Number 1812: “The weed of crime...”

“The Goona Goona Fan” refers to an actual electric fan to cool a nightclub, not fanatic, which is what all of us comic fans are, eh?

And comic fanatics of 1942 were probably also tuning in for The Shadow on radio. The comic book Shadow, while using some plots, much condensed, from the Shadow’s pulp magazine adventures , was actually closer to the radio version. Able to cloud men’s minds, the Shadow could become invisible, which is shown in panels with his cloaked and hatted figure shown in a blue surprint.

At this point of the comic book adventures of the Shadow, the stories were scripted by his most prolific writer, Walter B. Gibson, who had written the novels for years under the name Maxwell Grant. Gibson reportedly got double the rate for his pages in the comics, and compared to knocking out a novel every two weeks, as he had done in the 1930s, that must have seemed a snap. Vernon Greene, the artist who initiated the Shadow’s daily newspaper strip in 1940, was also doing comic book stories. The daily strip ended in 1942 with paper rationing and the need for more column inches for war news, but Greene drew the character for the comic books at least for a couple of years past the end of the daily strip.

No need to feel sorry for Green. He also ghosted the Polly and Her Pals daily strip, and in 1954 took over the popular Bringing Up Father when the creator, George McManus, died

“The Mystery of the Goona Goona Fan” is from The Shadow Vol. 2, No. 9 (1942):

In 1947 both Gibson and Greene had moved on. Bob Powell and his crew took over the art chores for the comic book Shadow, with scripts were provided by Bruce Elliott. For a Powell story from the Pappy archives, just click on the thumbnail.

Posted in: Pappy Comics