Pulp Power: The Shadow, Doc Savage, and the Art of the Street & Smith Universe

by Neil McGinness, Frank Miller (Foreword), Dan DiDio (Contributor)

A visual treasury of the iconic Street & Smith pulp novel covers of the 1930s and 1940sPulp Power: The Shadow, Doc Savage, and the Art of the Street & Smith Universe gives fans a rare glimpse into the pre-war pulp novel decade of the 1930s, a period of bold action and adventure storytelling that ultimately led to the creation of the comic book and the superheroes we know and love today.

This period, a pre-Batman, pre-Superman golden era of American creativity and artistic excellence, starred two main characters in leading roles: The Shadow and Doc Savage. In more than 500 novels written between 1930 and 1940, The Shadow, Doc Savage, and the Street & Smith universe of characters captivated a generation of Americans with their heroic exploits and inspired a new generation of writers to create a pantheon of comic book superheroes in their mold.

Street & Smith, the renowned publisher of these novels, commissioned leading artists to provide bold and original cover artwork for their publications, and in Pulp Power, hundreds of these eye-catching covers are reproduced as a collection for the first time. Comics legend Dan DiDio provides context for the cover illustrations alongside a narrative discussion of the influence of the Street & Smith superhero universe on legendary creators such as Orson Welles, Truman Capote, Michael Chabon, George Lucas, Agnes Moorehead, James Patterson, Walter Mosley, Dwayne Johnson, Frank Miller, James Bama, Jim Steranko, Jim Lee, Gail Simone, and many more.
The book also includes original line art illustrations from the volumes along with unique reproductions of Shadow ephemera. Pulp Power is the ultimate coffee table collectible book for all who love the world of superheroes.
 

Genres: Art, Nonfiction

352 pages, Hardcover

First published July 26, 2022

Reviews

[Benji's Books · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book for those looking to get into the Pulp Heroes and learn some basic info about them. As promised on the cover, it's mostly a collection of the artwork from both the dime novels and paperback reprints. It could have covered a bit more about the lesser known characters such as the Whisperer or the Avenger, but the info that is there is a good gateway into seeking out more history.

The first half of the book is basically nothing but the Shadow, with maybe twenty-five percent Doc Savage and then everything else in the last quarter. I was so happy to see and read of Steranko's Shadow covers, as that is the kind of stuff I've been looking for. Bama's iconic Doc Savage covers are also covered from the paperback reprints.

I wasn't a huge fan of what was essentially a big ad for the James Patterson Shadow reboot novels coming out, but thankfully it wasn't too excessive. Side note: I would not recommend those to people wanting to get into the character, for reasons I will not get into here.

Overall, this right here is a heavy book full of art, stories and history that I'd recommend to any fans of the pulps. It's a wonderful addition to any coffee table reader's shelf (if they can find the room for it).

[Paul Sutter · Rating 5 out of 5]

