#kent allard

[chernobog13]

Unseen Shadows, a portfolio of 50 cover concepts by Jim Steranko for paperbacks featuring The Shadow.

[maxwell-grant]

is this how people rediscover Kent Allard

[keyblack]

Drawings of "The Shadow" from some recent "Off the Cuff" episodes! You can check out my process for these here!

[strange-creature-in-black]

Mario Kart 9 roster

[twistedtummies2]

Gathering of the Greatest Gumshoes - Number 4

Welcome to A Gathering of the Greatest Gumshoes! During this month-long event, I’ve been counting down my Top 31 Favorite Fictional Detectives, from movies, television, literature, video games, and more!

We're nearing the end of this event, my friends.

SLEUTH-OF-THE-DAY’S QUOTE: “The Weed of Crime Bears Bitter Fruit.”

Number 4 is…The Shadow.

I’ve talked about the Shadow at least a few times in the past (more frequently than that with those closest to me), but for those who are unfamiliar with the character and his world, here’s the basics: the Shadow is a character many consider to be the father of the modern superhero. Several famous “super detectives” take inspiration from the character, either directly or indirectly: most famously, the Shadow was a major inspiration for none other than the Dark Knight himself, Batman. However, his influence can also be seen in characters like the Punisher, Daredevil, various Alan Moore creations (such as Rorschach and V from V for Vendetta), and even freaking Darkwing Duck!

The Shadow was originally created as the narrator/host for a series of crime and horror radio dramas sponsored by a company called Street & Smith. The character became so popular, the company decided to expand on the concept, and began to publish a pulp magazine focused on the character and his adventures. Writer and illusionist expert Walter B. Gibson – working under the pseudonym “Maxwell Grant” – developed the character accordingly. Gibson decided he wanted to create "a hero who had some of the villain's appeal," citing that villains were usually more interesting than typical heroic protagonists. Taking inspiration from his knowledge of stagecraft and the occult, as well as various pieces of classic literature - including Sherlock Holmes, Dracula, Phantom of the Opera, and The Scarlet Pimpernel - Gibson turned the ephemeral narrator figure into a "weird avenger of evil," arguably just as scary as the crooks he fought.

Such was effectively the birth of the Shadow as a fully-formed character. This version got his start in the pulp magazines, most of which were written by Gibson. He was later reimagined for a new radio program, and since then has appeared in a few movies (the most well-known being the 1994 feature starring Alec Baldwin). However, the character – originally created in the 1930s – has survived most prominently via comics. The current company with the rights to the character in comic format is Dynamite Entertainment, but the Shadow has also belonged to DC, Marvel, and Dark Horse at different points in his long career.

The Shadow’s true identity is “wealthy young man-about-town” Lamont Cranston (at least in the radio shows and all the film treatments; the comics and pulps are more complicated). By day, Cranston is a laid-back member of New York City’s elite. However, this demeanor hides a dark side, created by an even darker past: once upon a time, the man who would become the Shadow was a fighter pilot in WWI. His plane crashed in Tibet during a mission, and he was presumed killed in action. Different interpretations of his origins change up what happened next, but one thing is consistent: for the next seven years, he lived in Tibet, and during that time he experienced “all the evil that lurks in the hearts of men.” He eventually met a mystic known as the Tulku, who not only taught him martial-arts, but also gave him the ability to “Cloud Men’s Minds.” With his newfound skills, he returned to New York and became the Shadow: forever bound to an immortal quest to destroy evil.

The Shadow's power to “Cloud Men’s Minds” is less pretentiously described as him having various psychic abilities. He can project illusions, hypnotize people, control their minds, and make himself seem invisible (or, appropriately, like a living shadow), just to name a few examples of his talents. However, while these abilities are certainly useful ones, the Shadow is also skilled in other, more traditional fields: he is a fine marksman, as skilled with his dual-wielding silver-plated pistols as he is with a rifle or machine gun. His learning of the martial arts makes him a skilled melee warrior, and he has at least some knowledge of various sciences (how much varies from version to version) and forensic techniques. The Shadow is also aided by a veritable army of Agents: people he has saved in the past who now do his bidding, acting as his eyes and ears. Probably the most noteworthy are Margot Lane (a glamorous young lady who is his love interest), Harry Vincent (the Shadow’s chief spy, who really only shows up in printed material), and Moe “Shrevvy” Shrevnitz (a cabby who is essentially the Shadow’s chauffeur).

