The Shadow
From the spring of 1931 until the summer of 1949, a slim figure cloaked in black fought mobsters, evil scientists, crazed old men and foreign invaders with two blazing automatics and a laugh that chilled the hearts of evil. The mysterious figure was The Shadow.
The Shadow pulp magazines
The popularity of a radio announcer – known as The Shadow – for Street and Smith’s Detective Story Hour convinced the publishing house to create a magazine for the character.
Street and Smith turned to newspaperman and magician Walter B. Gibson to bring The Shadow to life in the firm’s first character pulp magazine. Gibson, using the pen name Maxwell Grant, wrote 282 of the 325 Shadow novels. The remainder were written by Theodore Tinsley and Bruce Elliot, with one novel partly written by Lester Dent, the chief writer of Doc Savage.
It was only after the magazine’s tremendous success that The Shadow returned to the airwaves for a half-hour adventure program that lasted until 1954. Six two-reel movies, a serial and seven feature films have been based on The Shadow’s exploits.
Links
- The pulp magazine newsgroup
- You can find discussions of The Shadow, and other pulp characters, in the alt.pulp newsgroup. (If your internet service provider doesn’t offer access to this newsgroup, access it through Google Groups.)
- The Shadow’s Sanctum
- The Shadow historian Anthony Tollin, who is also responsible for the Nostalgia Ventures reprints, has put together an impressive collection of material about The Shadow, as well as Doc Savage. You’ll find video interviews with Walter Gibson, audio clips and photos, as well as a look at how Doc Savage and crew influenced the creation of the Fantastic Four. Oh, and you can get the latest information on the Nostalgia Ventures reprints.
- The Pulp Novel: An Interview With Walter B. Gibson
- “Saturday Night at the Movies” — a program on TVO, Ontario’s public television station — presents a half-hour interview with Walter B. Gibson, the chief writer of The Shadow, conducted by Elwy Yost. Gibson discusses the pulps, writing The Shadow stories and more in this interesting video.
- The Shadow Reprint History
- The Pulp Reprint Index offers a bibliography of The Shadow stories that have been reprinted and the publishers.
- The Shadow Magazine
- John Olsen has revamped his site to features reviews of all 325 of the original Shadow pulp adventures, removing the e-texts of the pulps at the request of Conde Nast attorneys. The site also includes a series of Two Minute Mysteries for you to solve, information about The Shadow’s agents and links.
- Dr. Hermes’ Reviews
- Edward Felipe, aka Dr. Hermes, first started reviewing Doc Savage novels. Once he finished them, he has turned his reading glasses to other novels, include the Belmont paperbacks of The Shadow from the 1960s.
- The Holloway Pages: The Shadow
- Clark Holloway’s site includes the introduction to The Shadow and the Golden Master written by Walter B. Gibson. In it, Gibson recalls how The Shadow pulp came about, as well as the pen name Maxwell Grant.
- The Shadow’s WWW Sanctum
- John Sies’ Shadow site has been around a while and touches on The Shadow’s appearance on radio, in films, records, comics, fan fiction and more. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear the site has been updated since 2007 and several of the internal links are broken.
- Weird Science-Fantasy: The Shadow
- William Thompson’s Weird Science-Fantasy pages include a section on The Shadow with information about the pulp, The Shadow’s aides, a brief FAQ and details of The Shadow on radio and film.
- Electronic Magic
- George W. Geib offers a history of the pulps and The Shadow in a paper read to the Indianapolis Literary Club in 1994. There’s also a link to some pulp cover scans, though none of The Shadow magazine.
- Kimberly’s Fan Fiction Library
- Kimberly Murphy-Smith, publisher and editor of The Hot Corner online zine, has written quite a collection of stories featuring The Shadow, including her novelization of the 1994 movie.
- The Shadow: Master of Darkness
- In addition to information about The Shadow pulps, radio shows, comics, collectibles and movies, this site also includes a forum, polls, fan fiction and fan art.
- The Shadow’s Internet Sanctum
- Last updated in 2002, Chip Caroon’s site includes a list of The Shadow novels (with some links to e-text and PDF sites) and a gallery of The Shadow comics.
