"The Voice of Death" (Dec 26, 1937)

"Beware of meowing dogs..."
While trying to reach Arthur, an old friend of Lamont, in the Louisiana bayou, Margo is attacked by large dogs who apparently can trick you by meawing from behind the bushes. Lamont manages to scare the dogs before Margo is hurt.

They finally reach Arthur's house which is pretty run-down and apparently abandoned. Arthur had a life-long problem with his voice which pushed him to retire in this remote area (since he believes everyone was making fun of it). The problem is that Arthur is also a scientist and, when our duo shows up to his doorstep, he seems to have resolved his "problem". The voice is now fixed, but what about his un-stable mind?
I can't help to think about mad scientist messing with nature like the Dr Moreau or even South Park's Dr Mephisto. This last one came to mind because of the apparently useless results of some of Arthur's experiments.
Those mad scientists: gotta love'em :)

Enjoy the show and have a great (pulp) Sunday!
Francesco

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"Death from the Deep" (Jun 12, 1938)

Once it was enough to have your own luxury yacht to leave just about anybody in the dust...e rrr... in the waters. But after a few years, too many mere mortals could afford one. And you can only get so far by trying to impress with size. So what do you give to yourself when you are so darnly rich and you already have everything and want to impress the other "poor" people? What about a personal submarine? That would impress people, right? What if you arm it with torpedos and start to sink ships and shoot the survivors with your personal machine gun? That would impress even more.. and that would make you one of the most evil villains ever ;)

That's what happens in this beautiful episode: an insane(ly rich) hunter, Barry Vinton, has a costum-built submarine so he can destroy ships at sea and machine gun the helpless crews, just for fun (or sport, as he says).
"Ah, this is the life, there's nothing like it. The sighting of fresh quarry in this periscope. The excitement of the chase and the spine-tingling thrill as the torpedo finds its mark. And then the climax, on deck with a machine gun, shooting them down like scurrying rats. Ha ha!"

It looks like this is a mission in high seas for the Shadow.
BTW, Barry would be disappointed if he knew that a few years later you could buy your own submarine on a catalogue for only $6.98, as shown in this REAL period Ads :)

Enjoy the epsiode and have a Pulp Sunday!

Francesco

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"Caverns of Death" (Sep 11, 1938)

While visiting a cave just opened to the public, a few students fall down a pit when the rail gives way. A rescue team is sent to find eventual survivors (or at least to recuperate the students' bodies) but they found nothing. It seems a case for the Shadow! As matter of fact Lamont and Margot go down the cave to investigate and they discover a series of sinister activities in the lower levels of the caverns.

I have to admit I was fascinated by the description of the villain of this episode: a man who wears a gas mask all the time so no one has ever seen his face. Pretty cool, uh? That was definitely calling for being the main subject of my illustration.
Speaking of which, if any of you wants to see a particular episode of the Shadow illustrated here, feel free to post suggestions and/or titles.

Enjoy the epsiode and have a Pulp Sunday!

Francesco

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"Ghosts Can Kill" (Jan 15, 1939)

They have tried to convict him many times int he past, but he always had a "bulletproof" alibi for each murder. This time something went wrong, and there is no one who can save this murderer gangster from the deathrow. That's why he promises revenge upon those who put him to death: he will come back from grave and kill all of them.
When, after the execution, the people on the list starts to get killed by the "ghost" (who announces his "apparitions" with the same music the murderer was used to play), the Shadow steps in to unveil the real killer.

Enjoy the epsiode and have a Pulp Sunday!

Francesco

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"The Tomb of Terror" (Aug 28, 1938)

We can't have Halloween without some ol' classic mummy curse, right? ;) That's why the choice for this Pulp Sunday was an easy one, even if, as we will discover, the supernatural has a very little play in this case.

An entire Egyptian tomb is taken to the Museum of Natural Hystory where a large crowd is ready to visit the exceptional archeological discovery. Three men of the expedition crew enter the tomb to inspect it and all 3 die soon after. Is it a curse, or something more "material" is behind it? The Shadow knows ;)

Little trivia: this episode is sponsored not by the famous Blue Coal but by a brand of tires. The Shadow himself is usesd as testimonial in the commercial.

Enjoy the epsiode, have a Pulp Sunday and, most of all, a Happy Halloween everyone!

Francesco

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"Gun Island" (Oct 23, 1938)

While on a cruise in the Caribbeans, the yacht Lamont and Margot are travelling on gets hijacked and taken to a near, secret island. Here, the Shadow will discover that these are not the usual pirates but part of something that can affect the "National security".

Interesting to see how the Shadow uses a captive Margot to get informations out of the "pirate" capitain and funny to see the capitain falling for some simple trick about his ego to give away precious infos ;)

Enjoy the epsiode and have a Pulp Sunday!

Francesco

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"Murders in Wax" (Jul 24, 1938)

After the poison and the sniper episodes of last week, here's another tale of revenge and murders. In this case the list of victims is full of main politics figures, which will lead the Shadow to find out who is the brain behind the "killing hand". The settings of the wax museum gives to the story a nice horror vibe (who can't forget the many wax museum movies with Vincent Price?) and I almost wish the story would have been even more in that direction. Enjoyable nonetheless so listen to the episode by clicking on the link below.

Enjoy the show and have a great (pulp) Sunday!

Francesco

Download from the Internet Archive