The most interesting point about the Shadow, and where his character’s development shines most intriguingly, is his morality: the Shadow is an objectivist character, who acts as an agent of vengeance against all wrongdoers, no matter the mitigating circumstances. Some would say this is inaccurate, but I would say the Shadow best counts as an anti-hero. He sees the world often in black and white, and obsessively and downright SADISTICALLY faces his opponents. He delights in taunting them with purple prose, laughing as he leads them to destruction, and is often just as frightening as the villains he defeats. Under the surface, there is a soft side to his soul…but if you’re a supervillain, a gangster, or anyone else who might cross his path, start praying.

“For who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow Knows! HA HA HA!”

Tomorrow, the countdown enters the Top 3!

CLUE: “It is the brain, the little grey cells, on which one must rely.”

[wingedtyger]

Comics I recently added to the GCD: The Shadow Annual 2013

Added the series and indexed it. Actually wrote a decent summary of it too.

[asylumdisorder]

The Shadow, on his way to teach the children what evil truly lurks within the hearts of men

[ultrameganicolaokay]

The Shadow #8 ‘The Night of the Mummy!’ (1974) by Denny O'Neil, Frank Robbins and Jerry Serpe. Edited by O'Neil. Cover by Robbins and Tatjana Wood.

The Shadow issue 8, Dec-Jan 1974

Frank Robbins Cover Art

[measured-words]

oc tag game ♡

Tagged by @saltwife, I guess I can tag umm, @thelovers-thedreamers-and-me and idk idk @crippledpastrycryptid and @fealiniel if you have ocs you'd like to gush about! And if you have ocs and I didn't tag you go for it :x

General:

Name: Lamont Vincent Allard Machel, Marquess of Stillmarch

Alias: mostly N/A but I have an ongoing AU where he has a disguised alter-ego known as guy deVille

Gender: Male

Age: 20

Spoken Language: Nerathi Common

Sexual Orientation: bi/pansexual - I'm not sure he'd understand the difference

Occupation: Commissioned officer (Lieutenant) in the Nerathi army. Technically he has a troupe of light cavlary under his command, but that didn't really work out, and he is getting transferred the diplomatic (intelligence) corps.

Favourite:

Colour: Green, because everyone says it looks good with his eyes (they are correct).

Entertainment: He likes small social gatherings and going to private clubs. Gets overwhelmed by crowds and avoids them when he can. He does enjoy things like plays and opera and other performance based entertainment, but only with a private booth. Lucky he is insanely rich.

Pastime: Riding, martial training, embroidery, reading (mostly non-fiction prose and poetry), sex. You've got to stay busy or the Thoughts will get you.

Food: The man in a fruit goblin. He stress-fasts (not on purpose) but can usually be enticed to eat if there is fresh fruit involved, especially cherries. Also, cheese. Otherwise he does not have a very adventurous palate.

Drink: Yes! he is partial to the ciders that are brewed on his estate, as well wine and brandy. Not so big on whiskeys and related things after youthful overindulgence.

Have They…

Passed University: Yes, fortunately it wasn't the sort of place where grades mattered significantly, but he attended a prestigious military academy in order to prepare him for his service. he took it a lot more seriously than many of his peers. he was not an exceptionally brilliant student, but he put in the work.

Had Sex: Yes!

Had Sex in Public: Despite the inclinations of his husband... no.

Gotten Tattoos: Not a tattoo, but he does have an extensive magical mark on his right upper thigh (a dragonmark) that people might think is one if a: they ever saw it and b: they didn't know enough about the Nerathi aristocracy to guess otherwise.

Gotten Piercings: No.

Gotten Scarred: Not on purpose. or - only emotionally? He lives in a world of magical healing and he is rich and noble, so unlikely there is anything physical that stuck.

Had a Broken Heart: Yes but it got fixed :3

Are They…

A cuddler: Yes, in private. Too formal/stuffy for PDA though.

Scared Easily: Sort of - he suffers from magically inflicted anxiety that makes him a little bit psychic. So not prone to jumpscares and such but on a deeper level, yes.

Jealous Easily: The first person he ever fell in love with was a polyamorous priest of the elven god of love and beauty, so he had to work on that. But he did, and it allowed him to let a second love into his own life to whom he is now married. He has deep seated insecurities and abandonment issues (people he cares about keep dying), but he's less concerned that his partners will leave him for someone else.

Trustworthy: Over all, yes, very, but he's also bad at talking about his problems which can lead to keeping unfortunate secrets. Also because of his work, he's not always at liberty to be forthcoming.

