Tue May 27, 2008 — by Robert Greenberger

Interview: Bob Rozakis on Creating an Alternate History for the Comics Industry

What if Green Lantern and Flash were today's Superman and Batman?

The notion of retelling history with a twist has become a very popular sub-section of fiction, heavily mined by Harry Harrison and by Philip Roth. In comic books, Marvel’s What If? title and DC’s Elseworlds imprint also explored possible scenarios.  But no one has ever looked at how a single element could propel comic book history in an entirely new direction.

Until now, that is.

Bob Rozakis has begun writing a series of articles tracing just such an alternate history for TwoMorrows’ Alter Ego and Back Issue. Rozakis is certainly no stranger to comics, given his lengthy tenure as DC’s Production Manager, co-creator of ‘Mazing Man, and writer of titles such as Superman, Freedom Fighters and Secret Society of Super-Villains.

COMICMIX: As DC’s "Answer Man," what can you tell me about the origins of your new article series?

BOB ROZAKIS: I had proposed an Elseworlds back in 1998; just after I left staff, in which Green Lantern and Flash were the heroes who survived the Golden Age instead of Superman and Batman. In addition to the story itself, I had created an "outside the box" chunk of history to go with it. The proposal was rejected, but the idea kept percolating.  Finally, I approached Roy Thomas and Michael Eury with the concept of writing the entire alternate history and they were both quite enthusiastic.

CMix: What was the key event that would change comic book history?

BR: In 1946, after spinning off his All-American Comics line from DC, Max Gaines sold his share back to Harry Donenfeld and Jack Liebowitz. In my alternate reality, Gaines buys them out instead... and the DC line becomes part of AA Comics.

Continue reading Interview: Bob Rozakis on Creating an Alternate History for the Comics Industry ›

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Tue Mar 25, 2008 — by Robert Greenberger

ComicMix Exclusive Interview: Joe Lansdale on 'Pigeons from Hell'

Dark Horse taps noted horror scribe for Robert E. Howard adaptation

Joe Lansdale is a prolific author of horror stories, both short and novel-length, including Drive In and Bubba Ho-Tep.  He’s also no stranger to comics, having partnered with Timothy Truman for projects featuring  such characters as Jonah Hex and The Lone Ranger, and has even written for Batman: The Animated Series and other television series.

This spring, Dark Horse Comics is releasing his four-part miniseries, Pigeons from Hell, adapting a story by Robert E. Howard.  It’s Lansdale's first time working with artist Nathan Fox, and he recently sat down for a brief chat with ComicMix and a preview of the first issue.

COMICMIX: Thanks for agreeing to chat, Joe.  This is not your first work with Robert E. Howard.  You previously wrote a Conan miniseries. So tell me, what is it about Howard that you like?

JOE LANSDALE: Howard has always appealed to me because there is a raw storytelling talent at work, and he has a Texas background, and like me, he lived in a small town where the sort of profession he pursued was not entirely understood. I always thought he appealed to the little boy in all of us, and by that, I mean that part of us that loves a good raw story. He appeals to that aspect in all of us. Like Jack London, The Call of the Wild is eternal. I don't think Howard had the same depth that some of London's work had, but it has the same primal element, if not the social element. Thing is, I don't consider that bad or lesser, just different.

CMix: Did you ask to write Pigeons from Hell, or was it an assignment?

JL: I think it was mentioned to me by the film company that has Howard's work, because I had written the Conan miniseries. It had been well-received, and I mentioned Pigeons From Hell, and it was thought an update might be fun, since Dark Horse had already done a literal adaptation, so, it just sort of snowballed from there and Dark Horse was for it. [It was] kind of an accident.

CMix: How did you approach expanding and adapting a prose work into a four-issue miniseries?

JL: I tried to use the original story as the frame, and I tried to bring younger contemporary characters into it. Howard's work was of its time, and it could be casually racist, so I wanted to avoid that. I also added more mystical elements. Again, a perfect adaptation had already been done for the comics before, and there was a really good Thriller episode of the story years ago, though now it seems a little dated, so I wanted to approach it in a different manner. I think the story is still true to the original in most ways.

CMix: What is it about Howard’s work that you think still makes it relevant today?

JL: I think it's the pure storytelling. You can learn to be a better writer with effort and time, but that is something that seems almost inborn, though I'm not sure how to explain it. But he has it, and the work is recyclable and constant.

Continue reading ComicMix Exclusive Interview: Joe Lansdale on 'Pigeons from Hell' ›

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Mon Jan 7, 2008 — by Robert Greenberger

Superhero Novelizations for 2008

Iron Man, Hulk, Indiana Jones, Batman, and Hellboy on deck

With the summer super-hero blockbusters come the inevitable novelizations. It used to be almost every movie from every genre would receive the prose treatment but with time, that has been winnowed dramatically.  These days it appears just the genre films get the attention and not even all those receive a book. 

