I'm looking for the title of a book I owned as a child. It was
completely illustrated, but I do not think anyone would call it a
childrens' book due to the graphic and violent illustrations. I do not
remember there being any words in the book. It had to have been from
earlier than 1980, but probably a bit before that. The illustrations
show an inspector or detective with a magnifying glass, following some
monster's footprints. His loyal dog was by his side. As he followed
the pootprints, increasingly larger and more terrifying creatures
would attempt to attack the inspector. The inspector's dog always
saved him by getting into a vicious fight with each attacker. The dog
ate all the creatures. With each new creature the dog conquered &
devoured, the dog grew larger and more frightening-looking. The
inspector oblivious to all but the footprints, which he continued to
follow. When the inspector finally reached the end of the footprints,
he looked up at the great and terrifying monster who had made them...
and found it was his own dog (who'd been transformed into a monster
himself by eating all the monsters). The dog then ate the inspector.
At one time I thought the title of the book might be "The Inspector,"
but there is another illustrated book with that title by a different
artist. I'd love to learn the title & artist of this book!

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Request for Question Clarification by pinkfreud-ga on 25 Jul 2005 10:46 PDT

Does the cover artwork of this book look familiar?

http://www.bestprices.com/cgi-bin/vlink/157768687XBT.html

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Clarification of Question by poisonberry23-ga on 26 Jul 2005 09:37 PDT

No, it does not seem familiar.

I have doen some more research myself. There is a book my cartoonist
Saul Steinberg entitle, "The Inspector," but this is not the correct
book.

I was excited to find someone else searching for this same book on a
"Stump the Bookseller." Here is was was written:

__________________________________________________________________________
I75: Inspector, monsters, and his dog 

A childrens book that I read in the early 1970s.  An inspector sets
out with his small dog.  Along the way he meets various monsters that
want to do him harm, but his dog eats each of the monsters in turn. 
The inspector is so intent on looking through his magnifying glass
that he is oblivious to the monsters and the fact that his dog is
eating them.  Each monster that the dog eats makes the dog bigger and
bigger until at the end of the story the dog is enormous and towers
over the inspector, who still is unaware of any of this.  The final
page shows the inspector studying an enormous paw print in the ground
that was obviously made by the huge dog standing behind him.
Kim Platt, Big Max.  Your description made me think of a book my
daughter had when she was little, Big Max.  He was a little guy, who
wore a Sherlock Holmes hat and cape, traveled by umbrella, and ONLY
LOOKED AT THINGS THROUGH HIS MAGNIFYING GLASS, so he missed a lot of
what went on around him.  He was called the "world's greatest
detective."  I know this was an "I Can Read" book and that there were
several Big Max and the Mystery of the . . . books.  Since I haven't
seen them all, I don't know if there was one with a dog and monsters.
I75 It might be worth looking at PROFESSOR WORMBOG IN SEARCH FOR THE
ZIPPERUMP-A-ZOO by Mercer Mayer. The professor is looking for a
specific monster, and meanwhile all kinds of monsters and things are
going on around him and he doesn't notice. The cover does show him
looking at a giant footprint while his companion dog-sized (but not a
dog) monster looks at the monsters hovering behind the professor. It
was recently republished. Not all the elements match, but take a look
at the cover online.~from a librarian


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I never thought of the book as a children's book, though as a young
girl I did. Perhaps it IS classified as a childrens' book, but it is
so graphic & violent, it is hard to imagine.

But at least I now know the book is at least as old as the early 70's.

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Clarification of Question by poisonberry23-ga on 26 Jul 2005 09:44 PDT

I noticed that the Mercer Mayer book is the one you were also asking
about. It is without a doubt NOT the same book I am referring to.

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Clarification of Question by poisonberry23-ga on 26 Jul 2005 09:52 PDT

I asked my sister, who also remembers the book. She agrees with me
that this was NOT a children's book, though it could have been
mistaken for one since it was only art and no text. Also - I remember
that the drawings were pen & ink -- no color. I also clearly remember
one drawing of the dog - very monstrous at that point - picking his
teeth with a bone from his latest slaughter.