‘Alter Ego’ #176: Street & Smith’s comicbook empire

As a long-time comicbook reader, I have always enjoyed the excellent fanzines and books that have come from Twomorrows Publishing over the years. They publish Jack Kirby Collector, Back Issue, Alter Ego, Comicbook Creator, and more. While they have had issues that focused on smaller publishers that later became books, they’ve really not done much specifically on pulp-inspired comic book works other than some coverage of Tarzan and the like. Until now…

In the latest issue of Alter Ego, #176 (July 2022), there is a long cover feature article on Street & Smith’s comicbook line, along with some associated articles. This article is the deepest dive I’ve seen on S&S’s comicbooks, and it’s a pretty good work. It was written by Mark Carlson-Ghost, whom I’m not familiar with.

The article starts off with giving a background on Street & Smith and its beginning as a dime-novel publisher. While this article is focused on their comic books, we will learn about what is going on with the main publisher as well, as this has an impact. Most of us know that S&S shifted from dime novels to pulp magazines, and one of their main dime-novel characters was Nick Carter, who briefly made the transition to the pulps, but soon ended. Later on after they got into radio shows, Walter Gibson would create The Shadow for them in 1931, and from there we got Doc Savage and the other pulp heroes. But it would be awhile before we got comics.

We learn here that the problem is that S&S did all their printing in-house, and they weren’t geared to doing four-color comics. So it wouldn’t be until 1940 that we’d see any comics. And following the style of comics of the time, the titles would be anthologies, with several stories in each one. Several of S&S’s pulp heroes got stories (The Shadow, Doc Savage, Nick Carter, Pete Rice, The Skipper, Click Rush, The Avenger, Carrie Cashin, Bill Barnes, and more), but also original characters were created as well.

It’s interesting to learn that John W. Campbell‘s superhuman Iron Munro was planned as a lead character, but didn’t happen. Guess there was fear of upsetting DC Comics. Also interesting is that Gibson wanted to write the comic, but was turned down at first. He would then write The Shadow comic strip, which was re-used in the comic book.  More about the strip soon.

We get a lot of information on individual titles, with lots of sample covers and interior artwork, and nice sidebar information. Gibson got into writing for the S&S comics through Blackstone the Magician. Due to a partnership with Blackstone, Gibson would write the Blackstone comic books.

As noted, S&S created some original characters, and we learn about them, such as Supersnipe, the kid with the most comics in the world, and the ultra-violent Red Dragon. Gibson would finally get to write the Shadow Comics, where we also got Shadow, Junior. But when Gibson got let go from writing The Shadow pulps, this ended his tenure on the comics, including the Blackstone comics, which moved to another publisher.

The changes that occurred at S&S that ended the pulps would also end the comics, and this is well covered here. We do get a little of the post S&S comics that used their characters. I would love to see them do a followup by someone on this topic.

The author also provides an article looking at a baker’s dozen of very short-lived S&S heroes.

Rounding out the issue are a few other articles from others. Will Murray provides an interview with Walter Gibson from 1985 where he talks of his involvement with the S&S comics. He also has an addendum looking at the origin of the S&S comics and their planned use of Campbell’s Iron Munro character.

From Anthony Tollin, we get a couple of articles reprinted from the Sanctum Books‘ The Shadow reprints. The first is an article on artist Vernon Greene, who drew both The Shadow comic book and comic strip. This was reprinted from the Sanctum’s The Shadow #110. From The Shadow #9 is on the influence of The Shadow on Batman, in particular the story “Partners in Peril.”

All told, this is a great issue. There are other articles in the issue, as these only took up about 60 percent of the issue. Hopefully this will prove propular for the publisher. I could see other related topics they could do. Maybe a focus on the later use of The Shadow and Doc in the comics (Marvel, DC, Archie, etc.), other pulp characters adopted to comics like The Spider. I think an issue on just Tarzan in the comics or Zorro in the comics would be excellent as well. Or the various pulp-inspired comicbook characters I’ve posted on here.