Daily Sketch Challenge vol.15 #47 - GREEN LAMA

The Green Lama was an American pulp magazine hero of the 1940s. In many respects a typical costumed crime-fighter of the period, the Green Lama's most unusual feature was the fact that he was a practicing Buddhist. Slightly different versions of the same character also appeared in comic books and on the radio.

The Green Lama first appeared in a short novel entitled The Green Lama in the April 1940 issue of Double Detective magazine. The novel was written by Kendell Foster Crossen using the pseudonym of "Richard Foster". Writing in 1976, Crossen recalled that the character was created because the publishers of Double Detective, the Frank Munsey company, wanted a competitor for The Shadow, which was published by their rivals Street & Smith.

The character, partially inspired by explorer Theos "the White Lama" Bernard, was originally conceived as "The Gray Lama" thinking that he could hide in the shadows and sneak around, but tests of the cover art proved to be less than satisfactory so they changed his color to green. The Green Lama proved to be successful (though not as successful as The Shadow), and Crossen continued to produce Green Lama stories for Double Detective regularly up until March 1943, for a total of 14 stories.