When it comes to writing a book review as I have occasionally said in the past, it is not always possible to do a book justice with mere words. Sometimes you have to see something to fully acknowledge its splendor. That is the case with PULP POWER. It is a book that is impressive to the tenth degree, a true coffee table book that you will treasure like the crown jewels (if you had them). Neil McGinness, has created a book that is one-of-a-kind, one that you would want to hand down to future generations if indeed they were interested in classic pulp and comic characters.
Pulp fiction (not the movie) was very popular in the 1920’s, 1930’s, and 1940’s. The term “pulp” was used because the magazines were produced cheaply with lower quality paper and stories that appealed to a select group of readers.
As we discover in PULP POWER, The Shadow almost resembled Dracula, and he was a creature of the night, but one who fought evil wherever it lurked. His alter ego was Lamont Cranston, who later had a girlfriend Margot Lane, who often wanted Lamont to seek other work. The Shadow became a popular radio program, and the announcer’s voice said every time, “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? Only the Shadows knows,” followed by a sinister laugh. Orson Welles was the radio voice of the Shadow and Agnes Moorehead (later of Bewitched fame), was Margo. The Shadow was like the dark knight long before Batman, as mysterious as the night, captivating the attention of pulp and radio lovers everywhere. The Shadow ran for 325 volumes in pulp format, and 677 radio episodes through 1954. The Shadow was discontinued by the Street & Smith company when they created a women’s division for their magazines, launching Mademoiselle magazine.
PULP POWER also features another big name from pulp and paperback days, which was Doc Savage. He used brains and brawn to keep a step ahead of death and danger. It was noted in the book that the Street & Smith art department used a headshot of actor Clark Gable when creating Doc Savage’s earlier looks.
He was just as popular as The Shadow, another action hero on a collision course with evil. He fought evil everywhere from jungles to exotic locations, thwarting the evildoers at every turn.
This informative book looks at other stars of the pulp era including Nick Carter who was said to have started it all, premiering in 1886. He was revived in 1933. The Whisperer, The Skipper, and Supersnipe are among others featured in the book, with the story behind the characters.
The book boasts hundreds of original covers from all mentioned within the book, awe-inspiring and impressive reproductions of the classic covers. The Shadow returned in DC comics decades back, even teamed with Batman in comics. Noted author James Patterson has teamed with Brian Sitts to bring back The Shadow in modern day adventures.
More power to the creators behind PULP POWER, a truly inspirational book for pulp and comic lovers from yesterday and today. Don't let this book pass you by.

[JoeK · Rating 4 out of 5]

A physically heavy and lavishly illustrated book. I think this might be the only coffee-table book on the subject of Pulp art, certainly the only one I've heard of. Although it concentrates exclusively on the Street and Smith publishers (probably for legal reasons) it does branch out a bit into current comics by Marvel, DC and Dynamite.

Visually this book is amazing. There are many full-page illustrations of the original (I assume) cover art. Many of the smaller images are of the printed covers, but in very good condition, which is rare for these older titles. There are also some real gems, visually and informationally, in the images of Dwight Fuhro's Shadow memorabilia collection. It appears that the Shadow appeared in as many as two balloons in Macy's Parades.

Minor quibbles that I have are that many of the Doc Savage pulp covers had the logo added to them, In many cases it appears that the original artist blocked in the logo for positioning, but in some cases it seems that it was added in for this printing of the book, this is especially apparent on the covers where "by Kenneth Robeson" is added in a modern computer script font that looks nothing like the original printed cover. Is this Conde Nast's attempt to claim copyright on Images that should be in the public domain soon? Probably not legal, and it just crapped up some nice images.

Another quibble I have is with some of the author's captions which seem off-the-cuff and in some cases, just plain wrong. For example, on page 282 Doc Savage is depicted standing in snow on the top of a mountain and the caption starts: "Stuck in quicksand, Doc Savage...". I think there were five or six such occurrences like this that really brought me out of the book, and made this feel like it was created to sell James Patterson's new books, instead of a labour of love.

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall a good book with lush reproductions of Street & Smith pulp classic covers (and a whole chapter dedicated to the 1970s paperback revival covers). It's marred only slightly by periodically advertising (rather heavy-handedly) the new James Patterson revivals of The Shadow and Doc Savage...which are a thing, I guess.

[Du · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars. Beautifully produced. Really enjoyable overview of the history of these pulp heros and their publication.

[Emily Posthumus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super interesting! Lots of pulps that I didn't know existed.

[Plum · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably the most beautiful pulp art book ever produced.

[Brock Mclaughlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible. Here’s hoping the shadow makes a big comeback one day.

[Michael Emond · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an easy 5 stars for me because it is my dream book. A coffee table sized book with as many of The Shadow covers from the pulp age as you can cram into it. Reproduced perfectly and blown up to a size to reflect their importance in the world of pulp fiction and their influence on the comics to come.

