The Living Shadow

Story written by Walter B. Gibson

The Shadow pre-dates Superman and all the comic book heroes that dominate our media today. Walter Gibson did not create the character, but he gave him depth. If you have any fondness for the character, it’s likely because:

• That laugh never left you
• The tagline: “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows.”
• Orson Welles miraculously remains cool and he sometimes voiced the character
• You read some of the old pulp magazines and got hooked
• Your unexpected fondness for old radio dramas
• You came across the brilliant comic book from the 1980’s, worth seeking out as a high-point for art and story in the medium

The comic book hooked me, but I already knew the character. The Shadow debuted when my parents’ generation were children. I don’t know that most were familiar with anything beyond the radio show, but that was clearly enough for the laugh and the saying to enter the general parlance for decades.

Gibson was the primary contributor to the pulp magazine during its heyday- a contribution that remains the stuff of legend. My early interest in writing and genre fiction allowed me to hear whispers about the phenomenal output of this legendary writer.

The Shadow magazine appeared twice a month. Each issue contained a full-length novel in addition to other content. Under the house pseudonym of Maxwell Grant, Gibson wrote the vast, vast majority of those novels- official count is 283. That’s 150,000 words every month for almost two decades (in addition to other work which he did, in fact, pursue). That comes out to 10 or more double-spaced pages, by my estimate, every single day without a break.

Needless to say,

that gives a would-be writer pause. I’m pretty sure that those collections of twenty or more volumes of Complete Works of so-and-so, which weigh down the upper shelves of bookstores, probably indicate similar output. Even so, Gibson’s commitment to the repeating deadline can be unnerving.

Perhaps you’ve talked with a budding artist and made some comment that you considered innocuous. You watch as their expression contorts into a cross between a puddle and a terrified deer. Perhaps you’ve been the budding artist. It is hard to put your art out there in public. It is impossible to avoid the claustrophobic weight of all the artists who came before you. So, how do you think about Walter Gibson?

Well, paralysis and giving up is always an option. Of course, his path is not your path. That’s why you wanted to be an artist, wasn’t it? To make your own path?

Then there is the tearing him down option. Gibson must have turned out a lot of garbage. We can call that the R.L. Stine conundrum. This does require reading what the person wrote. Neither Stine nor Gibson ever claimed to be Dostoevsky, but they produced perfectly readable, enjoyable work. More than that, Gibson built a universe that maintains interest decades later. If I write anything that remains alive thirty years after my death, then “Yay!” for me.

In the end, Gibson is the hard lesson that asks about commitment. I don’t believe that the answer is so black and white that dedication is only demonstrated by word count. On the other hand, that number has to be greater than zero.

What’s it all about?

You’ve Got to Check This Out is a blog series about music, words, and all sorts of artistic matters. It started with an explanation. 141 more to go.

New additions to You’ve Got to Check This Out release regularly. Also, free humor, short works, and poetry post irregularly. Receive notifications on Facebook by friending or following Craig.

Images may be subject to copyright.

Arguably: Essays

Book written by Christopher Hitchens

I am tempted to say that there is an art to annoying a huge amount of people during a lifetime, but then, so many manage it that it may simply be a cultivated trait. When the ability combines with a literary bent, we tend to see the artist as a polemicist. If they have any flair for a wryly-turned phrase, they may even become a celebrity.

Of course, the role of fly in the ointment does require concurrency above all else. We just don’t read take-downs of Truman anymore, let alone George Bush (either one). The problem is not simply a lack of interest or even relevance. Historically speaking, all three are worthy of consideration. The polemicist works in the moment, however. Often, they make references to events and people that change meaning with the passage of time. All those Adlai Stevenson jokes wither on the vine these days.

We read Voltaire and Jonathan Swift because they couched their opinions in entertainment. A reader would have to engage in willful ignorance to get through their major works without some sense that they were angry about the world and the people that run it. Charles Dickens and Mark Twain were no less angry, but they saved their greatest invective for the stage. Moreover, they buried the lead in heart-breaking tragedies as well as humor arising from character as much as situation. George Orwell modernized the polemic, incorporating genre fiction and social criticism. Yet, we don’t read 1984 because of what it said about the world after WWII.

