Criminal Macabre: A Cal McDonald Mystery
Comic book series
Criminal Macabre: A Cal McDonald Mystery is a comic book series starring Cal McDonald, an antihero American comic book character created in 1990 by writer Steve Niles. The character's adventures have been published by Dark Horse Comics and later IDW Publishing.
Cal himself is akin to John Constantine, a DC Comics paranormal detective. He takes illicit drugs, and befriends a network of ghouls to assist him with his cases. Police do not really care to be involved with Cal.
Publishing history
Cal McDonald's first story, entitled "Big-Head", was released in 1990 as part of the anthology comic Fly in My Eye: Daughters of Fly In My Eye from Arcane Comix, with art by Jim Whiting. That story led directly to the four-part "Hairball", serialized in Dark Horse Presents #102-105 in 1996. Hairball was later printed as a one-shot comic.
Cal's subsequent appearances were in two 2002 novels, Savage Membrane, and Guns, Drugs and Monsters. In the latter, Cal relocated to Los Angeles, after following a living, severed head searching for its body.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Criminal Macabre: A Cal McDonald Mystery” as comic book series. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as comic book series. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5185591. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1990, 1996 and 2002.
Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
- Tracing reception history
- Finding collection records
The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Criminal Macabre: A Cal McDonald Mystery”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Criminal Macabre: A Cal McDonald Mystery primary sources, Criminal Macabre: A Cal McDonald Mystery archive and Criminal research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Criminal Macabre: A Cal McDonald Mystery”?
- Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
- Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Criminal Macabre: A Cal McDonald Mystery” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.