It’s not one of the icon covers from Street & Smith’s The Shadow pulp.
But ever since it turned up on the paperback racks in 1974 on the cover of Pyramid Book’s “The Shadow #3: The Mobsmen on the Spot,” I’ve considered this George Rozen painting a prime example of Great Pulp Art.
Rozen’s painting originally appeared on the cover of “The Northdale Mystery” (The Shadow, May 1, 1942).
George Rozen painted dozens and dozens of covers for The Shadow beginning with the January 1932 number and continuing through the Feb. 15, 1939, number. (His brother, Jerome Rozen, painted three of the first five covers of the pulp in 1931.)
Graves Gladney picked up the brush following George Rozen in 1939, through the Sept. 15, 1941, number. That’s when Rozen returned for a second stint through Feb. 15, 1944. (Rozen would be called back to duty for The Shadow‘s final four pulp-sized issues in 1948 and ’49.)
Whereas a lot of the most popular covers of magazine portray The Shadow in a more symbolic nature — as puppet master or posing with death’s skeleton or casting a shadow — this painting captures the action like a frame from a movie.
It’s the camera angle. The noir-ish lighting. The power in The Shadow’s punch. The reeling bad guy.
Boy, I’d love to go pull out the DVD or fire up Netflix to watch the movie that’s playing in my mind’s eye right now. Ah, well. Maybe some day.
Until then, I can always look at this cover and let my imagination go.