As an added bonus - put in the Doc Savage covers and let me know a bit about this pulp hero I had only heard little about and reveal to me how he was the clear inspiration for Superman the Man of Steel (Doc Savage the Man of Bronze). I really only knew about him from the covers of the 1970's reprints (which is talked about in this book as well along with the covers) and he seemed very off-putting from those covers. On THOSE covers he has weird white hair in an odd widow's peak (this was demanded by the publisher of the books) and he was labelled the man of bronze - so I thought he was a weird alien or something. In this book I get to discover - no - he was a human and the original pulp covers depict more as the man he was. And I find out that tag "man of bronze" just meant he was very tanned. Still odd to me now that that is was the tag-line (look at how tanned he is!! marvel at his potential skin cancer!!)...Man of Science would be more fitting. In the end he was a bit more Batman than Superman. A man who had honed his skills to the upmost - brain, brawn, sense of justice. I could go on about him but he is something I want to learn more about. I saw a really bad movie with him in it recently (made in 1975) and wonder if his team of buddies and him have the potential to be rebooted. One thing that is intriguing is he would sometimes do brain surgery on the bad guys to take out the "evil" in them so they could be released as useful members of society. While this reprogramming is distasteful to our modern sensibilities I do wonder why we are so against it...is the death penalty better than "removing criminal desires" from a person? But I digress...

You also get a look at Nick Carter - the first pulp hero from Street and Smith (and let me be clear this book - as the title informs - focuses on Street and Smith pulp heroes), you get also rans like The Avenger, Justice Inc. (who were rebooted in comics) and never rans like Skipper and Captain Fury and Supersnipe (very weird).

The perfect part of this book is the covers...the reason this book exists. The art (for me) is beautiful and deserves to be hung in galleries instead of appearing on disposable books like the pulps and I am glad this collection gives them their deserved attention. I love the idea of the Shadow and those covers capture my imagination inviting me into the world of crime and mystery that his stories conveyed.

The good part of the book is a superficial look at pulps through the years. It is not great because a lot of details are left out (e.g Lester Dent is mentioned as the author of those original Doc Savage pulps but they forget to tell us he wrote under the pen name Kenneth Robeson - so when we see the Doc Savage covers "by Kenneth Robeson..I was confused...thank you internet or I would still be confused). It is supposed to be a superficial look of pulps but some better details and clearer writing would have helped.

The "skip over" is the last few chapters. They try to look at how the pulp heroes have been rebooted in recent years. It is not well written and without the covers I am not sure this part needed to be here.

But overall - love this book. As I said - it is my dream book. These old pulp covers deserved a book like this. And the look at some of the forgotten pulp heroes was truly interesting to me.

[Emmy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This huge book weighs about five pounds and it was hard to find a comfortable reading position for long periods of time. That being said, pulp fans will love the fascinating facts, high-quality color pictures of various book covers, and comic book concept art. I'm a big pulp fan and while I knew a lot of what I read, I was pleased to still find some surprises. All in all, a great read.

My only complaint was the high praise given to Patterson's (then new) Shadow series. I've yet to talk to a pulp fan who liked those books. My disappointment at how Patterson handled the IP is staggering, so it left a bad taste in my mouth to hear about how Patterson "loves" the franchise and can't wait to present these classic characters to a new generation (even though he just mashed it up, messed it around, and spat it back out).

That being said, this review is not about Patterson, but about Neil McGinness's book, which again, I really enjoyed!

[Paul Dinger · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great introduction to pulp fiction, something which has sadly to some extent gone by the way side. It is a great introduction to characters like Justice Inc, The Shadow, and the grand daddy Doc Savage. I enjoyed the pages and the art from those bygone days. I was introduced to the Shadow in the late eighties with Howard Chaykin's mini series from DC and the great series that DC did with Andy Helfer and Kyle Baker, which would have been better if they didn't kill off the main character right off the bat, a mistake DC made with Doc Savage in his first mini series. I recommend this if you want to find out, it will blow your mind.

[Glenn Hopp · Rating 3 out of 5]

The pictures are great. It is a book made for browsing, I guess. Some of the text is very good and informative, and some of it (about the lesser-known series) could have been a bit fuller.

[Steve Roylance · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s a coffee table book. But actually well written and thought provoking. Modern media as we understand it began with the pulps.