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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 8:
MAGIC FOR ALL AGES by WALTER GIBSON
(Illustrated by RIC ESTRADA)
Have you ever read a book explaining how to do magic tricks? If you have, chances are pretty good that it was written by Shadow creator Walter Gibson. All together, in addition to his massive pulp output, Gibson wrote an astounding 117 books on magic, magicians and prestidigitation.
One of his books, "Magic For All Ages," was republished in 1980, and the new edition had illustrations by comic artist Ric Estrada. Estrada must have had a ball doing this one -- his drawings, each one illustrating a different magic trick, feature some highly unexpected celebrities, along with most of the world's famous magicians!
Estrada's magical "performers" include Harry Houdini, President Jimmy Carter, Blackstone, Col. Saunders of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame, Dunninger, the Amazing Kreskin, Doug Henning, and many more. Pictured on the right is a coin trick demo
nstrated  by Walter Gibson himself!
Each of the book's 10 chapters is introduced with a brief look at a famous magician. Seen on the left is Estrada's rendition of Harry Houdini, the World's Greatest Escape Artist (sorry Batman and Mr. Miracle, but Harry got there first). Houdini also wrote several books, but in reality, Gibson was Houdini's ghost writer.
Time to learn a magic trick! It's called "Traveling Knots," and it's demonstrated for you below by the man himself -- Walter Gibson -- as seen by Ric Estrada!
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THE SHADOW COMIC THAT NEVER WAS
by BERNI WRIGHTSON!
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