The blockbuster, tent pole films for 2008 will be receiving not only novelizations but tie-in and spin-off books galore.  One, Speed Racer, does not have a novelization but a ton of related books for the younger audiences.

Here's a look at the 2008 novelization list, in order of film release, with some rather familiar names attached:
   
Iron Man by Peter David
Speed Racer, none scheduled
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull by James Rollins
Incredible Hulk by Peter David
Wanted, none scheduled
Get Smart, none scheduled
Hellboy II: The Golden Army by Robert Greenberger
The Dark Knight by Dennis O'Neil
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, unknown
The X-Files 2, none scheduled
Punisher: War Zone, none scheduled
Star Trek, unknown

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Fri Dec 7, 2007 — by Robert Greenberger

Romance! Action! Prose!

Super-hero super-love without the pictures

It used to be, the most successful comic book heroes would eventually wind up in prose.  These days, with superheroes fully integrated into mainstream America, it’s no surprise that several novelists have taken their own, unique looks at the genre.  Already this year we’ve had the well received Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman and Perry Moore’s Hero.  It’s no surprise, then, that the romance genre would also introduce their own take on the subject.
 
Long-time comic book fan and one-time DC Comics staffer Elizabeth M. Flynn, writing as Ellis Flynn, has produced Introducing Sonika.  The novel is an eBook, available from Cerridwen Press as of December 13.
 
According to the publisher, “Sonika is actually 28-year-old Sonya Penn, a Gen Y gal working hard as a physical therapist in order to pay off the enormous medical bills that remained after her parents’ deaths. Like so many of her generation, her career has left her no time for romance. But unlike so many others like her, the medical bills she’s working hard to pay off were incurred when her super-hero parents were killed by their arch-nemesis, Gentleman Geoffrey.
 
“Sonya could hardly know that when she met her newest client, he would not only turn out to be John Arlen, the heir to an engineering fortune, but that he, too, was injured by a super-villain.

Continue reading Romance! Action! Prose! ›

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Tue Oct 23, 2007 — by Robert Greenberger

Is Manga a Passing Fad?, by Robert Greenberger

Sales fade in Japan, a harbinger for America

Well, duh.

That was my first reaction when I read USA Today’s story regarding Manga’s loosening grip on readers in Japan.

After all, we lived through it in America starting some 30 years ago, where three things happened around mid-decade:

1. Cable television was introduced and began snaking through the country, suddenly captivating television watchers and keeping them watching with extra channels, premium movies and so on.
2. At much the same time, the first home video games were also capturing peoples’ attention.  I still remember being fascinated playing Pong on the playroom television and then flipping to watch an uncut movie on HBO.
3. The rise of the direct sales distribution system for comic books, which began an evolution away from readers finding comics at the local stationary shop and towards hole-in-the-wall outlets that sold comics and related stuff.

Continue reading Is Manga a Passing Fad?, by Robert Greenberger ›

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Fri Sep 21, 2007 — by Robert Greenberger

Superhero Casting Announced

Capes and tights due for satire

While Mike Gold shared the news about the honest-to-goodness JLA movie, another project was also announced yesterday.

Dimension Films will be producing the inevitable spoof entitled, what else, Superhero. The casting has been completed with filming about to begin and a March 28, 2008 release date set.

The film features perennial spoof master Leslie Neilsen, in addition to Brent Spiner (Star Trek: The Next Generation), Marion Ross (Happy Days), the amazing Jeffrey Tambor (Arrested Development), Drake Bell (High Fidelity), Sara Paxton (Sydney White), Christopher McDonald (Fanboys), Kevin Hart (Scary Movie 4), and Ryan Hansen (Veronica Mars).  The satire will be written and directed by Craig Mazin (Scary Movie 3 and 4).

Of course, Mystery Men was a wonderful superhero spoof ahead of its time, so we’ll reserve judgment until next spring.

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Tue Sep 18, 2007 — by Robert Greenberger

Speed Racer's Return to Comics

IDW Adds Title

The deals are taking their positions by the pole, ready to make “Go, Speed Racer, go,” next year’s biggest catch phrase.  Just announced by Speed Racer Enterprises are a series of new licensing deals; the most interesting (to you readers) is IDW landing comic book rights.

In addition to all new comics, they have the rights to collect previous incarnations of the anime series, one of the earliest to be imported from Japan.  There have been eleven different comic series from publishers including Now, Malibu, and DC Comics with the earliest dating back to 1990.

IDW expects to have their first releases out in the first quarter of 2008 to catch the anticipation of the new feature length film from the Wachowskis, due May 9.  Speed racer joins IDW’s growing line of licensed books which already includes Angel, Star Trek, and Transformers.

