For anyone who's still interested, there was a Shayne comic book, MIKE SHAYNE - PRIVATE EYE, published by Dell, that lasted three issues in the early '60's, roughly coincident, I believe, with a MIKE SHAYNE TV-series starring Richard Denning (the governor on HAWAII 5-0) as Shayne. You can see a cover gallery (and the covers, all paintings rather than line drawings, all look damned good) here:
http://www.comics.org/covers.lasso?SeriesID=1507
Unusually, Shayne got his own title immediately, without a preliminary try-out in Dell's FOUR-COLOR COMICS series. This may have reflected Halliday's long-standing relationship with Dell which, of course, was already publishing the paperback editions of the Shayne novels, and had been since the '40's.
This being so long ago (to say nothing of the fact that there no longer IS a Dell Comics), I don't see how it would be an impediment to getting the comics rights now, but I mention it for information.
JIM DOHERTY
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