The Media And The Shadow
As a child, one of my favorite radio dramas was The Shadow, the
mysterious man who could cloud men’s minds and thwart evildoers in a
thirty-minute broadcast. The Shadow had an odd beginning. An announcer on
Street & Smith’s Detective Hour began calling himself The Shadow, and
listeners ran to the newsstands looking for Street & Smith’s Shadow
magazine. It didn’t take Street & Smith long to copyright the character by
introducing a pulp magazine featuring The Shadow.
The Pulp Shadow by Walter Gibson
Walter Brown Gibson created and wrote the original stories under
the Maxwell Grant house name. The pulp Shadow was quite a bit different from
the radio Shadow that appeared afterwards. The first novel appeared in 1931. He
was a mysterious personage who wore all black – patterned somewhat after
Dracula, and could fade into the shadows. He didn’t ‘cloud the minds of men’.
But radio was a theater of the mind, while pulp novels presented printed text
for readers.
The Comic Book Shadow
Street & Smith got into the comic books when they saw
Superman selling millions of copies. Pulps were lucky to sell 7 or 8 hundred
thousand copies, and that was their more popular titles. So in the 1940’s The
Shadow made his appearance in comic books and newspaper comic strips. Since
1973, there have been several comic book adaptations of The Shadow, each
apparently losing much of the true background of the original character, until
modern comic book versions only visually resemble the character created by Walter
Gibson in 1931.
But that wasn’t the end of it. There was a 15-chapter serial
from Columbia in 1940 starring Victor Jory. Several minor movies were produced
early on, but three late 1940's from Republic proved successful, though
somewhat comedic. Even a TV pilot was shot, which thankfully didn’t make it.
The 1984 movie starring Alec Baldwin proved fairly successful, though it was a
mixture of the pulp and radio Shadow.
Paperback Shadow Novels
Although the pulp Shadow ran for 325 novels, and was highly
popular during the pulp era, for some reason paperback publishers failed to
reach out to the character. In 1963, Belmont Books brought out a new series of
The Shadow, updating the character to the popular spy rage of the time. Walter
Gibson was brought in for the first issue, then Dennis Lynds wrote eight more
stories, and the series ended. In 1969, Bantam reprinted the first pulp novel
in a new series to run along side their extremely popular pulp hero, Doc
Savage. Unfortunately, The Shadow only lasted seven issues. Some blame the
covers for its failure. A final paperback series was again brought out in 1974
from Pyramid/Jove, lasting for 23 issues, with some great covers by comic book
artist, Steranko. There were some hardback editions that also appeared, but
overall, the series just didn’t seem to catch on to modern readers. Tony
Tollin, of Sanctum Books, has done better. He has reprinted over 150 Shadow
novels in his double novel series, reprinting the novels in facsimile format,
including illustrations, and reaching new fans of the character. His goal is to
release all 325 Shadow novels.
The Shadow has reached all media formats, and has been
considered one of the most iconic characters ever created in fiction. Yet he
appears to remain mysterious to the modern generation.
A shame.
