Doc Savage Club lapel pin (Street and Smith, c. 1930)

The Shadow and Doc Savage in "Hombres Audaces" (Spain, Argentina, 1936-1953)

(updated with more pulps)

"Hombres Audaces" started being published by Editorial Molino in Spain in 1936 and stopped a few months later because of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). Molino then moved to Argentina and continued publishing from 1936 until 1953, as Editorial Molino Argentina, for a total of 373 issues. They resumed publishing in Spain in 1941, and some titles exist in both editions with different covers. Hombres Audaces reprinted The Shadow (La Sombra), Doc Savage, Bill Barnes, Pete Rice and The Avenger, mostly with the original covers.

The collection has two numberings, a general one (from #1 to #373) and a separate one for each character. Some issues of the Argentinian edition were never published in Spain, but Molino kept the Argentinian numbering on the spine of the issues published in Spain.

Overall, the pulps were not published in chronological order, many issues being skipped (probably due to censorship problems) and others switched around. For Bill Barnes, character and airplane names were changed, paragraphs skipped and others inserted in order to adapt the plot to its random publishing order.

Here are all the issues I have in my collectiom. Enjoy!

The Shadow

Spanish Edition

   

#1 (4) April 25, 1936                         #3 (12) June 20, 1936

 

#4 (16) July 18, 1936                                      #11 (47) 1939

 #14 (79) December 1944                            #20 (103) August 1945

   #21 (107) November 1945                             #24 (117) June 1946

  #25 (121) July 1946                             #27 (129) October 1946

#29 (142) May 1947                              #32 (153) September 1947

#39 (179) May 1948                              #40 (185) July 1948

Argentinian Edition

#1 (4) September 23, 1938

Doc Savage

Spanish Edition

#2 (6) May 2, 1936                            #4 (14) June 27, 1936

#5 (18) July 25, 1936

Argentinian Edition

 #13 (48) September 3, 1939                                    #51 (208) 1949        

 Pete Rice

Spanish Edition

 

#? January 1946                                          #? (65) February 1944

Further reading: 

• Tercera Fundación, in Spanish.
• Tebeosfera, "Los Hombres Audaces de Molino" by Hector Pérez Día. In Spanish.

"The Shadow and the Living Death" (Better Little Books, Whitman, 1940)

"In 1932, at the depths of the Great Depression, comic books were not selling despite their successes in the previous two decades. Desperate publishers had already reduced prices to 25c, but this was still too much for many people to spend on entertainment. Comic books quickly evolved into two newer formats, the comics magazine and the Little Big Book. Both types retailed for 10c. Big Little Books began by reprinting the art (and adapting the stories) from newspaper comics. As their success grew, and publishers began commissioning original material, movie adaptations and other entertainment-derived stories became commonplace.

-- From Overstreet's Comic Price Guide, 41st Edition

This is "The Shadow and the Living Death", No. 1430  in the "Better Little Books" series by Whitman -- same publishers of the Little Big Books, so it is considered the same series. Published in 1940 with 432 pages, it is illustrated by Erwin L. Hess and written by Maxwell Grant. Condition would be 6.5 F+.