{"id":22244,"date":"2026-05-11T10:00:33","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T14:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/?p=22244"},"modified":"2026-05-11T10:49:50","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T14:49:50","slug":"pontine-dossier-millennium-edition-vol-1-no-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/2026\/05\/11\/pontine-dossier-millennium-edition-vol-1-no-6\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Pontine Dossier, Millennium Edition,’ Vol. 1, No. 6"},"content":{"rendered":"

After the release of The Singular Papers of Solar Pons<\/em>, the next collection of new stories by David Marcum<\/a><\/strong>, we got the next issue of the scholarly journal devoted to Solar Pons<\/a><\/strong>: The Pontine Dossier<\/a>, Millennium Edition<\/em>, Vol. 1, No. 6 (Winter 2025-26), edited by Derrick Belanger<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"Pontine<\/a>I was surprised to see this on Amazon, since the prior issues came out via a Kickstarter campaign, which is how I learned of them.<\/p>\n

For those who missed my previous posts on him, Solar Pons is a popular character inspired by Sherlock Holmes<\/a><\/strong>, created by August Derleth<\/a><\/strong>, continued by Basil Copper<\/a><\/strong>, and more recently continued by David Marcum and others.<\/p>\n

As Pons is more than just a Holmes copy, calling him a pastiche doesn\u2019t do him justice. His stories are set between World War I and World War II.<\/p>\n

As I noted previously, The Pontine Dossier<\/em> was a scholarly journal from the 1970s, now brought back. Following the style of the original Pontine Dossier<\/em>, the covers for the Millennium Edition so far are the same, just in different colors. Each issue is about the same number of pages.<\/p>\n

As always, there are several good articles, a total of 11 from a half-dozen authors.<\/p>\n

From editor Derrick Belanger, we get a pair of pieces. One is an update on the world of Solar Pons. The second looks at how to use \u201cPons\u201d as a possessive word.<\/p>\n

From David Marcum, we get an article covering all the Solar Pons works up through 2025. Next, we get a look at putting canonical Sherlock Holmes into a chronology, and the problem with \u201cThe Circular Room,\u201d a story by Derleth that was both a Holmes pastiche and a Solar Pons story. But which chronology should it go into? The final piece is a re-examination of the Sherlock Holmes movies starring Basil Rathbone<\/strong>, which he feels should be thought of as Solar Pons movies due to when they are set. He also gives a synopsis of each movie.<\/p>\n

Chris Chan<\/a><\/strong> has an article asking why we don\u2019t have a character like Irene Adler<\/strong> in the Solar Pons stories, and he also looks at some of the other differences between the Holmes and Pons canon. I\u2019ve been wondering the same thing, and this one went a little further than I might have, but it\u2019s good to show there are differences between the two characters.<\/p>\n

We get three articles by Bret Fawcett<\/a><\/strong>. One looks at the identity of a character known only as \u201cThe Chief<\/strong>\u201d in \u201cThe Adventure of Ricoletti of the Club Foot,\u201d a story set early in Pons\u2019 career and the first to include Pons\u2019 brother Bancroft. He puts forth the view that this was another literary character, which I think works.<\/p>\n

The second looks at how Solar Pons appeared in an Ars\u00e8ne Lupin<\/a><\/strong> cartoon \u2014 or did he? As the cartoon series is set in 1930, much later than the original series, \u201cHerlock Sholmes\u201d shows up, who appears to be Holmes, but it works better if it\u2019s Pons. The third takes a deeper look at the story \u201cThe Adventure of the Broken Face.\u201d<\/p>\n

Frank Schildiner<\/a><\/strong> takes a look at \u201cThe Adventure of the Broken Chessman\u201d and the actions of Pons in this story related to the OGPU, a sinister Soviet agency. (And yes, this was a real organization for those who are only aware of the KGB.)<\/p>\n

From Stephen Herczeg<\/a><\/strong>, we get an article looking at August Derleth\u2019s hand in creating the Cthulhu mythos<\/a>, for good or ill, from the work of H.P. Lovecraft<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

As always, it\u2019s a nice collection of articles. I always look forward to these, and I can\u2019t wait for the next volume. As they seem to be putting these out toward the end of the year, and this time it wasn\u2019t connected with a Kickstarter campaign, I guess I\u2019ll just need to keep an eye out for the next one.<\/p>\n

They recently finished a campaign for the next collection of Solar Pons stories, Solar Pons: A Year of Mystery 1919<\/em>, which is out now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After the release of The Singular Papers of Solar Pons, the next collection of new stories by David Marcum, we got the next issue of the scholarly journal devoted to Solar Pons: The Pontine Dossier, Millennium Edition, Vol. 1, No. 6 (Winter 2025-26), edited by Derrick Belanger. I was surprised to see this on Amazon, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":22421,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_has_post_settings":{"highlight_sharing":"default","image_sharing":"default","headline_sharing":"default"},"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"The Pulp Super-Fan looks at 'The Pontine Dossier, Millennium Edition,' Vol. 1, No. 6.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[56,7,14],"tags":[173,502,510,2089,458,4,423,448,803,201,631,6,418,460],"hashtags":[],"class_list":["post-22244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fanzines","category-new-pulp","category-review","tag-arsene-lupin","tag-august-derleth","tag-basil-copper","tag-brett-fawcett","tag-chris-chan","tag-cthulhu-mythos","tag-david-marcum","tag-derrick-belanger","tag-frank-schildiner","tag-h-p-lovecraft","tag-pontine-dossier","tag-sherlock-holmes","tag-solar-pons","tag-stephen-herczeg"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/files\/2026\/06\/pontine-dossier-v1n6-featured.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3eLo8-5MM","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22244"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23010,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22244\/revisions\/23010"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22244"},{"taxonomy":"hashtags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtags?post=22244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}