A new animated series, entitled Speed Racer: The Next Generation, will also debut with twenty-six episodes on Nicktoons.  LionsGate has already announced the first DVD collection of this series will also be available in 2008. The original fifty-two episodes are already available in a multi-volume DVD set.

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Wed Sep 12, 2007 — by Robert Greenberger

Star Trek Readies to Leave Drydock

ComicMix separates facts from rumors for you

With its 41st anniversary just a week past, the saying “Star Trek Lives!” has never been more true.  The franchise has spent the year retooling and gearing up for a major relaunch in late 2008.

The details, though, get murky as people mix rumor with fact.  We here at ComicMix are happy to help divide wheat from chaff so we may all live long and prosper.

The eleventh feature film is entitled simply Star Trek and will be released on December 25, 2008. The story, early drafts of which have already leaked out, was written by the new hit team of Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci.  Producing will be the Lost duo J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof with Abrams directing.  Abrams’ frequent collaborator, Michael Giacchino, has already signed to write the score.

Now comes the tricky part – the casting.

As of today, only three parts are official: Spock to be played by the inimitable Leonard Nimoy and Heroes antagonist Zachary Quinto and Chekov, to be played by newcomer Anton Yelchin (pictured above).

That’s it.

Many actors have expressed an interest in a variety of roles.  Such is Abrams’ relationship with his cast that many veterans have said they’d happily board the newly designed U.S.S. Enterprise if Abrams but asked.  As a result, gossip mongers have already cast Tom Cruise as Captain Christopher Pike (James T. Kirk’s predecessor).  Greg Grunberg, who has been in every Abrams production is expected to have a role, be it large or small, human or alien.  Today’s media dump includes word that Jennifer Garner owes Abrams so much she would don Vulcan ears if he wanted.

Beyond that, for the last month, word has been circulating, reaching a deafening crescendo this week that Russell Crowe is Paramount Pictures’ choice for the bad guy (whoever or whatever that may be).  Promoting 3:10 to Yuma, co-star Christian Bale told the press Crowe would be perfect for the film.  Today’s New York Post continues to speculate Crowe is a signature away from beaming aboard the film.

Beyond that, the roles of Kirk, Leonard McCoy, Montgomery Scott, Hikaru Sulu and Uhura remain uncast.  Sure, William Shatner has been publicly campaigning to return from the dead but as of now, nothing formal has been announced.

Production begins in November and will include two weeks shooting in Iceland. There will be eleven buildings on the Paramount lot dedicated to sets for the expansive, eighty-five day shoot.  Along with the studios’ Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, these make for two of next year’s most eagerly awaited movies (let alone topping the must see sequel lists).

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Wed Sep 5, 2007 — by Robert Greenberger

Summer Box Office Closing Report

The summer is now officially over and our minds are already beginning to turn to… the Christmas movie season.  But first, let’s take stock and see where we are with comic book-based movies.  We have just one left for release this year, the feature version of Steve Niles’ 30 Days of Night, but that’s waiting for the appropriate Halloween period.

Much has been made of the $4 billion summer box office and how it set a new record, until you adjust for inflation and then it doesn’t beat 2002.  Studios say that’s okay, because the hits will also prove strong sellers this holiday season in DVD (regular, HD-DVD, Blu-Ray, collect them all!).  With average ticket prices creeping up to $6.85 (it’s $10.25 in Connecticut, where on earth is it only $6.85?), the receipts have also risen.

Here’s an updated look at the genre films released this year with their total box office to date followed by their budgets. Again, following that logic, 300 remains the clear winner by traditional Hollywood logic.  When all the home video sales get counted next spring, we’ll see if that remains the case.

Ghost Rider, $115,802,596 / $110,000,000
300, $210,250,922 / $65,000,000
TMNT, $42,273,609 / $34,000,000
Spider-Man 3, $336,530,303 / $258,000,000
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, $131,451,007 / $130,000,000
Stardust, August 10, $31,912,000 to date / $70,000,000

Continue reading Summer Box Office Closing Report ›

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Thu Aug 16, 2007 — by Robert Greenberger

Fantastic Voyage gets a facelift

Classic sci-fi film to be remade

Fantastic Voyage, the 1966 feature film to begin a new cycle of “serious” science fiction on the big screen, is being remade at 20th Century Fox. The film is being helmed by Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, Godzilla) with National Treasure’s Marianne and Cormac Wibberley in talks to write the new version. Emmerich toyed with the remake possibilities a decade back and only got re-interested when he saw a draft from the writers.

The original film, directed by Richard Fleischer (Doctor Doolittle, Soylent Green) and turned into a novel by Isaac Asimov, was known for its concept, its cutting edge special effects and the fantastic notion of Raquel Welch as a scientist.

Should this actually get produced, the earliest audiences can revisit the human bloodstream from the inside will be 2009.

