>
>
>A staple of DOC SAVAGE stories is the "slow opening." Something
>mysterious is happening to people. Sometimes they're killed;
>sometimes they go to New York City, and are killed there. Other times
>they get off a last-minute telegram of phone call. Quite often DOC
>makes to appearance before Chapter 3, Sometimes it's as late as
>Chapter 6.
>
>I've started rereading one like that right now -- name slips my mind
>at the moment, but it's the one with the Bantam cover with DOC looking
>at 4 giant ferrets. And I think -- why do they always wait so long to
>introduce DOC? Wouldn't it have made more sense to introduce him
>sooner? A chapter 2 intro, ala THE DESTROYER? Show him doing
>something heroic or fantastic right in the first chapter, and have
>that chapter end with, "Little did DOC SAVAGE know that in far off
>Congobongoland, and mysterious menace to world peace was already
>emerging from the primordial swamp...."
>
>Compare with THE SPIDER, with the fever-pitch already there by the
>third paragraph. Even THE SHADOW ususally makes an appearance in the
>first or second chapter
>
>dave
>