Brent Anderson - Somerset Holmes Con Drawing 1983

After years of comics being dominated by the “big two” (Marvel and DC) and the genre, driven largely by superheroes, things began to change in the 1980s. At the beginning of that decade, a couple of new publishers and imprints entered the field, publishing a different kind of story while offering comics creators the opportunity to retain the copyrights to the characters and the stories. Among those early publishers were Pacific Comics and Eclipse Comics. Other publishers, like Fantagraphics and Dark Horse Comics, also entered the field during this period.

One of those early projects was Somerset Holmes. It was initially published as a six-issue limited series by Pacific Comics. However, shortly after the fourth issue (April 1984) Pacific folded due to financial problems. Many of Pacific's titles found a new home at Eclipse Comics. Eclipse published the last two issues of Somerset Holmes in 1984 and then published all six issues in an oversized graphic album. That collection is out of print but was the beginning of a pattern followed by Marvel and DC to this day.

The series was written by Bruce Jones and April Campbell and drawn by Brent Anderson series and was one of my favorite series from the 1980s. Bar none. And I always wondered, whatever happened to Somerset Holmes.

This is a sketch obtained at the SDCC in 1983, the year Somerset first appeared in print.