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Tue Jul 31, 2007 — by Robert Greenberger

Wolfman, Niles, Mariotte Snag Scribes

First ever ceremony held in San Diego

On Sunday at San Diego Comic-Con, the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers held a mid-afternoon program where their first Scribe Awards were handed out.

Member Andy Mangels played host to a small but enthusiastic crowd as they watched winners in attendance collect their prizes.  The association was formed so the best-selling category of fiction could be acknowledged as a category of its own, joining groups for authors of Thrillers, Mysteries, Horror, Fantasy and Science Fiction.

There were six categories and Jeff Mariotte snagged two of them in a bit of a surprise given the volume of works submitted.

The winners:

Speculative Fiction, Best Novel Adapted: Superman Returns by Marv Wolfman

Speculative Fiction, Best Novel Original: 30 Days of Night: Rumors of the Undead by Stephen Niles and Jeff Mariotte

General Fiction, Best Novel Adapted: Snakes on a Plane by Christa Faust

Best Novel Original: Las Vegas: High Stakes by Jeff Mariotte

Young Adult All Genres, Best Novel: Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Portal Through Time by Alice Henderson

Grandmaster, honoring career achievement in the field: Donald Bain.

Bain was on hand to accept the award in person, thrilled tghat his accomplishments, incouding over 80 novels, were recognized by peers. The IAMTW (www.iamtw.org) is accepting nominations for works in published 2007 with the awards scheduled for next year’s convention.

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Tue Jul 24, 2007 — by Robert Greenberger

Hollywood Casting Announcements Flow Towards San Diego

Comic-Con is upon us and Hollywood studios, like the various publishers, have lined up a series of announcements to whet the appetites of fanboys, geeks, and the mainstream media.  I should note it’s pretty fun the con is receiving more coverage this year than the political conventions will likely receive next year.

Over the last week or so, numerous announcements have been slipping out through the trade press, starting with word that Seth Rogan, riding high from being Knocked Up, will write and star in the long-awaited Green Hornet movie. 

Yesterday, word spread pretty quickly about likely casting for the forthcoming adaptation of Watchmen, being helmed by 300’s Zack Snyder.  Matthew Goode looks to be Adrian Vedit, a.k.a Ozymandias.  Joining him will be Billy Curdrup (Dr. Manhattan), Patrick Wilson (Night Owl) and relative newcomer Malin Ackerman (Silk Spectre).  Jackie Earle Haley, who was recently nominated for an Academy Award, will play the pivotal role of Rorschach.

The Hollywood Reporter, today, added to that by named Disturbia’s director, D.J. Caruso, as the man behind New Line Cinema’s version of Vertigo’s Y the Last Man.  Caruso is paired once more with writer Carl Ellsworth, who cut his teeth writing for Joss Whedon, before leaping to features. J.C. Spink, Chris Bender and Blade’s David Goyer are producing the film, which was optioned some two years ago. The comic book series wraps up a little later this year with nine trade collections currently available.

Additional announcements expected this week include casting for Frank Miller’s directorial debut on The Spirit and maybe some additional word on the long-stalled Wolverine film that now inches towards a green light.

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Tue Jul 3, 2007 — by Robert Greenberger

Analyzing Amazing

Three times a month: uncanny or astonishing?

Marvel Comics announced recently that they will be canceling Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man and Sensational Spider-Man, while upping Amazing Spider-Man from monthly to three times a month.

Editor Steve Wacker explained to WizardWorld, “It's a chance to get more Amazing Spider-Man comics out there, quite honestly. It's because we were already publishing three Spidey books, but what inevitably happens – and it's happened for decades – is that the books that aren't Amazing Spider-Man are the first ones that people drop when they need to re-adjust their lists. So the thought was combine what we're already doing with three titles into one, make them each roll right into one another, almost like a weekly soap opera or television show, and so it's one-stop shopping for your Spider-Man stuff. You know, historically, from Marvel Team-Up from Web of Spider-Man to Peter Parker to even the current books, no matter how good the stories were within there, they were rarely able to come to the same heights sales-wise as Amazing.”

Taking his lessons from running 52, the summer announcement over the creative team will likely involve key figures running the story and art with built in teams assisting both.  Who they are and how they work will remain to be seen.

But, is the theory a correct one?  Will Amazing, selling at over 100,000 copies a month work at that level?  Or will the average monthly sale be closer to the 50-55,000 a month that the canceled titles were averaging? The Back in Black theme to the three titles these last few months should have bumped Sensation and Friendly closer to the flagship title, but the disparity remains sharp.

Odds are, once the dust settles, some four or five months after the changeover, the title will sell lower, possibly splitting the difference.  If so, that puts it in the 70-75,000 range, which is exactly where Ultimate Spider-Man currently resides (down 50,000 copies or so from its first year numbers).  The title has been pumping out 18 issues a year for a while now and the sales have been steady.