Family

Sibling(s): Two brothers The eldest, Arnaud Layne Allard Machel, died in a "accident" several years before. His younger brother, Frederick "Fritz" Harold Allard Scrye, is about 4 years younger, and lives with their mother.

Parents: His father (Kent Allard Machel) died when he was five in an airship accident on the way home from a diplomatic posting overseas. His mother (Margaret "Margo" Layne Allard Scrye) quickly remarried (pressured by House politics), taking her youngest child with her and leaving the older two in the care of their (terrible) uncle, Thurston Allard. Thurston resented the burden, especially as his brother's title and estates passed directly to the children.

Children: None yet

Pets: A Complete horseboy. His horse is named Briar (at least for short, she probably has a stupid long formal name I've never bothered to make up), she's a chestnut mare, a well-bred light warhorse of some kind (I don't know the flavours of horse, and this is fantasy anyway) that he trained himself . They are very bonded, and she doubles as an emotional support horse for him.

[dzthenerd490]

Please do The Shadow! I would like the Foundation talking about his Girasol Ring, his psychic abilities including mind reading, mind control, perception distortion, and turning invisible or the way he puts it 'to cloud men's minds.'

Be sure to include his vigilantism, his urban legend of a shadowy protector and his network of agents on his side.

I love him so much and it will be neat to see him in scp foundation ❤️❤️❤️

Oh! And make sure he's Kent Allard, got it?

I MIGHT do so in the future, but for now, the answer is no. Sorry.

[chernobog13]

Victor Jory as The Shadow (1940).

[maxwell-grant]

Has anyone asked what do you think Kent Allard/The Shadow was like as a child or a teenager? What kind of personality (courteous or crude, grandiose or grounded?) did he had, and how did carry over to his latter life?

Nobody as of yet, because this is the kind of thing that tends to be viewed as complete hardline sacrilege by Shadow fans, and for some fairly self-explanatory reasons it's gone completely unexplored in any official material for about 90 years now (besides like one scrap of dialogue in a deleted scene from the 1994 movie). Nobody's yet pulled that trigger and botched a retelling of a childhood for The Shadow, and I don't think anyone's looking to be the first.

Naturally, you can imagine that I do practice heresy on the regular and have spent a lot of time thinking and crafting ideas for that part of the character's life, most of which I'd like to keep to myself for now, although whether I'd even actually use them if I could, is another thing entirely. Not that I need to, but I do like to have some basis for whenever I go into headcanon territory, so we're gonna get into those:

Fittingly, as far as I can tell, the only two bits of concrete information we've ever received in the pulps were related to Lamont Cranston: one bit in House of Shadows that mentions Cranston's fortune was inherited, and the famous "Lamont Cranston Talks To Himself" scene in The Shadow Laughs where The Shadow mentions that he knows Cranston's family history better than he himself. We can extract that Cranston at minimum has a family history of fortune and privilege, and presume he has still living relatives.

Some people call me The Shadow. That is but one identity. I have other personalities that I assume, as easily as I don my black cloak and hat. One of my personalities is that of Lamont Cranston. In the past, I have used it while you were away. At present, I choose to use it now.

You have some knowledge of Lamont Cranston's family history. I doubt that you could recall the maiden names of both his grandmothers. I know them. - The Shadow Laughs

The question of what young Kent Allard would be like largely hinges on just how gradual was the shaping of his personality, or whether he was just on some level always Like That, and it points both ways. I've talked a lot about how The Shadow's backstory lacks that one defining moment that's supposed to provide a clear separation between who he was then and who he is now, and there really isn't one thing that makes or breaks The Shadow, so much as a series of events and processes that led him across the years. It's a sandbox backstory.

But let's look at some things that could be used to inform a reading of what Kent Allard might have been like in those formative years

Way before he was The Shadow proper, he was already redefining his presentation depending on his surroundings. As Gibson once remarked on the character, "Always, his traits and purposes were defined through the observations and reactions of persons with whom he came in contact". Kent Allard the famed war hero was one name, but he went by others like Clifford Gage the American explorer who would first meet Lamont Cranston amidst his journeys to India and Tibet. Blanton the Frenchman who would conduct missions in Monte Carlo with a man who would later call himself Cliff Marsland. Whoever he went by in his time within the deep court of Tsarist Russia, and his later claims to have names given to him across the world and be able to be recognized no matter what tribe or city he goes into, and so on.

