When John Morrow started his magazine, The Jack Kirby Collector, naysayers scoffed, pointing out that it couldn’t last because how much could you really ever say about one man and his artwork?
And yet here we are, headed toward three decades of art, articles, speculations, revelations, interviews, and historical investigations. Seems like a perfectly workable format now, doesn’t it?
The first issue of the new magazine The Shadowed Circle reminded me of that.
Coming so close on the heels of my recent review of James Patterson’s total revamp of the character, it was good to spend some time with some traditionalists here.
As I noted in my Patterson review, whilst I am not a mega-fan of the character, I have had my share of encounters with all the sometimes very different iterations of The Shadow, from radio to pulp to comics (with side trips to movies, serials, and television pilots).
The Shadowed Circle is mainly a mag for the fans of Walter B. Gibson’s pulp version of the character, the one with the cloaks, the scarf, the slouch hat, and the blazing guns.
Edited and published by Steve Donoso, this successfully Kickstarted project will no doubt be an absolute delight for fans of the real Shadow. The always informative Will Murray—himself a master of modern pulp writing—kicks it all off with a leftover text piece from Anthony Tollin’s recent long-running but now-canceled reprint series.
From there, we get a humorous exploration of the writers, an examination of rare short subject films, a personal recollection, a piece about zombies in the pulps, ties to Batman, a villain history, and an article about collecting The Shadow. You know…just like in The Jack Kirby Collector.
It being impossible to ignore the elephant in the shadows—so to speak—there’s also a lengthy review of the new Patterson novel as well as a well-done interview with the author himself. The book review echoes my own in many ways. In the interview, Patterson reveals his thinking on completely ignoring anything and everything that made The Shadow successful in any earlier version. I think most would disagree that changes needed to be made.
In more portentous news, the bestselling author reveals that next year he will be bringing out a Doc Savage novel that similarly severs all ties with the classic version but, “will have the spirit of Doc Savage, just like this current novel has the spirit of The Shadow.” Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Rounded off with a mixture of old (Frank Hamilton) and new (Lela Dowling, Frank Brunner) pulp-style artwork (although the page numbers for the artists are off), this initial offering of The Shadowed Circle should be seen in the wake of Patterson’s book as a much-appreciated reminder that no matter what happens now or in the future, Walter Gibson’s Shadow continues to be seen as the definitive version.
Booksteve recommends.
The Shadowed Circle can be purchased HERE!