Continue reading Analyzing Amazing ›

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Mon Jun 25, 2007 — by Robert Greenberger

The Shadow Knows

Anthony Tollin talks about the Shadow/Batman connection

In the first part of our extensive interview with publisher Anthony Tollin (yesterday), we learned how a story that apepared in The Shadow Magazine some two and a half years prior to Batman's debut, proved to me the template for the Cpaed Crusader's debut in Detective Comics #27.  This is fodder for the historians who have studied what Bob Kane and Bill Finger each brought to the table during the creation of DC's second successful super-hero.  The story will be publsihed this summer in the ninth volume of Shadwo facsimiles being publsihed by Tollin.

Greenberger: How will you celebrate this discovery in volume nine?

Tollin: By pairing it with Doc Savage #8, which showcases Doc's utility belt (which Bill Finger acknowledged was the inspiration for Batman's).  By the way, Doc's utility belt was introduced by ghostwriter Harold A. Davis, Newsday's first Managing Editor. (Davis ran the paper through its first four years, and was succeeded by Alan Hathway, another Doc Savage ghost, who headed the paper for 30 years. Will Murray also provides a dynamite article on the real-life inspiration for both Doc Savage and The Avenger—Richard Henry Savage. The real Savage was a fascinating, larger-than-life American hero, a West Point graduate who served in the U.S. and Egyptian armies before joining the diplomatic corps. In his later years, he wrote more than 40 novels, many of which were based on his own adventurous life. Street & Smith published one of them in 1898, and Henry William Ralston, a recent addition to the Street & Smith staff, never forgot the charismatic Savage. Decades later, as S&S' circulation manager, he launched The Shadow Magazine and developed the characters for Doc Savage and the Avenger, basing elements of all three pulp superheroes on Richard Henry Savage's adventurous life.

And The Shadow #10 will be a super-villains issue, featuring The City of Doom (the second Voodoo Master story which inspired Batman's Doctor Death storyline), The Fifth Face (featuring a master of disguise called Five-Face) and "The Immortal Murderer," a 1944 Alfred Bester Shadow radio script which pits The Shadow against an immortal Neanderthal (and yes, it was a rewrite of Alfie's earlier Vandal Savage story from Green Lantern #10). Along with Sax Rohmer, Walter Gibson pretty much originated the concept of super-crime, and the villains he called super-crooks. In 1933, Gibson introduced a slew of super-villains including The Red Blot, The Wealth Seeker, The Black Falcon and Gray Fist. Others soon followed including The Cobra and Dr, Rodil Mocquino, the Voodoo Master; and years later, Shiwan Khan. Early on, Gibson realized that a superhero like The Shadow needed something more than garden-variety crooks and gangsters to test his mettle, just as Jerry Robinson would later realize that Batman needed his own Moriarty when he created The Joker. In fact, The Shadow's Dr. Mocquino appears to have inspired Batman's first recurring villain, Doctor Death.

Greenberger: What else will be in the book?

Tollin: The Shadow  #9 , our special "Foreshadowing The Batman" volume, reprints "Lingo," one of Walter Gibson's all-time classics which inspired the Batarang, Theodore Tinsley's "Partners of Peril" (the novel that inspired Detective Comics #27's "The Case of the Chemical Syndicate," plus a bonus Tinsley novelette: "The Grim Joker" (featuring a murderous, white-faced crime clown). Next spring, we'll be releasing a special "Foreshadowing The Joker" volume that will reprint Ted Tinsley's "Death's Harlequin" and the 1940 Shadow radio script, "The Laughing Corpse." The latter, broadcast six weeks before Batman #1 debuted, featured a chemical that caused victims to laugh themselves to death, quite similar to The Joker's original M.O. "Death's Harlequin" was on sale the same month as Detective Comics#27 (when we can be pretty sure that Bill Finger was paying close attention to The Shadow Magazine) and pitted The Shadow against a murderous clown who like The Joker was a vision of madness: "The thin lips were drawn away from skull-like teeth. The cheeks were sunken and leathery. Dank black hair lay matted thinly on a baldish scalp the color of old parchment. A living corpse in the costume of a gay Harlequin! With a wide-muzzled gun. And a jeering laugh that made the silence in the room crawl with menace."

Greenberger: Any idea what DC's reaction was when you made them aware of this?

Tollin: Actually, Paul Levitz was quite interested and very cooperative with my request to reprint panels from Detective Comics #27 in the historical articles. Paul recognized that his story was part of Batman's history, and basically just wanted some copies for DC's library.

Greenberger: Do you think this will change people's perceptions of Batman's origins?