- The Shadow: Master of Darkness
- Larry Widen provides information on his project, The Shadow: Master of Darkness, a companion book to his Doc Savage: Arch Enemy of Evil. The book, which was to be published in 2001, is to include samples of the pulp covers, story synopsis, case notes and other pertinent information about the stories.
- Five Lamonts: A Shadow Chronology
- Win Scott Eckert traces a history of The Shadow from the 1893 birth of Kent Allard through the pulps, paperbacks and comics.
- The Shadow Radio History
- The website of author Martin Grams Jr. has a sample chapter from his book, The Shadow: The History and Mystery of the Radio Program, 1930–1954. He has linked to a PDF of a sample of the book that was printed in the October 2010 issue of Radiogram.
- Casting light among the Shadows
- Arn McConnell looks at clues in The Shadow pulp and Detective Stories Magazine to the real identity of the Night Master in this essay on the Philip José Farmer site.
- Collectible Paperbacks
- This essay on collectible paperbacks by Gary Lovisi, taken from Baby Boomer Collectibles, includes a reference to the paperback The Shadow and the Voice of Murder and its role in paperback history.
- Who Knows What Evil Lurks in the Hearts of Men?
- A very brief history of The Shadow and links to related sites are on Wes Tumulka’s page.
- A Shadow history
- Virginia E. Johnson of Fading Shadows fame has written a brief history of The Shadow for the Winter 2005 edition of Web Mystery Magazine. There’s also a nice size image of the Aug. 15, 1938, cover of The Shadow magazine.
- The Cobalt Club: The Shadow Fan Club
- Using the Ning.com social network site, James Trimm has set up a site dedicated to The Shadow. It features member pages, a forum, groups, a chat area, photos, videos and James’ blog.
- Eyes on the pricey Shadow
- Take a look at the final bidding price for this battered copy of the second number of The Shadow pulp that sold on eBay in early 2004. The Scoop Web site also includes a photo of the cover.
- The Shadow for RPG
- David Ebers has adapted The Shadow character for the Feng Shui role playing game.
- The Shadow quiz
- Test your knowledge of The Shadow with this 15 question quiz (though not all of the questions are accurate).
- Behind The Shadow comic book
- The “Thought Balloons” section of Raymond William Stedman’s The Comic Rack looks at the development of the 1970s Shadow comic book.
- The Shadow in review
- Cat Eldridge reviews the 1994 Shadow movie for The Green Man Review. Unfortunately, he echoes the oft-repeated mistake of mixing the print and radio versions of The Shadow.
- The Shadow quest
- Bill Laidlaw, editor of The Shadow/Doc Savage Quest fanzine, writes about The Shadow’s appearance in the 1994 movie, the radio show and the pulps. *
- The Wold Newton Universe
- Win Scott Eckert expands on Philip Jose Farmer’s Wold Newton theories (see the site for more details) and places The Shadow in the chronology.
- MysteryNet: The Shadow
- The Web site for mystery fans has short profiles of various characters, including The Shadow.
- Danny’s Shadow and Pulp Links Page
- Dan Hill has compiled a list of links to The Shadow Web sites.
- Pulp Cover Thumbnails
- Chris Ragaisis’ pulp images page has bounced around a bit in the years it has been on the Web. It includes a scan of the cover to The Chinese Disks and a pair of Jim Steranko paperback paintings (and a Doc Savage pulp and two covers of The Spider).
- Pulp Magazine Gallery
- Fantastic Collectibles has a collection of cover scans of the pulps it has sold or is selling. Scroll down on the page and take a look at The Shadow covers.
- Selections from the Vault
- Cesare66 provides a few covers from The Shadow pulps — as well as other pulp covers — in his Vault section. *
- The Book Palace
- This London bookstore sells a variety of The Shadow and other pulp cover reproductions painted by an artist named Vet.
- The Shadow Comic Strips
- Jim Sutton traces the history of The Shadow in comics — from the newspaper strips, to the reprint comic books, to graphic novels.
