First, I want to thank you for subscribing, words I had never thought I would type. This edition concerns the character that gave me the confidence to start this sub stack newsletter. Initially, I wrote my reflections to give meaning to my readings. I took the next step and started posting them on my Facebook page. Jess Terrell read one and asked if I would mind posting them on his Pulp Adventure: The Shadow/Zorro/Korak/Kong/ Indiana Jones Facebook news page. With a positive reception, I took to sharing the ERB reflections and the Moorcock reflections on “Foe the Love of All Things Edgar Rice Burroughs” and “Friends of Michael Moorcock” Facebook groups. Going on sub stack seemed like the next step.
The Living Shadow by Maxwell Grant
Street & Smith #1
April, 1931
Reading:
The Shadow #47
Sanctum Books
I was introduced to the “real” Shadow by Denny O’Neil and Michael W. Kalua in the pages of the DC comic book. I say real Shadow because I knew of the Shadow as depicted in popular culture with the references to his laugh and to “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men…The Shadow knows!” but hadn’t really seen the actual character.
With that introduction and with my interest in pulp heroes I started to read about those heroes' history in such works as Ron Goulart’s Cheap Thrills: An Informal History of the Pulp Magazine and Jim Steranko’s The Steranko History of Comics 1. I became enthralled with the Shadow as a character and would read all the comics starring the character into this century. This included tracking down at least two of his “guest appearances” with Batman.
What I didn’t pursue strongly was reading the prose adventures of the Shadow. I did read The Living Shadow and Return of the Shadow by Walter Gibson. Not knowing there were 324 adventures between the two works. The small number of Shadow books out there and their scarcity in the used bookstores I wandered, affected my pursuit of the novels. As life took over with crappy jobs, a lifestyle that wasn’t conducive to reading etc. I didn’t continue my interest in pulp heroes in general.
45 years later with Covid and the stay at home orders, I rekindled my interest tenfold. I finished off the dream of collecting all the Doc Savage reprints in some form, collecting all of ERB’s printed work in book form while also tackling some fantasy and science fiction authors. As the dust settled and I headed into retirement, one character wasn’t in the collections but still intrigued me- The Shadow. I started buying the books as I found them on ebay at a reasonable price. Then I found out about the Nostalgia Press/Sanctum Books reprints and decided that would be my retirement collection. This would be my most ambitious attempt at a book collection with The Shadow accounting for 325 pulp stories followed up by the Belmont line of new stories in the “60s. I’m a little over halfway there.
This brings me to my retirement plan which is to read the books in my collection in some systematic fashion for some series, it means reading them in chronological order, for the pulps and older material, it means reading them in publishing order. It’s ambitious but also something that my collecting has been building up to all my life.
So 45 years after the initial reading I return to The Living Shadow by Maxwell Grant (Walter Gibson). In reading some background material, the Pyramid edition I originally read might have been edited to update the book so this time I’m going for the original.
This is the story of Harry Vincent. His and the reader's introduction to the Shadow. Except for a couple of chapters, the story is focused on Vincent’s efforts to aid the Shadow after the Shadow saved him from suicide. I realized why this appealed to my teenage self. I didn’t really have the powers of the Shadow but I could be an aid like Vincent. So Harry Vincent always stuck in my mind as part of the Shadow stable of characters.
It is a decent mystery. I don’t know if I figured out some of the pieces due to my reading prowess or due to the fact I had read the book decades before. Here we are presented with a Shadow that is connected to our reality. He narrates a popular radio show that criminals stake out so that they might do away with their nemesis. The character here is mysterious but also stripped down. He appears in the shadows, his face obscured. Expert at hand to hand combat, demonstrated by his taking on 8 assailants successfully. This isn’t the gun blazing Shadow of the O’Neil/Kaluta comics. The laugh is there as well as the eerie voice. In a short telling of the rumors surrounding the Shadow, Gibson mentions one about him being injured in WW I. A piece that is later played upon in Shadow lore.
Reading the background material in the Sanctum edition helps get some insight to parts of the story. Those familiar with the evolution of the Shadow, know that originally he was a character narrating a crime/detective radio show apart from the story and the action. It seems people started coming to the newsstands asking for the Shadow Detective magazine. Street & Smith were using the show as advertisement for their Detective magazines. So the powers that be decided to create a magazine for The Shadow. Walter Gibson happened to show up to present an idea that was similar to what they were thinking about for the Shadow.
The story kept me involved and wanting more. Lucky for me since I have this idea of reading all of the adventures eventually. As I got towards the end of the story, I wondered why part of the story included Wang Foo, a smuggler in New York’s ChinaTown. It was slightly incongruent to the story, more of a why have the smuggler there. At the end of the story it all makes sense.
The Chinatown part of the story had me perplexed although it made for a great ending to the tale. It seemed a little incongruous at times, especially later in the story. In reading the additional material, I found out that including a chinese character was shoehorned in after Gibson had started writing the story. It seems Street & Smith, to facilitate fast publishing, opted to use the cover from a previous magazine that depicted a Chinese man grappling with a shadow. And it is with such decisions that greatness is born. With a little heads up from a reader, I rechecked the material. It seems Street and Smith were trying to save a little money by reusing the cover from a 1919 issue of Thrill Book.
I look forward to reading more adventures of the Shadow. Living Shadow gave me a relatable character, a mysterious character, fast paced action that kept me involved in the story. In radio terms, I harkened back to the days when crime was rampant and there were heroes who rose to the occasion of fighting back.