Preview: THE SHADOW #13 Cover by Francesco Francavilla

Who Knows What Evil...?

Francesco Francavilla does, as this cover for #13 of Dynamite's Shadow comic book demonstrates!

BTW, if you want more The Shadow stuff, have a look at...

The never-reprinted 1994 Alec Baldwin movie adaptation HERE!
(PLUS, a never-reprinted Gene Colan spoof of The Shadow radio show called "The Shadower", and a comic adaptation of a radio show episode HERE!)

The Shadow's never-reprinted Bronze Age adventures with The Batman and The Avenger as well as never-reprinted Frank Robbins-illustrated stories (as well as the first part of the Shadow radio show adaptation) HERE!

The Shadow's never-reprinted, campy costumed Silver Age adventures HERE!

Reading Room: WEIRD ADVENTURES "Man Who Lived Backwards"

What if someone tried to prevent you from reaching tomorrow...

...and the only way you could move forward was to kill him in the past?

Check out this never-reprinted tale from Ziff-Davis' one-shot Weird Adventures #10 (1951) for the answer!

So, even though Paul had a change of heart, and tried to save David, his rival for Peggy died anyway, and Paul ended up with the woman they both loved!
What's the moral?
You can change history, even if you don't intend to?
Being good, even if it may be to your personal detriment, will be rewarded in the end?
Ah, well, I guess there are some things we're not meant to understand...
It may be just as well that both the writer and artist are unknown.

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Reading Room: "Robots of Ra"

For sheer weirdness (not to mention incomprehensibility), few stories can top this tale...

...from the back of Youthful's Captain Science #2 (1951)

You'll note the art style for this never-reprinted story varies wildly from page to page.

The credited artist, Walter Johnson, depended heavily on assistants to produce a high volume of pages for the various comics companies (including Avon, St John, Fiction House, and Youthful Publications) he supplied art to!

The work of several different illustrators with varying levels of draftsmanship is apparent on this one story, including one or more who swipe from both Flash Gordon's Alex Raymond and Phantom Lady's Matt Baker!

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Reading Room: WEIRD THRILLERS "The Menace of R-Day"

In the 1950s, it was thought that war could be ended by 1999...

...and that other menaces would threaten the Earth, instead!

This somewhat-hokey, but entertaining, sci-fi tale from Ziff-Davis' Weird Thrillers #1 (1951) was both penciled and inked by Ross Andru.

Andru would later partner with Mike Esposito with Ross as the penciler and Mike doing the inking.

Whether this was because Esposito was faster at inking than Ross, or Andru enjoyed doing only pencils is unknown.

Considering Andru seemed pretty damn good at inking, it's a pity he eventually gave it up.

BTW, the writer of this never-reprinted tale of mechanical mayhem is unknown.

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Reading Room: OUTER SPACE "His Own Little World"

After co-creating Spider-Man and Dr Strange, Steve Ditko left Marvel Comics...

...in a dispute over credits and royalties for reprints and licensed merchandise based on his co-creations.

He continued to work for almost everyone else in the industry, including one of his early haunts, Charlton Comics, where, besides co-creating the new Blue Beetle and The Question, he revamped his first super-hero co-creation, Captain Atom, and also illustrated numerous sci-fi and horror one-shots, like this one!

If you compare this tale from Charlton's Outer Space V2N1 (1968) to Ditko's earlier work, you'll see it appears to be less-detailed.

But that's actually an optical illusion!

Before 1967-68, comic book art was usually drawn twice as large (12 1/2" x 18 1/2") as the size it was printed at.

In '67-68, the primary comic color separation company, Chemical Color Plate, changed the original art size to the smaller 1 1/2 times printed size (10" x 15") so more pages could fit on their photostat cameras' platen at a time in order to both speed up the production process and reduce costs.

The major comic companies, who provided paper to their artists free of charge, quickly began providing the smaller-size stock, to encourage the transition.

It appears this story was done on the smaller-size paper.

So, while Ditko was still inking at the same detail-level he had done previously, because the art wasn't reduced as much as it was earlier, the final product looked less-detailed!

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