(Relevant to the above: The Dark Eagle was a name given to him by his enemies, and it's unclear how much was it a codename or a separate identity, since certain characters connected The Dark Eagle to The Shadow, but never to Kent Allard, and of course it's because Allard was a soft retcon, but still. He never actually called himself The Shadow in the first book either, it was a name first uttered by Harry Vincent that Claude Fellows and the story's gangsters coincidentally also picked for him, he'd only embraced it later).

He was doing Shadow things decades before actually being The Shadow, like donning black-garbed disguises to rescue Allied prisoners from German camps, engaging in hard-fought battles under the cover of darkness, throwing himself into dangerous situations to protect others and/or for the thrill of it, and his backstory reads a lot like The Shadow was something in the blueprints of his life for a while, whether he knew it or not.

EXTREMELY precocious, at minimum, and he clearly didn't pick up his skillset from standard military training. Gibson placed the character's birth around 1892, which means he was doing all of that work in Russia, befriending the Czar and embedding himself into a secret spy order meant "only for the most trusted members of the regime" even while known to be the agent of another government, barely into his twenties and barely old enough to enlist at all (assuming he didn't lie about his age), to say nothing of all the other legendary things he'd go on to accomplish before settling in America. He's either just that supernaturally good at learning on the fly, or he clearly had some kind of background learning and training in some of these things before he enlisted, which begs the question of who would even teach him, but the word precocious has been attached to Kent Allard's early backstory quite a few times.

He takes to aristocratic characters with ease. Lamont was said to be his preferred or even outright "favorite" of disguises, and he has several other personalities that are basically just Lamont with a different name (some take this as proof that he had to have been raised as an aristocrat, but I'd argue it points to the opposite).

He likes to dwell within dark, silent places, not just to get work done. He feels at home within it. This isn't just a matter of efficiency and such, Gibson describes quite frequently that The Shadow enjoys dwelling in the kinds of dark, silent, gloomy locations he most blends in. The Sanctum itself is almost comparable to a sensory-deprivation room and it's where he goes to do his best thinking. Nothing else ever merits this kind of description of him, of anything feeling "like home". "To The Shadow, stealth was an instinctive possession. When garbed in his accustomed attire of black, he became a part of the night itself". "Surrounded by the blackness which to him was home." - The Shadow's Shadow "Gloom enclosed about the visitors, for the building blocked the rays of the sun. There was something somber about the atmosphere that chilled Eric Delka. The Shadow did not feel the same sensation. Instead, the smile reappeared upon his lips. This was an atmosphere of mystery that carried the touch of darkness. Such elements were to The Shadow's liking" - Castle of Doom

There's also the Street & Smith "Clews": This was part of a campaign ad released before The Living Shadow to help promote it, as listeners of S&S's radio program were supposed to be on the lookout for clues that The Shadow would randomly state in regards to who he was or what he looked like, you can read them in full here along with ensuing theories about The Shadow's early life. Some of these don't seem to have carried over much to the pulps proper and how Gibson presents him, but as a whole they were never "discontinued" either. Most of these are fairly evident in the pulps as is, but there are others that either come up very rarely or simply did not come back at all:

He has a cobra tattoo on his chest. He plainly does not have this in the pulps on the few occasions his torso was exposed.

He says he has "artistic hands" and plays cards with them.

He is blond and dyes his hair to hide "my Nordic forbears"

"Like a bird, I take to the air when seeking out a lair" I think this carried over to him becoming an aviator but "seeking out a lair" is a weird phrasing.

He is a fastidious dresser, citing Beau Brummel in tastes, who's known for having defined the modern image of the dandy. He also has slim feet ("8 triple A, the salesmen say")

He attained a Bachelor of the Arts degree at the age of twenty and is currently forty. This was way before Gibson assigned him a birthdate decades later, but it matches with the 1892 date provided.

He practiced rowing in college. The clues describe him as tall ("Low doorways please me not"), athletic and slim enough to squeeze through prison bars, which matches his pulp body type (he'd perform a far more impossible feat of contortion in one story much later). The article above uses this clue to argue pretty convincigly that The Shadow would have gone to Princeton.

Now, these are in a very ambiguous position because they're attached to a version of the character right in the middle of transition from spooky radio narrator to pulp crimefighter, and it's unclear how much if at all Gibson even used them. But they exist, and you could make them out to be facts about Allard's life, or Cranston's life, or things The Shadow made up based on former identities. Point being, it's one thing we can use to piece together things about his first 20-or-so years.

"I'm not sure about Cranston," he said seriously. "The man is famous in a way. Too famous!"

"Famous for what?"

