Doc Savage and the Shadow return to print
Posted: June 23, 2006, 01:29:41 PM
The Shadow and Doc Savage are returning to thrill fans old and new.<br>Anthony Tollin has acquired the license to reprint the original Shadow<br>and Doc Savage pulp novels, and will be publishing trade paperback<br>reprints in partnership with Nostalgia Ventures, Inc., a leader in the<br>field of radio and television nostalgia. These Shadow and Doc Savage<br>volumes are officially licensed by Condé Nast, the owner of the famous<br>properties.<br><br>"This is a dream come true for me," proclaims Anthony Tollin, the<br>former DC Comics professional who is also a leading pulp and radio<br>historian. Tollin co-authored Walter B. Gibson's The Shadow Scrapbook<br>in 1979, and has long desired to get Gibson's Shadow novels back in<br>print. "We're reissuing the classic pulp stories with the original<br>covers and interior art, with the type reset for clarity. We're<br>initially releasing the stories in a double-novel format. Our first<br>volume, already at the printers, reprints Walter Gibson's 'Crime,<br>Insured' and 'The Golden Vulture,' a Shadow novel that Lester Dent<br>wrote in 1932 that was later revised by Gibson and published in 1938.<br>This is the Shadow novel that won Lester Dent the Doc Savage contract.<br>Our first story, 'Crime, Insured' is recognized as Walt Gibson's<br>greatest action thriller, in which a criminal organization penetrates<br>The Shadow's operation and captures his major agents, and The Shadow<br>is trapped as the entire New York underworld invades his sanctum."<br><br>This series of trade paperbacks is the first licensed publication of<br>The Shadow novels in 22 years, and the first authorized reprinting of<br>the original Doc Savage pulp novels in 15 years. The Shadow Magazine<br>debuted in 1931 and launched the 1930s hero-pulp boom, inspiring<br>dozens of characters including the Phantom Detective, the Spider, the<br>Avenger and the Green Lama. Bob Kane and Bill Finger cited The Shadow<br>as a major influence on the creation of Batman, while Clark Savage<br>Jr., the Man of Bronze, was a major influence on the creation and<br>development of Clark Kent, the Man of Steel.<br><br>"If Street & Smith had not published The Shadow and Doc Savage, there<br>might never have been any Superman or Batman," observes<br>popular-culture historian Will Murray, who collaborated with Lester<br>Dent on seven posthumous Doc Savage novels. "Between them, Walter<br>Gibson and Lester Dent created the archetype of the superhero, and<br>most of the fiction formulas and trappings of the eternal battle<br>between superhero and supervillain that has come to dominate popular<br>culture in the last 75 years. I like to call Lester Dent 'the Father<br>of the Superhero' because, while Superman and Batman had other<br>influences, both borrowed liberally from Doc Savage, the original<br>owner of the Fortress of Solitude."<br>