Sailor Steve Costigan is a merchant sailor on the Sea Girl and is also its champion boxer. His only true companion is a bulldog named Mike, named after his brother and fellow boxer, “Iron” Mike Costigan. Costigan, one of Robert E. Howard’s humorous boxing pulp heroes, roamed the Asiatic seas with fists of steel, a will of iron, and a head of wood. He is an Irish American from Galveston, Texas, a heavyweight boxer, weighing 190 lb and standing 6 ft (1.8 m) tall. He has the “Black Irish” combination of blue eyes and black hair. The Sailor Steve Costigan stories were very popular in the pages of Fight Stories, Action Stories, and the short-lived Jack Dempsey’s Fight Magazine. Howard used understatement and misdirection to create humor. He established Costigan as a most unreliable narrator, a sailor who cannot admit when he has had a lot to drink, does not realize he is a terrible judge of character, and acts before he thinks. Told in a jaunty first-person style and in the past tense, the Costigan stories are presented in a slang-riddled, colloquial fashion. Costigan and Dennis Dorgan, renamed for a different publication, are the same character, acting, speaking, and fighting in exactly the same way.
Alias Sailor Steve Costigan, Dennis Dorgan
Real Names/Alt Names Steve Costigan, Dennis Dorgan
Appearance List 38 stories in total: 1. “The Pit of the Serpent” in Fight Stories (July 1929, a.k.a. “Manila Manslaughter”); 2. “The Bull Dog Breed” in Fight Stories (February 1930, a.k.a. “You Got to Kill a Bulldog”); 3. “Sailor’s Grudge” in Fight Stories (March 1930, a.k.a. “Costigan vs. Kid Camera”); 4. “Fist and Fang” in Fight Stories (May 1930, a.k.a. “Cannibal Fists”); 5. “Winner Take All” in Fight Stories (July 1930, a.k.a. “Sucker Fight”); 6. “Waterfront Fists” in Fight Stories (September 1930, a.k.a. “Stand Up and Slug”) [Internet Archive]; 7. “Champ of the Forecastle” in Fight Stories (November 1930, a.k.a. “Champ of the Seven Seas”, “The Champion of the Forecastle”); 8. “Alleys of Peril” in Fight Stories (January 1931, a.k.a. “Leather Lightning”); 9. “The TNT Punch” in Action Stories (January 1931, a.k.a. “The Waterfront Law”, “The Waterfront Wallop”); 10. “Texas Fists” in Fight Stories (May 1931, a.k.a. “Shanghied Mitts”); 11. “The Sign of the Snake” in Action Stories (June 1931); 12. “Blow the Chinks Down!” in Action Stories (October 1931, a.k.a. “The House of Peril”); 13. “Breed of Battle” in Action Stories (November 1931, a.k.a. “The Fighten’est Pair”, “Sampson Had a Soft Spot”); 14. “Circus Fists” in Fight Stories (December 1931, a.k.a. “Slugger Bait”); 15. “Dark Shanghai” in Action Stories (January 1932, a.k.a. “One Shanghai Night”); 16. “Vikings of the Gloves” in Fight Stories (February 1932, a.k.a. “Including the Scandinavian”); 17. “Night of Battle” in Fight Stories (March 1932, a.k.a. “Shore Leave for a Slugger”); 18. “Alleys of Darkness” (as Dennis Dorgan) in Magic Carpet Magazine (January 1934, a.k.a. “Alleys of Singapore” — only Dennis Dorgan story that saw print during Howard’s life); 19. “Alleys of Darkness” (as Dennis Dorgan) in Magic Carpet (January 1934, final issue); 20. “The Turkish Menace” (as Dennis Dorgan) for Magic Carpet Magazine (scheduled for May 1933, but mag suspended before publication) — first printed in The Incredible Adventures of Dennis Dorgan (1974, a.k.a. “Sailor Dorgan and the Turkish Menace”, “Sailor Costigan and the Turkish Menace”); 21. “The Slugger’s Game” in Jack Dempsey’s Fight Magazine (May 1934); 22. “General Ironfist” in Jack Dempsey’s Fight Magazine (June 1934); 23. “Sluggers on the Beach” in Jack Dempsey’s Fight Magazine (August 1934); 24. “Alleys of Treachery” (as Dennis Dorgan) in The Howard Collector #8 (Summer 1966, a.k.a. “The Mandarin Ruby”); 25. “Sailor Dorgan and the Jade Monkey” (as Dennis Dorgan) in The Howard Collector #14 (Spring 1971, a.k.a. “Sailor Costigan and the Jade Monkey”, “The Jade Monkey”); 26-31. “The Destiny Gorilla” (a.k.a. “Sailor Costigan and the Destiny Gorilla”, “Sailor Dorgan and the Destiny Gorilla”), “In High Society” (a.k.a. “Cultured Cauliflowers”), “A Knight of the Round Table” (a.k.a. “Iron-Clad Fists”), “Playing Journalist” (a.k.a. “A New Game for Costigan”, “A New Game for Dorgan”), “Playing Santa Claus” (a.k.a. “A Two-Fisted Santa Claus”), “The Yellow Cobra” (a.k.a. “Sailor Dorgan and the Yellow Cobra”, “A Korean Night and A Night Ashore”) in The Incredible Adventures of Dennis Dorgan (1974); 32. “Sailor Costigan and the Swami” in The Howard Review #7 (April 1977); 33. “Blue River Blues” in Steve Costigan le Champion (March 1987); 34. “The Battling Sailor” in Dennis Dorgan (July 1987); 35-38. “Flying Knuckles”, “The Honor of the Ship”, “By the Law of the Shark”, “Hard-Fisted Sentiment” in REH Fight Magazine #4 (October 1996).
Sample Read “Sailor’s Grudge” from Fight Stories (March 1930) [PGAU]
Description Sailor Steve Costigan is a merchant sailor on the Sea Girl and is also its champion boxer. His only true companion is a bulldog named Mike, named after his brother and fellow boxer, “Iron” Mike Costigan. Costigan, one of Robert E. Howard’s humorous boxing pulp heroes, roamed the Asiatic seas with fists of steel, a will of iron, and a head of wood. He is an Irish American from Galveston, Texas, a heavyweight boxer, weighing 190 lb and standing 6 ft (1.8 m) tall. He has the “Black Irish” combination of blue eyes and black hair. The Sailor Steve Costigan stories were very popular in the pages of Fight Stories, Action Stories, and the short-lived Jack Dempsey’s Fight Magazine. Howard used understatement and misdirection to create humor. He established Costigan as a most unreliable narrator, a sailor who cannot admit when he has had a lot to drink, does not realize he is a terrible judge of character, and acts before he thinks. Told in a jaunty first-person style and in the past tense, the Costigan stories are presented in a slang-riddled, colloquial fashion. Costigan and Dennis Dorgan, renamed for a different publication, are the same character, acting, speaking, and fighting in exactly the same way.
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