"For his adventures all over the world. He has money, yes, which he is supposed to have inherited. But the records on the subject are very meager.

"I think that Cranston may be an adventurer in more ways than one." - House of Shadows

Cranston's upbringing should also be relevant here, because what little we do can already be a bit telling: Lamont Cranston was raised in a wealthy Jersey mansion and supposedly inherited his fortune from a family with a certain amount of history, but he's become famous for spending all of his time globetrotting and staying everywhere but home, dodging responsabilities to go shoot elephants or climb mountains in the Himalayas with his trademark leisurely, detached demeanor, barely in touch with his own family or tax records. A man who has "many friends, but none who know him well". Cranston did most of the work dissappearing from his own life and country, and half of why he and Allard have that set-up is because of that, and because Cranston quickly and even happily agrees to it. The real Lamont Cranston is completely fine with another guy doing being Lamont Cranston for him.

And a final addendum: For the most part I'm ignoring what the 1994 movie and it's different takes in comics and novelization did, but the novelization did provide a little bit of background for the Cranston family that we could go with in the absence of anything else:

Cranston was everything Allard wasn’t: privileged, pampered, opportunistic.

The Cranston fortune had been made in railroads and manufacturing, among other things, and had survived Black Friday by dint of the late Theodore Cranston’s uncanny knack for the market. Cranston was one of few New Yorkers who hadn’t sold his property to a developer because of the servant problem, or the escalating costs of maintaining fifty rooms in the heart of a thriving city

Family heirlooms handed by several generations of Cranstons. The house had the look and feel of permanence, as if the Cranstons were only the latest in a long and continuing line of distinguished occupants.

Now, some have said that Allard must have been raised an aristocrat, which makes sense but, The Shadow's aristocrat leanings are always in the form of him playing a character, and characters he's quite fond of but are always a mask he's putting on. And if Allard is meant to be different from Cranston (otherwise he's redundant as an identity), whether he's a world-renowned hero or a faceless, injured nobody, it stands to reason that he should have a fairly different upbringing than Cranston's. As The Shadow or whatever else, he relates to his own life in a completely different sense, completely buried in his duty to justice and the responsability he takes to others within it, protecting everyone while Cranston barely cares to protect himself (notably, when he does do it in The Hydra and has to kill a man with an elephant gun, he almost immediately starts feeling bad over his game hunting sports compared to what The Shadow's been doing).

So let's gather up some of our homework so far: We know Lamont Cranston has a family history from which inherited his fortune, that he was born into privilege and went on to live apathetically numbed by it. We know Kent Allard is not Lamont Cranston. We know he's had a proclivity for disguises and reshaping his identity long before he became The Shadow proper, and that just as now, most of his personas are either based on existing people or named by his enemies. We know he was doing quite a lot of things that pointed to his becoming The Shadow down the line, but that there was clearly a long process to get there and there's no clear moment where he truly becomes The Shadow, not even when he buries Kent Allard in that Guatemala plain crash.

We know he was highly precocious, enlisting and getting drafted into performing extraordinarily dangerous spy work from a very young age, and that he's apparently always had a strong sense of duty towards others, this being part of why he rejected becoming a mercenary after the war (although he still considered it). We know he likes impersonating and performing wealthy characters and he's mastered upper-class mannerisms so thoroughly to the point he can seamlessly blend in and make aristocrats, Russian or American or otherwise, mistake or accept him for one of their own. We know he likes to stay and plan and rest within dark, silent places others would find eerie or uncomfortable to stay in, and that he feels at home the most within total darkness.

And from those early contest clues, he claims to have been a rowing athlete at college and he claims to be fastidious and well-dressed, and combined with the above this points to him having either been raised in strict, aristocratic fashion, or precisely the opposite and it being something he had to learn and master just as he learned and mastered countless other skills of disguise and mimicry, or somewhere in between. He claims to have attained a Bachelor of Arts degree fairly young as well, and describes having "artistic hands". And he claims to be naturally blond and to have a cobra tattoo on his chest.

Again, I'm not getting into my headcanons for his family life and other things I'd keep to myself, but still, what do I think young Kent Allard's personality was like? Well, to keep it short, I'll think of a few things.

I think those might have been the closest years he ever had to something resembling normalcy, and it wasn't meant to last so, maybe they should be good ones, no?

I think he was raised decently, and I don't think he was raised rich with money, not during his earlier years. Other things, most definitely, but I think he had to learn a lot about how to deal with money, and this is part of why he's ultimately able to better handle Cranston's money as well as never need it and have his own undisclosed personal fortune.

