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The year was 1930. To boost sales of their Detective Story Magazine, pulp publishers Street and Smith decided to sponsor a radio program where an announcer read stories from the magazine.
Rather than referring to him as "the guy who reads the stories," a man at Street and Smith's ad agency suggested naming him The Shadow.
Soon customers began asking for a pulp magazine of that name.
No such magazine existed at the time -- but Street and Smith knew an opportunity when they saw one, and quickly decided to created just such a title.
In time The Master of Darkness recruited numerous agents, among them the mysterious Burbank.
Little is known about Burbank, other than the fact that he is an "old friend" of the Master of Darkness, and that his mission is to facilitate communication among agents.
The Shadow copyright Advance magazine Publishers, Inc./ The Condé Nast Pubs.
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REPORT 14:
"Gangland's Doom" by Frank Eisgruber
Frank Eisgruber's "Gangland's Doom" -- named after the Shadow pulp whose cover is pictured on below right -- was one of the first serious examinations of the Master of Darkness.  More lik
e a booklet than a book, this 63-page essay provides a surprisingly insightful look at the character and his world.
It's divided into six chapters: (1) Identity, True... (2) ...And False; (3) Agents and Aliases; (4) The Sanctum; (5) The Villains; and (6) Travels. There are also three appendices, (1) An Answer to PJ Farmer's Shadow Theory; (2) The Raconteurs, about Walter Gibson et al; and (3) The novels, which lists the title of each Shadow pulp adventure, with a modest cover gallery.
The text in the book wasn't typeset. Eisgruber apparently composed it on an antiquated device called a "typewriter." With the exception of covers by Frank Hamilton, the only illustrations in the book are bad photocopies of old pulp covers (see spread below): |
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 But once you get past the bargain-basement production values, this is actually quite a wonderful little book. Originally written in the early 1970s, it's a fairly comprehensive examination of the Shadow -- not how he came to be, but the character himself.
Despite its slender size, this book is fairly deep. There's even an appealing smattering of armchair psychoanalysis as Eisgruber sheds some light on The Shadow's fascinating dark side:
"The Shadow shoots down scores of thugs but never really appears upset or even joyful. He is like a machine or fanatic -- killing has become a habit, a job. Perhaps the reason he laughs while battling the enemy is to relieve some inner pressures. Either that, or he is extremely mentally off-balance."
Eisgruber also provides a dossier on each of The Shadow's agents, including Harry Vincent, Clyde Burke, Slade Farrow, and a certain communications contact:
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| Every word true! How does this Eisgruber guy know so much about me? And I'm not the only one. He's got all the info on the Shadow's greatest foeman, the last descendent of Genghis Kahn, the evil and invincible Shiwan Kahn: |
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| The booklet's last chapter looks at the different locales visited in the pulp stories -- from New York, Washington and Maine, to Russia, Paris, London and beyond. Closing out the study are brief biographies of three Shadowy "raconteurs": Walter Gibson, Theodore Tinsley and Bruce Elliott. We'll close with Frank Hamilton's back cover of Frank Eisgruber's thoroughly enjoyable mini-masterpiece, "Gangland's Doom." |
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ASTROLOGY - COLOR THEORY - PALM READING • HANDWRITING ANALYSIS
"PSYCHIC SCIENCES" by WALTER GIBSON
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