Hibou

As always... To be continued.

And so, as I ended last nights post, although edited, I'll end this one as well. I think of this everyday as I hold this device in my hand. This black, oblong object that seems to control my thoughts and actions, yet they call it a smart phone. In this song, I believe he's referencing a television but it's kind of the same I guess.

Sometimes nights like last night catch me off guard. It begins innocently enough as I indulge in my ultimate distractions but then the inevitable creeps in and absolutely engulfs me... I know my wife experiences this as well on a daily basis. This afternoon, we took off for the day to maybe do some 'antiquing', while hitting some thrift stores and antique shops around an hour north of here. We didn't find much today but I found a few good modern comics. Probably my best pull was a copy of Ultimate Fantastic Four #21 and the first appearance of the Marvel Zombies. That book was $2 at a thrift store. Anyways, this next part kind of illustrates what I just mentioned above. Mu wife and I had just walked into this mall and there was actually a real arcade there. I was initially going to walk past but I was curious as to what an arcade actually was these days. Not much in terms of 'video games' but a lot of 'ticket prize' games. So as we left, my wife said to me... "Didn't you used to take David to the arcade at (our local mall)?" I answered yes and she replied that he always had so much fun there. Then she added that he always had so much fun everywhere I took him. She quickly added that I was 'his person'. Couples sometimes have their own vocabulary and I knew exactly what she meant by this and like I mentioned above, right there in the middle of this mall, I nearly lost it. I had to distract myself while passing by a pet store selling puppies... And with that... Back to the program. As we were out and going through this one antique mall, I thought to myself that through all of our travels over the course of the past 2 years, I have only found two Shadow and/or Blue Coal related items in all of our travels throughout New York State and down to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The first item was the Shadow / Blue Coal blotter from Canada that I included in the above post and the second item was the Living Shadow book... both items purchased at different locations in Rochester, New York. So this is about a good enough spot to segue back to that book I just bought some weeks ago. ... ... ... As I was so thrilled to have a copy of that first book, "The Living Shadow", I went online to see if I could find the other two volumes, "Eyes of The Shadow" and "The Shadow Laughs". As luck would have it, mycomicshop.com (Lonestar Comics) had both volumes and one had just been drastically reduced in price. I couldn't believe the luck here and immediately placed both in my cart and couldn't check out fast enough. They really have impeccable service and are always a rock solid resource for me in terms of acquiring material. I love having this whole set and now that I know that they were published in 1933 by Street & Smith, just adds more delicious history to this journey!

To be continued...

I never got the chance to show you this page - I think you would've loved to see this.

I knew I was destined to reach this point if I typed on here long enough... If I spent an hour on here trying to accurately describe how much I've missed you - I would've failed miserably. Goodnight David.

I do have to mention my new favorite site as it ties into a blog and that would be... The Shadowcast. (Just look at this site's layout. How can you not be drawn in?!) The producer of this series seems to be a living expert on the subject if anyone is interested... Anyways, I've spent numerous nights listening to these podcasts and it has personally, helped me a lot. This one is a good one to start with as it's a subject that has not been extensively covered...

I can't emphasize this enough... When facing catastrophic personal tragedy, it's vital to have a solid foundation around you consisting of a loving family and stellar friends. In addition, it helps if you have a life long passion that seems to swirl around you and intervenes when it's deemed most necessary. And that's where I'll start this entry tonight. I know that I kind of paused the discussion of X-Men and Fantastic Four books on here and replaced that with more Shadow material but for good reason... at this point in this personal maelstrom that I find myself in, it's this that has seemed to ground me as it speaks of a different time... a better time. Perhaps a more innocent time, although I write that with the caveat being that perhaps a more innocent time simply means when things were more black and white. I'll cut that thought off here... otherwise, I'll get myself into a rambling of thought that will surely get me kicked off of the boards. I will return to the discussion of FF books and X-Men books soon enough though. But for now, I'm deep into this "Spinning Wheel" and it's so therapeutic. If only I could recruit The Shadow to help me solve this personal mystery and tragedy! If only... Anyways, tonight I went through and scanned all of my BlueCoal blotters featuring The Shadow and I'm glad I did as I did not realize that I have doubles and even triples in some of these. Of course I'm speaking of the graphics as the business name will always change despite these being pretty rare finds as they are. This one here is my favorite and is the one that was purchased as a plaque from adventurehouse.com. The back of these blotters would mostly feature the BlueCoal logo but sometimes they would just feature a plain blue background made to absorb excess ink. So here is my collection of BlueCoal / Shadow blotters as it stands right now. I've also included the adhesive sticker that I have as well... I'm not sure what this was originally meant for outside of a paper sticker of sorts. And these are the blotters that I've assembled...

And that explains it.

Thank you so much! That would explain the April 1st, 1933 issue.

Hopefully there are some "Shadow Experts" here that can help me understand this... It's my understanding that Street & Smith held a contest in their Detective Story Magazines in 1931 to come up with an image of The Shadow. Based on the December 1931 issue of The Shadow Detective Monthly Magazine, that image came close to what we've all come to know and love and then in March of 1932, the common attributes of the Shadow came together at once on the cover of the Shadow Detective Monthly Magazine. The HC book from Street & Smith, The Living Shadow, which reprinted the April 1931 issue of the Shadow Detective Monthly, is from 1931 as well. Where did that image come from for the cover?!

I just posted this in another thread here on the boards but now I am very, very confused about something that I never thought of before. I think I'll have to start a thread elsewhere to try and find the answer... Sorry about this not being a comic but it was Street & Smith's cross marketing for their Shadow Detective Monthly Magazine that was found in their February 13th, 1932 issue of Love Story Magazine. The image is that of James LaCurto who was the first to voice the narration of The Shadow on the Detective Story Hour radio show in 1930. (Sadly, not my copy...)

Sorry about this not being a comic but it was Street & Smith's cross marketing for their Shadow Detective Monthly Magazine that was found in their February 13th, 1932 issue of Love Story Magazine. The image is that of James LaCurto who was the first to voice the narration of The Shadow on the Detective Story Hour radio show in 1930. (Sadly, not my copy...)

Before I forget, I have to put this awesome video on here that I just stumbled onto a couple of weeks ago featuring some 30 year old interviews with Anthony Tollin. Just seeing some of his collection is wonderful to look at!

CGC has put notations on many books claiming "prototypes" and such. This one here on Challengers of the Unknown #3, though not claiming to be a "prototype issue", is a good example... As far as the Case of the Chemical Syndicate vs. Partners of Peril, I have read that even Bill Finger admitted that he took the story from a Shadow story. Anthony Tollin and Will Murray have spoken about this and there are numerous sources for that. This issue of Alter Ego Magazine #176 July 2022, lightly touches on it. This video here illustrates the similarities... And this one here is a little long, but kind of fun as they explore more of the same. And I often mock Google and our AI in general, but this is what first appears when doing a 2 second "Google search" on the topic...