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Browsing the E-groups Having gotten the urge to browse the Sherlockian web a little bit this morning, and finding the usual haunts inactive or "same-old, same-old" I decided to check out some new territories, just to see what was there. And there’s definitely something Out There, in whatever manner you choose to interpret that phrase. Being a more traditional Sherlockian (you don’t know the horror I felt just writing that phrase – no one wants to get old), I tend to wander the typical pathways of the Baker Street Irregulars and their scion societies. Among those ranks, we often bemoan the lack of new Sherlockians, but after my e-groups browse, I have to wonder if our worries aren’t merely due to short-sightedness. There are Sherlock fans out there, oh yes. In one does a search of the Yahoo! Groups website for groups having to do with the name "Sherlock Holmes," one can get some very happy news. The great detective seems to be doing pretty well among the e-groups of Yahoo!, and in a happily diverse range of ways. All it takes to start an e-group on Yahoo! is a whim and an internet connection, so you can bet there are pleanty of groups with under ten members and only a smattering of postsings. Even if you don’t sign up for a group, Yahoo! lets you see their membership count and traffic numbers, so its interesting to check out subject matter and numbers of posts to gauge the success and enthusiasm of any given group. The first surprise on my little tour came from a group called "Holmes_In_The_22nd_Century_RP" – RP standing for "Role Play." For a group with only seven members, this bunch does posting numbers that rank up their with large groups like WelcomeHolmes or Hounds of the Internet. Apparently, there are seven fine fans of the cartoon, Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century, who like taking on the roles of characters in that fiction, and have actually made it work out. These definitely aren’t your grandfather’s Sherlockians, but they must have something going on. Role-playing games seem to be a steady and staying part of the e-group world. One Sherlock Holmes role-playing group has been chugging along since May of 1999, with the ebbs and flows of any e-group and a decent size of nineteen members. You’ll also find Holmes mentioned in League of Ordinary Gentlemen role-playing, and my personal favorite, "Buffy By Gaslight." Yup, that’s Buffy as in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," transported along with her entire cast to a Victorian London that not only includes Jack the Ripper, but Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Henry Jeckyl. Victorian meta-fiction seems to be the one place where Holmes has a solid future. E-groups dedicated to the various actors and mediums in which Holmes have been acted are out there. Jeremy Brett and Basil Rathbone have their fan groups of course, but you’ll also find "thehotyoungSherlockHolmes" – a group dedicated to Nicholas Rowe (though I have to wonder how young he is these days – that movie was a long time ago). The internet has been providing an outlet for amateur fiction from the early days, and Sherlock Holmes fan fiction has its own e-groups as well. One trail from the e-groups led me to look up the Emily Chrane stories by Dovie Reynolds, tales based on the intriguing thought that Sherlock Holmes had a "sister in deduction" who instructed he and Mycroft in their art. If you like Laurie King’s Holmes, there’s a group. If you like Conan Doyle’s Holmes, and don’t think Conan Doyle gets enough credit, there’s a group. If you want to collection Holmes-related pins, build Holmes-related scale models, or exchange Holmes-related MP3s, there’s a group. And if you don’t see something you like, you can start a group. Not all groups gather people or postings. Some have less than five members and never drew more than ten postings, yet never get cleaned off of Yahoo! (Some people just aren’t very tidy.) Maybe we’re not supposed to clean them up, and perhaps I committed a hideous crime when I wiped the Dark Lantern League group out when no one posted for a few months and no one really seemed to want to take over as moderator. (Life on the web can be an ephemeral thing . . . ask any spider.) I still feel guilty over that one, and might until the end of my days (which isn’t unusual, I have quite a backlog of guilt trivia, though its never over the things people want me to feel guilty over). When it gets to three parenthetical phrases in one paragraph, this weblogger knows it’s time to call it a page. In closing, I just want to remind you to never stop searching for Sherlock Holmes material on the web. You never know what’s out there. Your humble correspondent,
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