THE SHADOWED CIRCLE #4 is out and is available from the publisher and Amazon. This publication continues to be a very welcome return to the classic days of pulp fanzines. The issue starts out strongly with a great Rozen-like cover with art by Kevin Duncan and color and design by Steve Novak. This is my favorite cover so far and perfectly captures the feel of The Shadow.
Editor Steve Donoso has put together an exceptional array of articles, leading
off with the first installment of a three-part article by long-time pulp fan
Dick Myers, who passed away in 2005. This never-before-published article,
written probably in the early Seventies, was found among his papers and deals
with just how The Shadow went about financing his vast organization of agents
and assistants. It’s clear that Myers put a lot of thought into this and the
article makes for fascinating reading.
Will Murray muses about mysteries concerning The Shadow to which Walter B.
Gibson never revealed the answers. Tim King tackles one of those mysteries with
some very interesting speculation and makes a strong case for his conclusion,
as far as I’m concerned. Todd D. Severin begins a series covering The Shadow’s
appearances in comic books and concentrates on the Forties in this part. Since
that’s an area of The Shadow's history which I’ve seldom read about in detail, I
learned a lot and really enjoyed this article, as I did the following article
by Daryl Morrisey that covers the comic book meetings between The Shadow and
Doc Savage. John Olsen, the only person I can think of who’s read every single
Shadow pulp novel, writes about the radio show this time around, in particular
the final broadcast, and his article is both informative and poignant.
This issue also features the second part of a lengthy interview with writer and
producer Michael Uslan, who has written several comic book stories and graphic
novels featuring The Shadow. Uslan discusses several mini-series I’d never even
heard of, so of course I had to go to Amazon and pick up copies of them. I’m
looking forward to reading them.
The back cover features the two novels written by Will Murray that feature
meetings between Doc Savage and The Shadow, THE SINISTER SHADOW and EMPIRE OF
DOOM, with beautiful artwork by Joe DeVito. It’s a fitting wrap-up for what is,
in my opinion, the finest issue of THE SHADOWED CIRCLE so far. If you’re a fan
of the character, I give it my highest recommendation . . . and I suspect the
next issue will continue that trajectory.
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