WHAT THE?

Pictured above is page 12 of THE SHADOW #18, published by Dynamite Comics in 2013. This is one of many comics I purchased last week when Judy and I took a day trip to San Antonio. We stopped at the Alien Worlds comic book shop and I spent way too much money of back issues of THE SHADOW, THE SPIDER, DOC SAVAGE and JUSTICE, INC. (all published by Dynamite) as well as the first CAPTAIN AMERICA EPIC COLLECTION, a hefty trade paperback that reprints (in color), early 1960s Captain America stories by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby (and a few others).

THE SHADOW comic is set in the 1930s. You can tell that by the vehicles pictured in the top two panels. But somehow, inexplicably, when Margo Lane gets into the rear of Shrevvy's taxi cab, she is suddenly transported to the year 2015. How do I know this? Look at that interior. Bucket seats? Head rests? I'm sorry, but taxi cabs in the 1930s didn't look like that.

Artist Giovanni Timpano must have used photo references for the exteriors of the vintage automobiles and I assumed he used photo reference for the panel depicting the cab's interior. He somehow mixed the two eras up. Honestly, I don't blame him for this mistake.

I blame the editor. Oh, wait, that's right. Modern comic books don't have editors, a truism I've long posited. There's no editor listed on the inside front cover of this issue. The writer, artist, colorist, letterer, and cover artists are listed as is Shadow creator Walter B. Gibson. But there's no editor's name.

I know this book didn't magically put itself together but whoever the editor of record was, he or she did an extremely lousy job. A mistake like this jarred me out of what was otherwise an enjoyable Shadow adventure. Did it totally ruin the book for me? No, but it's inexcusable nonetheless.

Gee, do you think I could get a No Prize for catching this mistake?