Let's Take A Look At Doc Harker

LET’S TAKE A LOOK AT DOC HARKER

Doctor Harker: Spent too much time in training as a recalcitrant child, and realized that failure was his only reward. He is small, pot-bellied, with silvery white hair and a luxurious mustache and goatee. Resembling a Kentucky colonel, he wears a Prince Albert coat, white piped vest, black string tie and soft, pleated white shirt. He often wears striped trousers, and has very small feet. Never appears in public in semi-dress. Carried a .50 caliber derringer pistol. His exercise consists of squeezing a rubber ball or sponge, or lifting a bourbon bottle. Financially well off, he is known world wide as a scientific criminologist. He also wears a money belt with pockets all around, and is an escape artist and pitchman par excellence. Smokes cigars, and is an inventor. Blue eyes, and sometimes wears glasses, he can spew profanity in seven languages, but around beautiful women his manners are perfect; he bows, clicks heels together and places his hat over his heart. Has habit of twirling the left bar of his mustache, and carries an enormous silver turnip of a watch in his pocket. When ready for bed, he wears long-sleeved gray lightweight underwear. Not sure of age, but it’s stated that he had been shaving for fifty years. Like a hound that first sucked an egg, now he can’t quit solving crimes. He’s famous for saying,  “Great Godfrey!”

Hercules Jones: A former wrestler, at six foot two inches, and ham like fists that drive nails into boards, Jones is long on muscle and short on gray matter. He was a heavyweight wrestler who fought under various names until recruited by Doc Harker; he has a cauliflower ear, a flattened nose and small eyes with wide brows. Most of the time he wears a leather jacket. With his enormous shoulders and rippling muscles, he usually performs for the crowds on a detachable platform, bending horseshoes, tying steel pipes into pretzels, and allows huge stones to be crushed on his chest with a sledgehammer. Some of his quotes are “I wish to Golly I knew!”; “But lookit, Doc---”

Brenda Sloan: She was exquisite perfection, tall and imperious, from her severely coiffered hair to the tip of silver slippers. Hair black as a raven’s wings, and as shiny. Her eyes were widely spaced, slightly slanting (slants her eyes as a disguise). The face was heart-shaped, her mouth a deep crimson. Slender waist, with oriental eyes, her beauty was intoxicating. Her father was Tom Sloan, no mother is mentioned. She usually does the undercover investigation for Doc Harker when not performing with the show. She has rosy cheeks, bright eyes, fair skin, and dark hair. Although she is the apple of Hercules’ eye, Brenda looks upon the strongman as protection, and nice to have around. 

His Card: Printed in red and black, one side read. “Doctor Thaddeus Clay Harker, God’s Gift To Sufferers.” And in red letters on the opposite section, “Chickasha Remedies. Good for Men and Beasts.” The inside of the card was filled with a partial list of the ailments to be cured by the Remedies. “Abscess, acariasis, acne, apepsia, beriberi, chilblain, dandruff, fibrositis, gastritis, halitosis, hangnail, heartburn, hypertension, lumbago, malaria, tapeworm, toothache, warts, wens.”

Doc Harker has state license to sell Chickasha Remedies throughout the state.

Car & trailer: The car was as gaudily painted as the trailer. It was a 12-cylinder roadster, fire-wagon red, gleaming with chromium; the glove compartment contains opera glasses for spying. All four sides of the red, box-like trailer was covered with enormous gold letters proclaiming that Dr. Thaddeus C. Harker was bearing his world famous Chickasha Remedies to those in pain, and a cure for practically every ailment known to man. This is pitched from the rear of the trailer. The trailer was also a laboratory on wheels, fully air conditioned, and had disguised slots in the steel walls where they could look outside. It was a fortress on wheels, with a communication between it and the car pulling it. It was fully contained with foldaway benches and cases that held test tubes, microscopes, cameras for microphotography, instruments used in ballistics, and a fine array of books ranging from anatomy through toxicology to watermarks; instruments worth $15-20,000.00.

Notes: What was the use to question a sphinx?; Howard Smith in Little Rock appears to be an agent of the FBI, Harker uses fake orders for Chickasha Remedies in coded messages when he needs information.

The creator was Texas author, Edwin Truett Long who wrote Jim Anthony and Phantom Detective, and who knows what else.

A fun series, though it only lasted for three issues. ALTUS PRESS has published a volume containing the three novels, and well worth buying.

Happy Reading.