Number 2536: Doc and Nick

 

The Street & Smith publishing company was founded in 1855 by Francis Scott Street and Francis Shubael Smith. Over the years they published low cost periodicals and pulp magazines. The company did well for itself with characters like The Shadow, Doc Savage, and Nick Carter. Both The Shadow and Doc Savage were created in the Depression years of the 1930s, but Nick Carter was created in 1886. The Street and Smith comic book line was published from 1940-1949, featuring The Shadow, and in the case of today’s postings, stories featuring other famous characters, Nick Carter and Doc Savage. Besides the Shadow, Nick Carter also had a radio program, as you can see by the ads plopped into the story.

Despite the artwork of Bob Powell and his assistants, I think Street & Smith didn’t do much with Doc Savage and Nick Carter. I wonder if the writer who wrote the scripts even read any of the dime novels or pulp magazines featuring the two characters. 

These two stories, from Shadow Comics Volume 8, Number 9 (whole number 93, 1948) seem like filler, which is how I feel they were conceived. I like the robots in the Doc Savage story, and I like the girl who knows how to throw a punch in Nick Carter. Otherwise it doesn’t appear that Street & Smith was treating such legacy characters, whose dime novel and pulp magazine appearances had helped keep Street & Smith in business for years, with the respect they deserved. Oh well, I can imagine what someone in the editorial office probably said, “it’s only comic books, so who cares?”