The Collected Shadow Comic Strip

The Shadow began to appear in newspaper comic strips (through the Ledger Syndicate) on June 17, 1942.  The stories were written by Shadow creator Walter B. Gibson and the artwork was provided by Vernon Green.  Unfortunately the comic strip was ended after only two years of publication.  According to one account, it was ended due to the impact of World War II on newspapers - needing more room for war news and printing fewer papers due to the paper shortage.

In 1988, Eternity Comics began publishing The Shadow comic strips in a collection entitled, Crime Classics.  There are 13 issues, with the final issue publishing in November of 1989.

I was able to find a copy of Crime Classics #1, here are a few pictures from the comic.

Front Cover

Inside Front Cover

I like that the stories are written by Walter B. Gibson and the artwork is pretty good.  I can imagine the difficulty in taking a book-length Shadow novel and trying to make it appealing in comic strip form.  However, some of the depictions of The Shadow aren't that great - like in the photo above where The Shadow says, "My own automatic!"  I'm trying to figure out what that is covering his face!  But the picture below it is awesome - classic Shadow!

If you want to read all The Shadow comic strips, I recommend you get your copies of these Crime Classics!