r/respectthreads • u/Trim345 • Jan 12 '26
comics Respect Sally (Sally the Sleuth, Spicy Detective Stories) NSFW
"There would be no Superman without Sally the Sleuth", or at least comics historian Tim Hanley claims.
"Sally the Sleuth" is an obscure comic that first ran in 1934 in a monthly pulp mystery short story collection called "Spicy Detective Stories." Its creator, Adolphe Barreaux, convinced the publisher Harry Donenfeld to add the comic to the magazine, and Donenfeld would decide to help found DC soon after. Barreaux would in fact later draw another comic series, "The Magic Crystal of History", which would be printed in the very first DC comic in 1935.
"Sally the Sleuth" ran for 9 years, as Sally went from a private eye to an Allied spy during WWII, but it was cancelled in 1943. However, it was briefly revived from 1949 to 1953 in "Crime Smashers". This thread only covers the original black-and-white incarnation. The respect thread for the later run is here.
All scans come from the 2018 Sally the Sleuth Kickstarter Edition (edited by Hope Nicholson). Warning: While I've cropped out the explicit nudity for Imgur, a lot of these images still involve women in lingerie or other states of undress.
Sally is the titular character of the strip, and she works for a detective agency run by the Chief. While Sally is frequently captured by criminals, she is comparatively very capable for a 1930s heroine, often figuring out how to escape or even defeating the criminals in combat. While a number of other men work there, Sally even seems to be second in command, although most cases seem to only involve Sally, the Chief, and a boy named Peanuts.
Strength
- Lifts a woman from a tree branch up a cliff by using her dress as a rope
- Clings onto the back spare tire of a car as it's driving away
Durability
- Endures being whipped for information
- Endures being savagely whipped by a Nazi
- Survives a biplane crash
Endurance
- Temporarily holds herself up to keep from falling on a medieval torture spike
- Endures being doused with cold water while naked in an attempt to give her pneumonia
- Holds her breath underwater for long enough that her attempted murderers believe she's died
Speed
- Outruns a railroad cop
- Outruns a man on top of a moving train
- Grabs onto a moving train and gets in
- Runs past some jungle animals
- Chases after and catches a fleeing criminal
- Runs past some criminals and locks them inside a room she was just in
- Escapes and outruns a criminal on top of skyscraper girders that are 17 stories high
- Temporarily swims away from a shark (although she has to be saved by the Chief)
Agility
- Grabs some secret plans out of a Japanese spy's hand
- Secretly steals a knife while held captive
- Escapes ropes binding her arms behind her
- Throws a vase out a window to get a policeman's attention
- Escapes the grasp of a criminal and runs away
- Runs on a log around some alligators
- Jumps into a fleeing boat and then spikes the rudder
- Jumps out a window and grabs onto a fire escape on the opposite wall
- Jumps off a skyscraper girder that is 17 stories high and grabs onto a wrecking ball hook
- Jumps from a tree branch and ambushes a passing car underneath
- Swims underwater, wearing an alligator skin as a disguise
- Swings on a vine over a river and dodges an alligator
- Rips a piece of fabric from her dress, pretends to faint while being watched by Nazi sailors, and stuffs the fabric into a lock to prevent it from locking
- While bound, uses her teeth to tear out scraps of words from a pile of music nearby, so she can drop them out the window to a passing policeman as a call for help
Climbing
- Climbs up a rope
- Rappels down a rope
- Climbs up a boat anchor chain
- Climbs a bookshelf to escape some snakes
- Climbs into a building through a narrow opening above the door
- Climbs into a building through a second-story window
Combat
Unarmed
- Knocks a criminal's gun upward to make him miss his shot
- Grabs a knife from a man holding her and then breaks free
- Hits a man in the face
- Hits a woman in the face and then fights her
- Defeats another woman in a fight
- Grabs a man and throws him into a pit of water
- Kicks a man in the face so she can escape out of a window
- Kicks open a glass cage filled with snakes, which causes them to bite a criminal
- While tied up, kicks a man and makes him drop a snake he's holding, which makes the snake bite him
- Throws a curtain she's wearing over a man's head, then kicks him into a wall
- Swings into an open door, hides behind the wall, and ambushes a pursuer
- Fights a man and trips him over a cliff
- Jumps out a window onto a criminal outside
- Judo throws a spy over her shoulder
Melee Objects
- Smashes a vase onto a Nazi spy's head
- Hits a Nazi spy in the head from behind with the butt of her gun
- Knocks out a man with the butt of her gun
Guns
Intelligence
- Recognizes that a victim has dyed hair
- Knows how to use a military radio
- Sews some secret dispatches into the lining of her panties
- Ties her panties to a passing dog so that the Chief will find them and follow the dog back to her
- Prevents a lock from locking by stuffing a piece of fabric into it
- Pretends to faint in order to attack a man (although this fails)
- Stalls the motor of a fleeing boat
- Jumps into a fleeing boat and spikes the rudder to make it return in a circle
- However, she has not attended college
Detective Skills
- Notices a house is being watched
- Notices a scrap of Peanuts' sweater
- Notices a victim is holding a piece of cloth and then notices a man with a similar tear on his coat
- Finds a poisoned needle in a ring
- Determines that a lipstick is poisonous by testing it in some liquid
- Notices a suspicious mark on a victim, guesses that it is venom from a phonograph needle, and figures out that it was shot from a flute as a blowgun
- Notices a suspicious man isn't really a photographer
- Figures out that a jeweled scarab is hidden in a secret compartment
- Determines where a criminal is hiding a diamond (although it is not explained how)
- Spills a drink on herself so she has an excuse to change her clothes and snoop around
Miscellaneous
- Knows how to drive a boat
- Knows how to play the violin
- Knows how to paint
- Knows how to hula
- Knows how to use a handheld camera (in the 1930s)
- Knows how to parachute
- Dances to entertain and stall some men
- Seduces a man and gives him enough alcohol to make him unconscious
- Drugs a man and knocks him out
- Immediately sees through a Scooby-Doo-style ghost plot
2
3
u/KalebtheSantos Jan 12 '26
Awesome job dude I’ve never heard of this character she seems really fun