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The Shadow Biography & Facts

The Shadow is a fictional character created by American magazine publishers Street & Smith and writer Walter B. Gibson. Originally created to be a mysterious radio show narrator, and developed into a distinct literary character in 1931 by Gibson, The Shadow has been adapted into other forms of media, including American comic books, comic strips, serials, video games, and at least five feature films. The radio drama included episodes voiced by Orson Welles. The Shadow debuted on July 31, 1930, as the mysterious narrator of the radio program Detective Story Hour, which was developed to boost sales of Street & Smith's monthly pulp Detective Story Magazine. When listeners of the program began asking at newsstands for copies of "that Shadow detective magazine", Street & Smith launched a magazine based on the character, and hired Gibson to create a concept to fit the name and voice and to write a story featuring him. The first issue of the pulp series The Shadow Magazine went on sale April 1, 1931. On September 26, 1937, The Shadow, a new radio drama based on the character as created by Gibson for the pulp magazine, premiered with the story "The Death House Rescue", in which The Shadow was characterized as having "the hypnotic power to cloud men's minds so they cannot see him". In the magazine stories, The Shadow did not become literally invisible. The introductory line from the radio adaptation of The Shadow – "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!" – spoken by actor Frank Readick, has earned a place in the American idiom. These words were accompanied by an ominous laugh and a musical theme, Camille Saint-Saëns' Le Rouet d'Omphale ("Omphale's Spinning Wheel" composed in 1872). The Shadow, at the end of each episode, reminded listeners, "The weed of crime bears bitter fruit! Crime does not pay...The Shadow knows!" Some early episodes used the alternate statement, "As you sow evil, so shall you reap evil! Crime does not pay...The Shadow knows!" Publication history Origin of the character's name To boost the sales of its Detective Story Magazine, Street & Smith Publications hired David Chrisman, of the Ruthrauff & Ryan advertising agency, and writer-director William Sweets to adapt the magazine's stories into a radio series. Chrisman and Sweets thought the upcoming series should be narrated by a mysterious storyteller with a sinister voice and began searching for a suitable name. One of their scriptwriters, Harry Engman Charlot, suggested various possibilities, such as "The Inspector" or "The Sleuth". Charlot then proposed the ideal name for the phantom announcer: "The Shadow". Thus, beginning on July 31, 1930, "The Shadow" was the name given to the mysterious narrator of the Detective Story Hour radio program. The narrator was initially voiced by James LaCurto, who was replaced after four months by prolific character actor Frank Readick Jr. The episodes were drawn from the Detective Story Magazine issued by Street & Smith, the nation's oldest and largest publisher of pulp magazines at the time. Although the latter company had hoped the radio broadcasts would boost the declining sales of Detective Story Magazine, the result was quite different. Listeners found the sinister announcer much more compelling than the unrelated stories. They soon began asking newsdealers for copies of "that Shadow detective magazine", even though it did not exist. Creation as a distinctive literary character Recognizing the demand and responding promptly, circulation manager Henry William Ralston of Street & Smith commissioned Walter B. Gibson to begin writing stories about "The Shadow" Using the pen name of Maxwell Grant and claiming the stories were "from The Shadow's private annals" as told to him, Gibson wrote 282 out of 325 tales over the next 20 years: a novel-length story twice a month (1st and 15th). The first story produced was The Living Shadow published April 1, 1931. Gibson's characterization of The Shadow laid the foundations for the archetype of the superhero, including stylized imagery and title, sidekicks, supervillains, and a secret identity. Clad in black, The Shadow operated mainly after dark as a vigilante in the name of justice, terrifying criminals into vulnerability. Gibson himself claimed the literary inspirations upon which he had drawn were Bram Stoker's Dracula and Edward Bulwer-Lytton's "The House and the Brain." Another possible inspiration for The Shadow is the French character Judex; the first episode of the original Judex film serial was released in the United States as The Mysterious Shadow, and Judex's costume is similar to The Shadow's. French comics historian Xavier Fournier notes other similarities with another silent serial, The Shielding Shadow, whose protagonist had a power of invisibility, and considers The Shadow to be a mix between the two characters. In the 1940s, some Shadow comic strips were translated in France as adventures of Judex. Because of the great effort involved in writing two full-length novels every month, several guest writers were hired to write occasional installments in order to lighten Gibson's workload. Those guest writers included Lester Dent, who also wrote the Doc Savage stories, and Theodore Tinsley. In the late 1940s, mystery novelist Bruce Elliott (also a magician) temporarily replaced Gibson as the primary author of the pulp series (he wrote #'s 306 through 320). Richard Wormser, a reader for Street & Smith, wrote two Shadow stories. For a complete list of Street and Smith's Shadow novels, see the List of The Shadow stories article. A new beginning at Belmont Books The Shadow Magazine ceased publication with the Summer 1949 issue, but Walter B. Gibson wrote three new "official" stories between 1963 and 1980. The first began a new series of nine Shadow mass market paperback novels from Belmont Books. In this series, The Shadow is given psychic powers, including the radio character's ability "to cloud men's minds," so that he effectively became invisible. Return of The Shadow was published under his own name. The remaining eight novels in this series, The Shadow Strikes, Shadow Beware, Cry Shadow, The Shadow's Revenge, Mark of The Shadow, Shadow Go Mad, Night of The Shadow, and The Shadow, Destination: Moon, were written by Dennis Lynds, not Gibson, under the Maxwell Grant pseudonym. The other two Gibson works were the novelettes "The Riddle of the Rangoon Ruby", published June 1, 1979 in The Shadow Scrapbook. and "Blackmail Bay", published February 1, 1980 in The Duende History of The Shadow Magazine. Literary sequels and reboots The Shadow returned in 2015 in the authorized novel The Sinister Shadow, an entry in the Wild Adventures of Doc Savage series from Altus Press. The novel, written by Will Murray, used unpublished material originally written in 1932 by Doc Savage originator Lester Dent and published under the pen name Kenneth Robeson. Set in 1933, the.... Discover the The Shadow popular books. Find the top 100 most popular The Shadow books.