Tollin: Actually, my hope is that it alters people's perceptions of The Shadow. Finger and Kane As I observe in my supporting historical article: "The Shadow was a master of disguise. Perhaps his greatest masquerade was transforming himself into Batman, and in that guise continuing his reign as the world's greatest detective superhero into the twenty-first century."

I find it quite interesting that at nearly the same time that DC Comics was taking legal action to eliminate Victor Fox's Wonderman because it was an imitation of Superman, they were about to launch a new character who was a far more blatant imitation of The Shadow, right down to the plots, bat-motif, surroundings, villains and supporting players. At that time, The Shadow was still far more prominent than the recently-launched Superman, since he was featured in the only twice-monthly hero pulp as well as the weekly radio thriller, which was the #1 daytime series in the radio ratings. As pulp publishers of the Spicy line, Harry Donenfeld and Jack Liebowitz and their editors had to realize that Batman was based on The Shadow, even if they didn't know that the plot of the first Batman story was a recycled Shadow novel.

While I want to give proper credit to Walter Gibson and Theodore Tinsley for their part in inspiring Batman, I'm certainly not out to tarnish Batman or Bill Finger. I have no animosity towards Batman. I'm actually very fond of the character, and Adrienne [Roy] and I used to jokingly refer to our New Jersey home as "the house that Batman bought." While Batman started out as a clone of The Shadow, the feature came into its own with the introduction of Robin, which added a touch of humanity to the formerly grim Batman that was lacking in The Shadow. Robin was almost certainly inspired by Junior Tracy, but it was just what the feature needed at the time. And of course, the succession of wonderful villains that began with The Joker and Catwoman in Batman #1 and continued with The Penguin, Two-Face, The Scarecrow, Clayface and The Riddler made Batman a very special feature. While Finger's first Batman story was a blatant swipe of a Shadow novel, he quickly developed into one of comics' greatest and most-innovative scriptwriters.

Greenberger: Are there other parallels between The Shadow and Batman?

Tollin: Certainly. I've recently spotted several more early Bat-stories that were lifted from Shadow novels. Readers will be able to compare for themselves when I reprint "Serpents of Siva" in The Shadow Volume 12. The Golden-Age Batman lifted The Shadow's suction cup climbing device, autogiro, and "yellow boomerang," along with the friendship with the Gotham police commissioner. But the most lasting influence is to be found in Batman's talent for escaping deathtraps, which started in his debut story when he escaped from the same glass gas chamber that The Shadow escaped from in "Partners of Peril." This mastery of escape was The Shadow's most lasting legacy to Batman, a legacy from Houdini to his biographer/ghostwriter Walter Gibson and on to Bill Finger's Batman via The Shadow.

Greenberger: How is this line performing and what's coming after this?

Tollin: Each Shadow and Doc Savage volume has outsold the previous, and sales are still building. This is most unusual within the Diamond and comic collectors market, where sales usually drop after the first issue. This seems to indicate that our sales are actually generated by people who are actually reading and enjoying the books, and encouraging others to do the same.

The Shadow  and Doc Savage reprints are available from most full-service comic stores, and also Borders and some Barnes & Noble stores. They are also being tested in double-packs at a small number of Costco and Sam's Club outlets. They're also available directly from me (sanctumotr@earthlink.net or www.shadowsanctum.com), with six-issue subscriptions available within the USA for $72 via first class or $66 via media mail. They're also available in Manhattan at The Mysterious Bookshop, and in Minneapolis at Dreamhaven Books and Uncle Hugo's Science Fiction, The books are also available individually via mail order from me, and from Bud Plant, Vintage Library, Adventure House, Mike Chomko, and in Canada from Girasol Collectables,

Greenberger: Beyond Doc Savage and The Shadow, are there any other pulp figures you're looking to resurrect?

Tollin: The Avenger and Nick Carter, and hopefully The Whisperer as well. Do you think readers would like to discover the secret life of Police Commissioner James Gordon, aka The Whisperer?

Greenberger: With Moonstone's recently announced Spider anthology and your facsimile reprints, why do you think people remain interested in the pulp heroes?

Tollin: Hopefully.  It definitely seems to be the case.  But there are many pulp heroes that always seem to be with us.  Don't forget that Zorro, Tarzan and Conan all originated in the pulps, as well as Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe.

Greenberger: Anything else you're working on?

Tollin: Well, two double-novel pulp reprints a month is keeping me pretty busy, and this will only increase when The Avenger and some of the other S&S characters are added as quarterlies. I am expanding a Shadow coffee table history that I wrote a few months back. And at this year's Friends of Old-Time Radio Convention, I'll be directing an X-Minus One cast reunion. We're thrilled that this year we'll be reuniting the series' scriptwriters, Ernest Kinoy and George Lefferts, who haven't seen each other in 40 years. Kinoy of course went on to win an Emmy for his screenplay for the landmark TV miniseries Roots.