- M.W. Kaluta: The Shadow
- For some of us, there’s only one comic book artist for The Shadow.That’s Michael Wm. Kaluta. He’s posted some of his Shadow work on his Web site, including drawings, images from the two Shadow sculptures he has been involved with, and an original short story, The Shadow: My City.
- The G.I. Joe Shadow
- Here’s an entertaining site. Sean Huxter explains how he took a G.I. Joe, took clothes from here, a hat from there and created a very good looking Shadow action figure. A lucky friend, who is a big fan of The Shadow, got the action figure as a gift.
- Biff’s The Shadow Diorama
- Biff (or Bill Underwood), who collects vintage G.I. Joes, has created a custom Shadow figure with the help of some friends and placed him atop a meeting of underworld denizens in New York’s Chinatown in the 1930s.
- The Cobalt Club
- At one time, this site had an extensive collection of The Shadow, Doc Savage and more radio programs in MP3 format. Now you’ll find a discussion area focusing on old time radio programs.
- The Shadow’s Realm
- The Shadow’s Realm includes lists of the radio episodes (including some program downloads), films and pulps. There’s also a guest book and chat area.
- The Shadow OTR
- This page includes only a short history of The Shadow radio program by Robert Wheadon.
- Commissioner Weston’s The Shadow Page
- The commissioner’s site focuses on The Shadow radio program, with a history, episode guide, photos and cast and crew information. *
- The Shadow Vaults
- Chris Atherton’s Vaults site focuses on The Shadow radio program and 1994 movie, with sounds and images.
- Jezner Studios
- This old-time radio site includes information on The Shadow program, but requires you to search to find it.
- The Nostalgia Pages Phorums: The Shadow
- Discussions about old-time radio and The Shadow program abound at this Web site. Be warned: It can be incredibly slow to load.
- Project #4
- Tim Coyle’s fourth project for his American Studies class at the University of Maryland takes a look at The Shadow radio program.
- Shadows of Radio Past
- Everett Winrow collection old-time radio programs, including The Shadow, and offers to trade with other fans. His collection also includes a History of The Shadow and a 1981 radio interview with Walter B. Gibson.
- The Shadow Connection
- Don Fehr provides a site for fans of the old-time radio program to trade episodes.
- The Shadow Fan
- David Rodriquez presents his The Shadow Fan News, not as a Web page, but as a downloadable radio-like program in WAV format. His site also includes a FAQ about The Shadow and information about the pulps, the movies, the radio programs and the comics.
- Radio History of The Shadow
- Here’s a brief history of The Shadow on radio. Download a couple of audio clips from the vintage series. Also, the site includes a brief listing of the programs Orson Welles starred in, taken from The Shadow Scrapbook. (A more complete listing appears in the scrapbook.)
- Nostalgia 43: The Shadow
- Another old-time radio Web site offers streaming episodes of programs, including The Shadow. *
- The Radio Time Machine
- Yet another old-time radio site that offers streaming episodes of The Shadow and other programs.
- Cliffhangers: The Shadow
- Images, an online magazine, took a look at The Shadow movie serials in its fourth issue. Grant Tracey’s article includes images from the serials.
- Roger Ebert on The Shadow
- Film critic Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times offers his favorable take on the 1994 movie.
- Professor Neon on The Shadow
- Professor Neon’s TV & Movie Mania review of the 1994 movie.
- Cosmo’s Pulp Hero Cafe
- Cinemarquee offers a variety of pulp-related links as part of the Web site that focuses on film and moviemaking.
- Popwatch Blog
- Gary Susman’s blog at Entertainment Weekly‘s Web site laments on “Film franchises that never were,” including The Shadow.
- The Internet Movie Database
- Find out more about The Shadow’s film adventures at the Internet Movie Database:
- The Shadow Strikes (1937).
- International Crime (1938).
- The Shadow (1940).
- The Shadow Returns (1946).
- Behind the Mask (1946).
- The Missing Lady (1946).
- The Invisible Avenger (1958).
- The Shadow (1994).