And that

brings us back to the challenge of writing about current times. From Vidal and Buckley to Woodward and Bernstein, the essayist/document-er must practically ignore posterity, which is odd. The drive to write a screed comes, at least a little bit, from the desire to have one’s objections noted.

I do believe that art contributes to the movement of the world. I also recognize that it is hard to write with art and entertainment about subjects that challenge your audience’s preconceptions. Hitchens often wrote things that people did not want to read- well, they wanted to read them because he wrote so well, but they probably also wanted to argue with the paper in front of them. I know I did.

And I miss that. Instead, we have devolved to the “Top Five Reasons” and lost thoughtful opinions. Our ideas are captured in a picture or a cartoon- they need to be set in black and white, requiring no nuance whatsoever. We would rather forego a change of mind based on deeper knowledge. We hide in imagined horrors rather than do the harder reading about actual horrors… say the origins of the Iran/Iraq war, which Hitchens was once so eloquent about.

The real loss is our need to define Orwell, Hitchens, Woodward, Bernstein, Dickens and Twain. We call them liberal or conservative or worse based on third-hand knowledge. They voiced hard-thought opinions based on research and experience which we are unwilling to do.

What’s it all about?

You’ve Got to Check This Out is a blog series about music, words, and all sorts of artistic matters. It started with an explanation. 142 more to go.

New additions to You’ve Got to Check This Out release regularly. Also, free humor, short works, and poetry post irregularly. Receive notifications on Facebook by friending or following Craig.

Images may be subject to copyright.

Everyday

Song written and performed by Buddy Holly

There once was this bassist for a band called the Beatles. He bought a song publishing catalog from a thief and a liar who stole money from a widow and her offspring. The bassist then did his best to repair the damage done and made sure the money started flowing to the widow. If he never did anything else, then that would be enough.

Just thought we ought to tell the right story every now and then.

Everyday it’s a-getting closer, going faster than a roller-coaster.

I love the way the song seems to speed up as Holly sings, as if you’re riding over the camel humps at Cedar Point. I adore Patti Smith and Lou Reed and all the other rock and roll poets, but this is the single best moment in all rock and roll lyrics, even if the song can barely squeeze into the loosest possible definition of the rock genre. Maybe Leiber and Stoller could have come close, but this was the singer interpreting the song that he had written.

It’s hard to imagine how unusual that seemed at the time. You could find singers who acted in movies scattered all across the firmament, but it was apparently unthinkable that they might have the gumption to sit down at a piano and work out a tune or two. Sure, the instrumentalists might come up with something- might even lead the band and compose some instrumentals… but words- good gracious, no way! My only guess is that rhyming dictionaries were heavily rationed until 1960.

Coming of age

with Don McLean’s American Pie and the “day the music died,” it has become impossible to separate Holly from the tragedy of his early death at 22. A miracle hides within that horrible event. No matter how front and center that loss may be, just sit down and play a bunch of Holly’s music. The power and the glory of his accomplishments overwhelms the tragedy. He made so much fantastic music in so short a time. Hank Williams and Clifford Brown may be the only other premature deaths of that era who created enough to help their audiences move past the pain. That does not help make sense of it all, but it does hint at a certain vitality that runs through the greatest of all art.

Ultimately, being self-aware animals, we spend so much time focused on the worst events and worst behaviors. We remember mistakes far more easily than accomplishments. Our memorials tend to commemorate deaths as much as they celebrate lives. We do ourselves a disservice when the end of the story becomes the entirety of the story- we need to rise above our natures. That’s the purpose of art, to elevate us all together.

What’s it all about?

You’ve Got to Check This Out is a blog series about music, words, and all sorts of artistic matters. It started with an explanation. 143 more to go.

New additions to You’ve Got to Check This Out release regularly. Also, free humor, short works, and poetry post irregularly. Receive notifications on Facebook by friending or following Craig.

Images may be subject to copyright.