Artwork copyright DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Sun Jun 24, 2007 — by Robert Greenberger

The Case of the Chemical Syndicate

How The Shadow was the template for Batman

Every so often historians find something that appears to be the final piece to a puzzle.  Comic book historians have certain mysteries or questions they’d like answers to.  Recently, Anthony Tollin and Will Murray pinpointed the source material that helped inspire Bob Kane and Bill Finger to create the character of Batman.  The results can now make people further consider how much of Batman is Kane and how much is a result of the popular culture of his day, providing fodder to be reimagined in a new medium.

Comic Mix talked with Tollin, a longtime comic book veteran, who has been producing new facsimile editions of The Shadow and Doc Savage for the full details. 

Greenberger: Tony, for those less familiar with your name, give us the short hand background on your career in comics and old time radio.

Tollin: 20-year DC career, beginning as proofreader, then assistant production manager/color coordinator, then cover colorist for a decade and interior colorist of Green Lantern (15 years), Justice League of America, Superman, Crisis on Infinite Earths, The Shadow Strikes, Doc Savage, The Phantom, etc.  Also co-colored Batman and Detective Comics as a team with Adrienne Roy through much of her 16-year run on the titles (190 issues of each, not to mention The Brave & The Bold, Batman and the Outsiders, Shadow of the Bat, Robin, etc.) And also work at Disney, Topps, Marvel, National Lampoon’s Sunday comic section parody, PS Magazine for Murphy Anderson. Also wrote 70-plus old-time-radio historical booklets for Radio Spirits and the Smithsonian Historical Archives, scripted Stan Freberg's When Radio Was for six years, and co-authored The Shadow Scrapbook with Walter Gibson.

Greenberger: And what about your fascination with The Shadow?

Tollin: I fell in love with the character in junior high, after previously reading Walter Gibson's magic books as an amateur magician and ventriloquist.  Back then Shadow pulps were few and far between, so I rationed them, only allowing myself four chapters per day. This was back around the time of the Batman television series when Bats was often pretty silly. The Shadow embodies mystery and intrigue. Of course, Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams later brought Batman back to his dark and mysterious roots, but I guess I was a bit ahead of the curve. The magic of Walter Gibson's shadowy creation is that it gave the hero the charisma normally reserved for the villain. The melodrama villain, parodied by Dudley Do-right's Snidely Whiplash, was always the most fascinating and charismatic character in the play. Are we as fascinated by Jonathan Harker or Luke Skywalker as we are by Count Dracula or Darth Vader? Of course not! Gibson described The Shadow as a "Benign Dracula." In the conventional melodrama, the villain in black laughed evilly as he tied the girl down to the railroad tracks. Gibson turned that around, so that the menacing laughter and the arrival of the man in black represented rescue and salvation, not doom. The Shadow is a hero in black who owns all the power and charisma of the melodrama villain. That was, and still is, a brilliant innovation.

Greenberger: You've been researching the Shadow on radio and in print for years.  How did you finally discover this nugget?

Tollin: A few months back, Will Murray reminded me of Bill Finger's quote that his first Batman "script was a take-off on a Shadow story." (from Steranko's History of the Comics Volume One)  I kept thinking about it and it occurred to me that nobody had ever bothered to find out which "Shadow story" was lifted. I suggested that to Will over the phone one night, and with his assistance I had found the story in less than 20 minutes. Will and I each had ideas as to which stories it couldn't be, so it became a process of elimination. We had both thought it would be a lot harder than it was. I had expected the lift to be less blatant. It turned out to be the same story with basically nothing changed. I mean, it was a chemical syndicate in both stories! Finger didn't even change it to some other kind of business. And The Shadow is described as "bat-like" in the rooftop scene where Batman makes his first appearance in costume.

Curiously, it turned out to be the first Shadow novel not written by Walter Gibson. Neither of us recognized it as the inspiration for "The Case of the Chemical Syndicate" when we first read it back in the 1970s. And because we were both friends of Walt Gibson, we tend to spend a lot more time reading his 283 Shadow novels than Theodore Tinsley's 27 novels.

Greenberger: What makes this story significant for comic book fans?

Tollin: Well, it clearly establishes that without The Shadow, there would be no Batman! Since the first Batman story was a start-to-finish lift of an earlier Shadow novel, it establishes that the similarities between the two characters were no accident. Bruce Wayne is wealthy young man about town Lamont Cranston. The friendship between Bruce and Commissioner James Gordon (whose name comes from The Shadow's sister magazine, The Whsiperer) is no different from the relationship between Cranston and Weston. Batman's talent for escapes also comes from The Shadow, since the first recorded Batman escape duplicates The Shadow's in the same story. And the Shadow lifts continued in subsequent stories, even ones written by Gardner Fox, which gave Batman an autogiro, Bat-a-rangs like The Shadow's cable-outfitted "yellow boomerang," and a suction-cup device for scaling walls ... all Shadow gimmicks. Without the Knight of Darkness, there would be no Dark Knight.