I think he had to learn a lot about how to deal with people, and fighting, and mimicry, and interpersonal relationships, and aviation, and any other number of skills and things that he'd be highly proficient at barely entering adulthood and that he'd have to rely and develop so much to save his life again and again. He is restless, genial, unsuited for settling down and staying still, always thinking and planning and researching, and he most likely was always like this one way or another.

I like to think of him as having been raised mostly by his mother for several reasons, one of which being a point of contrast with Cranston's father, and maybe there were other hands on deck trying to steer his development for better or worse, but it was definitely her first and foremost. I think it was a different upbringing than you'd expect someone like him to have, maybe one that separated him of some opportunities but definitely prepared him more for those he'd give to others. I will put my foot down on just one idea, and it's the idea that he lost his parents or is driven by the loss of them: that's someone else's thing, it's never been a factor in his driving motivations and it doesn't need to be.

He grew up in an imperialistic America adapting to labor confrontations and conflicts posed by the Industrial Revolution, and I think he was no stranger to evil or injustice from an early age, and that burying Kent Allard was a decision made with a long history and experience showing him it had to be done, but that he was still very green around the gills before the war, more prepared than most but still initially out of his depth in the face of such callous, monstrous, pointless cruelty. He most certainly did not grow up knowing he'd be The Shadow, but I think he grew up knowing he'd have to be something, because being nothing, and thus doing nothing, was not an option. Maybe that was an option for the wealthy young man about town who lived elsewhere with a different name, but not for Kent Allard.

I think he had more of a sense of humor than he lets show nowadays, that the laugh was just always the language he'd prefer to use the most, same as is now. I think he had a fondness for stagecraft and arts, maybe was raised close to it, and that so much of his extensive repertoire of skills and disguises started there, and that maybe he still somewhat treasures that Bachelor of Arts degree, even if the man who worked to get it, to get into a prestigious college and had friends and a winning team and things to call his own, can't really exist anymore.

But he was there once.

I think he had things he loved very much and would have laid down his life to protect, whether they were still around for his adulthood or not. Good parent or parents, good friends, a good home, good experiences, good dreams. Maybe not all at once, but certainly they were there, and they mattered. They had to, he had to have had something, because I don't think there was ever a time where Kent Allard never had any enemies or people trying to hurt him one way or another.

"put The Shadow anywhere, in any locale, among friends or associates, even in a place of absolute security, and almost immediately crime, menace or mystery would begin to swirl about him, either threatening him personally or gathering him in its vortex to carry him off to fields where antagonists awaited."

We can never know the full extent of it, but however his life was like from childhood to adolescence, and whatever happened to him to lead him to mature so fast and ultimately enlist so early with such impressive and dangerous skills, I think Kent Allard had good times.

Or maybe I just want him to have had good times once, before what became of his life, before the war swallowed him and his own choices made all he was before an irrelevant trivia of weakness he can never admit to because it undermines the very foundation of The Shadow as an unknowable force of nature and mystery, in-universe and outside of it, and so it needs to be buried and wiped and erased.

But before the war and the spy and soldier work and the travels and the dark missions and the faked deaths and the arrival of The Master of Darkness to be all that he was, is or would be, there had to be a time where he knew something else besides those things. There had to be a time where The Shadow knew something besides being The Shadow. Because becoming The Shadow was, above all else, his choice. That which he stated the one and only time he made it a point to unmask and give us the truth about himself:

"I chose that mission."

You must treat the character as a discovery,rather than your own creation. Treat him, not just seriously, but profoundly.

Picture him as real and beyond you, in mind as well as prowess.

Feel that however much youhave learned about him, you can never uncover all.. - A Million Words a Year for TenStraight Years, by Walter Gibson (Writer’s Digest,March 1941) )

[oldschoolcrimefighters]

I just want to let you know that I was part of a Call of Cthulhu campaign (it's on hiatus, sadly) that takes place in the 1930s. So me being the nerd I am, made my character a pilot and named him after Miles Crofton and Kent Allard.

His name is Miles Allard. His nickname is Duck. I really miss playing him.

Neat! Sad that the game is on hiatus, I know that pain all too well T.T That seems like a solid character concept, and I like 'Duck' better as a nickname/callsign than Eagle, seems way more like a nickname someone would actually get from his pals lol. (Also I knew there was a pun there somewhere but it took me five minutes after posting this to finally put it together. M Allard. I love it.)

