The Giant: Orson Welles, the Artist and the Shadow

 The Giant: Orson Welles, the Artist and the Shadow by Youssef Daoudi (2025) 272 pages 

Yes, Orson Welles was a voice actor on "The Shadow" radio program, and that is touched on in this book, but it is more his looming figure with drifting smoke from an ever-present cigar that is the shadow of the title. A thread that carries through this biography is Welles working to finish the film The Other Side of the Wind, a film that was only completed posthumously in 2018. The author/artist hits all the major events of his life and career, but the visual invention allowed by the graphic medium is the real strength of this book. I loved the alien ships of The War of the Worlds, which Welles adapted for radio, being depicted as massive '30s radio microphones. Welles was evidently a fan of bullfighting, so another clever visual is having his shadow play matador to a charging bull with a movie camera head. Behind the scenes anecdotes and Welles' appetite and his wicked humor fill the pages to bursting. Welles appeared in many TV commercials and recognized he acted in many bad movies. "The only thing I want written on my tombstone: 'He never did Love Boat.'" "[His career has] been two percent moviemaking and ninety-eight percent HUSTLING." So much care has been put into the black and white art with yellow highlights.