It also raises questions about the extent of Bob Kane's actual contributions to the feature that bears his creator credit. If Finger's first Batman script was a blatant retelling of an earlier Shadow novel, and Finger also suggested the Caped Crusader's bat-eared cowl, bat-scalloped cape, black-and-gray costume and utility belt, what did Kane personally contribute to the feature besides its title? And as to Kane's claims that  Douglas Fairbank's acrobatics in The Mark of Zorro were an influence, it now turns out that it was  movie-buff Bill Finger who regularly supplied  the acrobatic stills  of Fairbanks  to Bob Kane and his assistants.

Also, Theodore Tinsley's first Shadow novel mentions "bat-like" and "bats" on seven occasions. This is most unusual for a Shadow novel. One really has to ask, did this novel actually inspire Batman's creation from the very start. I mean, it's a bit of a stretch to assume that Kane and Finger came up with the idea of Batman first, and that it was a complete coincidence that the story Finger chose to imitate was comparatively crawling with bats.

 Of course, comic strips and comic books back then regularly lifted from what was hot in other media. Radio's The Aldrich Family (and its Broadway predecessor What a Life, which first introduced Ezra Stone as Henry Aldrich) begat Archie Andrews. Frank Packard's Jimmie Dale, The Gray Seal was lifted as the Green Hornet and The Phantom (before Lee Falk changed his mind and added the jungle motif four months later), while radio's Chandu the Magician (with his girlfriend Princess Nadja) certainly influenced Mandrake and Princess Narda. And let's not even mention the similarities between a certain Clark who is the Man of Bronze and promoted as "Superman" in 1934 house ads, and another Clark who was the Man of Steel. And, of course, it didn't stop with the Golden Age. I'm sure it was no coincidence  that Barry Allen was a police lab scientist like the character of Ray Pinker on the then #1 TV series, Dragnet(or the police scientist played by Jack Webb himself in Dragnet’s film inspiration, He Walked by Night). There are plenty of similarities between Doc Savage's Iron Crew and the Challengers of the Unknown, and also the Fantastic Four. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were both Doc Savage fans as teenagers. It's probably no coincidence that the Fantastic Four are led by the world's greatest scientist, and operate without secret identities from the top floor of a famous Manhattan skyscraper. And Ben Grimm and Johnny Storm are constantly insulting each other and picking fights just like Monk and Ham. The first generation of comic book professionals didn't grow up with comic book superheroes, so they imitated the pulp superheroes of their own teenage years.

Greenberger: Is there anyway to know if Bill Finger and/or Bob Kane read The Shadow pulps at the time?

Tollin: Oh, yes.  Bill Finger confirmed it in the Steranko History.  He also admitted that "I patterned my style of writing after The Shadow.... It was completely pulp style." Kane acknowledged a Shadow influence in the text feature that accompanied "Gotham City Line-up," the 1964 "new-look" story that killed off Alfred Pennyworth. (Though of course he got better.) Bob Kane admitted reading hero pulps like Doc Savage when Finger loaned them to him, and also admitted, "We didn't think anything was wrong with Batman carrying a gun because The Shadow used one."

Greenberger: What prompted you to begin the current cycle of reprints?

Tollin: The opportunity to bring Walter Gibson's wonderful stories back into print, after a 22-year hiatus.  And the reprints have been as successful as I'd hoped. There are a lot of others who love these classic characters. One of the nice rewards is that most of the subscription checks and renewals are accompanied with "thank you" letters from people telling me how glad they are to be getting the stories in this double-novel trade paperback format. And everyone seems to really like the historical articles too. 

One thing I'm hoping to accomplish is to introduce readers to the real Shadow of Gibson's novels. Too many comic fans and creators see The Shadow as a murderous executioner, which he certainly wasn't in Gibson's novels. People see the strong cover images of the blazing '45 automatics and think that's what the character is about. No, The Shadow is about mystery, deduction and misdirection. The Shadow's powers of deduction are rivaled only by Sherlock Holmes and Nero Wolfe. (By the way, Gibson did know Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; they were introduced by their mutual friend, Houdini.) The Shadow is certainly well armed, usually carrying four '45 automatics into battle. But he basically treats them as a soldier or police officer would, only using them when his life or an innocent's is at stake. The Shadow is certainly not a bloodthirsty executioner (while his imitator The Spider certainly is).

I certainly hope the availability of these new reprints well help comic book and motion picture creators to get the character right in the future, and allow them to draw inspiration from more than just the cover paintings.

TOMORROW: Tony talks about what other goodies can be found in this special issue plus some additional insights to DC Comics, Batman and the pulps' legacy.

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