I haven't played CoC myself yet but I did recently play Achtung Cthulhu (ww2 and more of a pulp-thriller vibe than a horror vibe) as a pregen who I played as Basically Hawkeye

(My worst-kept ttrpg secret is that 90% of my long-term characters start as reskinned blorbos. ...I might add onto this with a very long art-filled ramble about some of them. There's at least two inspired by Hawkeye, two Shadows, and one Clyde Burke.)

[8crimson]

My Superhero team #4

The Question- Vic Sage, reporter, detective, and conspiracy nut.

Powers and tools: Intellect, investigation, journalism, unarmed combat, and acrobatics. Wears a mask made of the material "pseudoderm" which can only be removed with a special "binary gas" that is also used as a smokescreen.

first appearance: Blue Beetle (1967) #1

The Spirit- Denny Colt, private investigator, criminologist, and pretend-dead person.

Powers: Intellect, investigation, athletics, unarmed combat, and longevity.

first appearance: "The Origin of The Spirit"

The Shadow- Kent Allard, spy, aviator, legend.

Powers and tools: Intellect, spycraft, hypnosis, jujutsu, and master of disguise. Girasol Ring used as a focus for his hypnotic abilities. Arms himself with a pair of Clot .45s.

first appearace: Detective Story Hour

Night Thrasher- Dwayne Taylor, vigilante, leader, and skateboard enthusiast.  

Powers and tools: Enegineering, acute computer literacy, acrobatics, and, maritial arts. Wears a light weight bulletproof, fireproof, and knifeproof armored suit geared with cloaking tech. Along with a helemet with multi-vision goggles, breathing apparatus, voice scrambler, and other accoutrements. Gauntlets that could fire pepper spray and sleeping gas. Main weapon of choice is a pair of Escrima sticks. Uses a high tech armored fiberglass skateboard to get around.

first appearance: Mighty Thor #411

Knight Watchman- Reid Randall, seasoned hero, widower, and fashion designer.

Powers and tools: Olympic-level athlete, martial arts, ninjutsu and investigation. Known to use night-sticks.

first appearance: Berzerker #1

Artemis-Jacky Bouchard, P.I., day walker, master barista.

Powers and tools: Investigation, gunplay, supernatural strength, mesmerizing gaze (magnified through drinking blood), and mist transformation. Known to use handguns or advanced tasers called "E-lasers".

first appearance: Wearing the cape

ShadowHawk-Eddie Collins, vigilante, legacy, teenager.

Powers and tools: Unarmed Combat. Wears a helmet known as Nommo which holds the spirits of all the previous ShadowHawks, and grants him a suit. The suit provides enhanced strength, speed, agility, and stamina; along with metamorphic weapon and tool manifestation.

first appearance: New Man #4

[strange-creature-in-black]

various ideas drawn out

I may have read at least 1 pulp story possibly, can't recall

[jurjenkvanderhoek]

HET LICHT ZOEKEN EN VINDEN

Het is dat de tijd stil staat. Niet alsof, of dat het aldus lijkt. Het is zo. De tijd staat stil. Het is vandaag, het wordt geen morgen en gisteren is geweest. Voor de mens Allard Elout is dit de waarheid. Zijn werk blijft actueel, daarvoor is het eeuwig vandaag. Welhaast op de kop af 34 jaar geleden betrad ik op tientallen meters afstand de expositieruimte van Museum Willem van Haren. En nu loop ik de zaal in wat ooit Kunstruimte was en Museum Galerie Heerenveen is genoemd. Toen viel ik stil en dat overkomt mij nu weer. De daar toen en vandaag weer opgehangen schilderijen dwingen tot een moment van geruisloos afwachten. Wat ik destijds in de Heerenveense Courant deed afdrukken, kan ik nu bijna letterlijk op het weblog Kunststukjes publiceren. “Gefixeerd op de beelden totdat de schijnbaar steriele en onpersoonlijke vormen zich van het doek losmaken en in een waterval van glasgerinkel over de bezoeker heen storten.” 

De in 2016 overleden Elout leeft voort in zijn werk. De kunstwereld vergat hem niet. Postuum bezit Allard een plaats in de Friese scene zoals hij dat bij leven had. Zijn kunst is ook nu nog actueel en kent in aandacht en afwerking nauwelijks een gelijke. In dat werk stapt hij tegen beter weten in uit het donker. Het werkstuk waarmee hij met goed gevolg Vredeman de Vries kon verlaten is in deze tentoonstelling bijgehangen. Het toont een duistere welhaast abstracte omgeving in zwart en wit. Het fotografische beeld is op linnen gedrukt. Elout zal zich vaak zo gevoeld hebben zoals hij in dat werk er uitdrukking aan geeft. Pessimistisch over wat buiten het atelier en het woonhuis om hem heen gebeurt. De toestand in de wereld baart hem zorgen. Om daar een antwoord op te hebben bleef hij niet hangen in droefgeestigheid en zwartkijkerij. Na de academie zocht hij het licht.

