What I'm reading now

This is the volume I'm reading at the moment.

This is the story I'm nearly finished with.

This is the novel I was first introduced to featuring this wonderful early tale.  Long ago, back in my youth.

My daily desktop

Keeps me pulpy all day long.

Karl Kerschl does The Shadow

I'm a sucker for gray scale illustrations.  I like the hat although the hat band is a bit too pronounced.  And, of course, I don't care for the scarf but other than that I like this little sketch.

Have a Happy & Heroic Thanksgiving

Wishing all agents a very Happy & pulpy Thanksgiving.

Another favorite and the covers it spawned

Not for the quality of the painting but for the influence this cover had on another hero of mine... The Bat-Man.  Even Neal Adams did an homage,

although he was just updating the cover that was drawn so early in Bruce Wayne's career.

Just filling in with some of my favorite covers

So simple yet so very effective.  I try to look at these through the eyes of a young me if I were seeing them on the stands for the first time.  The two weeks (and later whole month) of anticipation between issues would have me at the newsstand the day it was supposed to hit the racks.  I do the same thing at my local comic shop these days with the reprints.  This cover would've have gotten me very excited to know what lay beneath the cover.  

Settling on a new game

After the Thanksgiving holiday this week Under the Blue Light will try a new game.  Not sure if it will be as easy as the cover clews that have been shown the past few years, but here's hoping the Master's agents will give it a whirl, nonetheless.

Marshall Rogers does The Shadow

Rogers and Englehart's Batman run was one of my favorites back in the day.  It's fun to see him do the traditional Shadow.  Not my favorite version but fun anyhow.

The Stars Promise Death

Looks like a Sci Fi pulp cover by a Finlay imitator.  This just ain't The Shadow.  And this review supports this observation.

Second and final clew

How ethereal.

Go towards the light

This may signify the light at the end of the tunnel for the covers.  I will have to come up with another game to play.

The Robot Master

Meh.  Not my cuppa but I guess it's an alright representation of the editorial staff trying to keep up with the times.  It really doesn't represent The Shadow very well.  I have not read this one and it will be sometime before I do as this is from 1943 and I'm still working my way through the early to mid '30s.  If you haven't read this and need a little info check out this review.

Thank you to all of our veterans

We owe our freedom to those who fought and continue to fight for us.

What combination of clews will get this cover figured out?

Right... Left... Right.

VOTE!!!!

The Shadow didn't fight so that we would just sit back and let others decide for us.

The Shadow's Nose?

Easy clew to give your brains a break from this relentless election season.

Merry Mrs. MacBeth

I'll let John Olsen comment on this cover in this excerpt from his review .

  "A quick comment about the cover of the pulp magazine. The Shadow was not shown on the cover, but that was becoming standard by 1945. The Shadow was rarely depicted on the cover by this time. What was noteworthy was the the cover showed a radio microphone on a stand. And it had nothing to do with the story whatsoever! The microphone was a small part of the cover, not the central part. But it still was strange to see a radio mic when radio was never even mentioned in the story. Perhaps a homage to The Shadow's radio show? One wonders..."

I have no idea how the story is but I can say that the cover does nothing for me.

Second clew

Don't let this one weigh you down.

Midweek clew

What could be causing this bespectacled citizen such anxiety? Take a stab at this cover clew, agents.

The Blackest Mail

Not gonna drag out this one with multiple clews.  Not the worst cover but other than that rather poor cast shadow that rims the foreground figure's right arm there is nothing that indicates (other than the masthead) this to be an adventure of The Shadow.  This is the first of the Bruce Elliott novels and Mr. Olsen says it's bad as a tale of The Dark Eagle but not bad as just a plain mystery novel.  Take it for what you will.