Pons and related works. The originals are hard to find, and sometimes pricey. Thankfully, you can get a CD of scans from the Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, like I did.

At first, The Pontine Dossier came out in the form of a newsletter. In this form, each issue was 8.5- by 11-inches and four pages.

• Vol. 1 No. 1, February 1967
• Vol. 1 No. 2, December 1967
• Vol. 1 No. 3, March 1968
• Vol. 1 No. 4, September 1968
• Vol. 2 No. 1, December 1968
• Vol. 2 No. 2, April 1969
• Vol. 2 No. 3, August 1969
• Vol. 2 No. 4, November 1969
• Vol. 2 No. 5, March 1970

Due to the length, it was basically short articles and columns, more news oriented. Then in 1970, it was revamped as a journal on a more or less annual basis, and they reset the numbering, which makes it a little confusing if you’re looking for an issue as they give just volume and issue number.

• Vol. 1 No. 1, Annual Edition 1970
• Vol. 1 No. 2, Annual Edition 1971
• Vol. 2 No. 1, 1973 Edition
• Vol. 2 No. 2, 1974 Edition
• Vol. 3 No. 1, 1975-76 Edition (10th Anniversary)
• Vol. 3 No. 2, 1977 Edition

In this form, it was about 5- by 8-inches and about 40 pages, and all had the same cover artwork by Frank Utpatel, just done in different colored paper and ink. With the larger size, there was room for longer articles, more columns, and even some fiction.

Let’s look at some notable works that the new format included.

The second and third excerpts from the notebooks of Dr. Parker ran in the first two issues. These were non-fiction pieces by Derleth himself, that were later reprinted elsewhere.

There were a couple of articles by SF author A.E. Van Vogt. And a satire of Solar Pons by Frank Thomas. Thomas wrote several Holmes pastiche novels, and here he creates a satire of Pons: Molar Vons.

The only replacement for The Pontine Dossier has been The Solar Pons Gazette, which is online.

While having the CD of The Pontine Dossier scans is nice, I wish that a printed anthology, or best-of, might be done. But this is a fun read anyway. And I look forward to more issues of the new edition of the Dossier.