Die open blik vond hij onder meer in goa-trance. Een muziekstijl waarmee je kunt mediteren en jij je in jezelf keert, in gedachten bent. Op Wikipedia lees ik daarover: “De nummers proberen geleidelijk aan de energie op te bouwen door middel van veranderingen in de percussiepatronen en steeds meer gecompliceerde en gelaagde synthesizergeluiden, melodieën en harmonieën, om zo een hypnotisch, euforisch en intens gevoel te creëren.” In die extase laat de kunstenaar de wereld achter zich, of beter onder zich daar hij in hoger sferen geraakt, en vindt vanuit de donkerte het licht. Die opgetogenheid klinkt door in zijn werk. 

“Van alle kanten straalt en bestraalt een schijnsel de vormen”, citeer ik mijzelf uit de recensie daterend van 7 maart 1990, “kiert ertussen door, terwijl de lichtbron zelf niet in beeld wordt gebracht. De vlakken bollen en rondingen ontstaan onder druk van contrasten. (…) De in pasteltinten gezette nevelsferen, alsof boven de wolken een nieuwe aarde geschapen is, zijn tegenstrijdig met de strakke begrenzingen van de overlappende vormen. Langs elkaar schuivende glasramen, spiegelingen zonder spiegelbeeld.” De tegennatuurlijke schaduwwerking maakt de intentie van het werk mysterieus en onbeschrijfelijk boeiend. De composities zijn gelaagd opgezet, dun en ijl over elkaar gepenseeld. Zo zodat er diepte ontstaat in het platte vlak. Het verdient uiterste concentratie, in maken zowel als in bekijken. Er is een magnetisch veld gecreëerd waarnaar mijn blik getrokken wordt. Mijn ogen kleven figuurlijk aan de verbeelding.

“In een bevlieging na ongestoorde meditatie verschijnen geestelijk beelden uit een vergeten landschap en worden moeizaam verwerkt tot tastbare impressies. De vormen zijn zo transparant als glas, maar vervormen voor het oog tot compacte gehelen. Nadat op het netvlies een bepaalde impressie staat ingebrand blijken de verzonden beeldgolven alweer andere standpunten in te houden. Aldoor speelt de vorm en de lijn een nieuw spel met de kijker. (…) Onder de denkbeeldige huid gaat een filosofie schuil, waarin in de uiteindelijke werkelijkheid de visie op heden en verleden, begin en eind, yin en yang, zijn en niet zijn verborgen ligt onder de diverse voorbewerkingslagen. Het karakter van het werk wordt daardoor bepaald, zoals de mens wordt gevormd door zijn geschiedenis.”

Bij de tentoonstelling is als een soort van catalogus een kleine werkmap te koop. Daarin verantwoord de kunstenaar zijn leven en werken, dat door kenners ‘poëtisch constructivistisch’ is genoemd. Elout is een dichter in zijn transparant abstracte schilderijen die zijn geconstrueerd rond geometrische vormen. Maar vooral zoekt hij daarin het licht. Hoe hij dat lichte punt aan het eind van de donkere tunnel heeft gevonden staat beschreven. Waardoor hij inspiratie vond en vanuit welke bron hij zijn composities liet ontstaan. Een playlist van ateliermuziek, waarbij Allard de rust vond om te werken, vindt een plek in de map. En de mate van verlichting door kunstlicht om bij te werken in het atelier. Om de kleurweergave op zijn schilderijen zo natuurgetrouw over te laten komen. Zelfs kan ik nu eenzelfde situatie bij mij thuis inrichten. Met dezelfde lichtsterkte, dezelfde muziek en de geur van olieverf, copal en damar. Sluit ik mijn ogen zie ik Allard werken achter zijn ezel met op het palet bergjes verf in pastelkleuren. 

“Het licht straalt degene tegemoet die de moeite neemt het licht daadwerkelijk symbolisch te ontsteken.”

“Inspiratie en worsteling”. Werken van Allard Elout in tentoonstelling bij Museum Galerie Heerenveen, Mickelersstraat 11 in Heerenveen. 28 januari tot en met 10 maart 2024.