A Swedish Perspective on the Australian DVD of a Canadian-Made American Phantom for TV...

Guest Blogger and Jungle Patrolman Pidde Andersson has provided us with this fabulous review of SyFy's The Phantom TV Movie:

About twenty years ago, I was talking to my friend, the late Fantomen editor Mats Jönsson, who for some reason asked me if I was the one who had suggested doing a Frank Miller style revamp of The Phantom. No, it wasn’t me -- but it could have been, and I had been thinking about suggesting writing one. However, Mats said they weren’t the slightest bit interested in that, you can’t do something like that with a character like The Phantom.

But then just a couple of years later, Team Fantomen -- headed by writer Claes Reimerthi -- did an ill-fated revamp anyway. They did their best to modernize the comic, both storywise and the way it’s told. The readers didn’t appreciate the effort, though, and Fantomen was back to normal within no time.

This year it’s 35 years since I started reading Fantomen. I still like the character but I can’t say I’m a very faithful reader. Last year I didn’t buy one single issue of the book. Still, I leaf through every new issue when stopping by the comics rack in supermarkets and at tobacconists. That book meant a lot to me growing up, that character meant a lot to me. He’s part of my life.

Like most Phantom fans -- at least the Scandinavian ones who know who the guy is -- I got rather upset when I the other year saw the concept art for the then upcoming Phantom mini-series from Syfy, and when I read the storyline. It seemed to be a re-imagination in which they’ve altered just about everything. Why bother? Why not just create a new character if they’re going to change everything that is The Phantom?

I like the Phantom movie from 1996 starring Billy Zane. It’s a bit sloppy and the Phantom of that movie isn’t really my Phantom -- but it’s still the Phantom, sporting his tights and mask, jazzing around the jungle along with Hero and Devil, and punching bad guys with his skull ring. Heck, I even like the Phantom of the fun 1940s serial! But this new one from Syfy seemed to be absolutely awful!

Then the series aired, if not here in Sweden, and was released on DVD in Australia -- and it got surprisingly good reviews. Several hardcore Phantom fans claimed it was good. No, that just can’t be -- or can it?

Now I’ve seen this 2009 Canadian production, directed by Paolo Barzman, veteran of lots of Canadian TV shows like “Highlander”, “Largo Winch”, “Relic Hunter” and “The Dead Zone”. And you know what? This two-part, three hour series is actually pretty damn good!

Ryan Carnes is 24-year-old Chris Moore, a daredevil and hothead, living in New York with his foster parents, when he’s one day approached by the mysterious Abel Vandermaark (Jean Marchant, who kind of looks like Ghandi’s evil brother). It turns out that Chris Moore really is Kit Walker, son of Diana Palmer and, uh, Kit Walker, and that he’s supposed to become the 22nd Phantom.

Chris thinks that’s bullshit, he’s more interested in cute paramedic Renny (Cameron Goodman), but when the Singh Brotherhood strikes and kills Chris’s foster parents, the poor guy has no choice but following Abel to a mysterious island that in this version of the story is called Bengalla (and not Bengali or Bangalla). There he’s lead to the Skull Cave, which is quite a nifty place, and he’s introduced to Guran, who’s as far from a fat little African man you can get -- this Guran is a tall, gorgeous brunette played by Sandrine Holt.

It turns out that the Phantom has a whole team working for him. This Phantom is some kind of superhero version of James Bond. Chris Moore accepts to become Kit Walker after having read the journals of his forefathers, but he’s still just an immature kid who needs training before he can don the costume, so Kit practices target shooting and is forced to run around half-naked in the woods. And when he’s ready, he refuses to put on the Phantom costume, which he finds silly. Fortunately, one of the team has developed a prototype of a new, bulletproof costume, which comes in handy when it’s time to fight Rhatib Singh (Cas Anvar) and the Singh Brotherhood.

You see, the Singh fellas, along with mad scientist Dr. Bella Lithia (Isabella Rossellini looking unusually creepy) have a sinister plan. Inspired by the pilot episode of the short-lived 1970s Spider-Man series starring Nicholas Hammond, or that episode of “The Persuaders”, or that Charles Bronson movie “Telefon”, they have programmed a bunch of people to commit murders when they’re triggered by a phone call. So, the Phantom goes to work along with his high tech team...

Syfy’s “The Phantom” is basically a combination of our beloved Ghost Who Walks and “Alias”; the great Jennifer Garner spy show. And there’s much to appreciate here -- but let me first mention what I didn’t like about this mini.

The Phantom works alone. He’s his own boss. If he needs help, he maybe contacts the Jungle Patrol or some friend, but he really shouldn’t be part of a team.

Ryan Carnes isn’t a very fun actor and the guy’s way too boyish for the part. He isn’t very well built and he appears to be rather short. And he’s never Mr. Walker. He still shows his eyes after having become the Phantom, and he wears what looks like a silly purple Smurf hat. Not good.

The old, classic Phantom costume might look ridiculous if worn in real life, but the new uniform isn’t much of an improvement. It actually looks like … I dunno … Judge Dredd’s pajamas? And Carnes is too tiny to look cool and threatening wearing it.

...And this Phantom wears the skull ring on the wrong finger; on the ring finger of the right hand (okay, so did Ray Moore’s Phantom in the first few strips), and none of the bad guys get punched on the chin and skull marked. They don’t even mention this important part of the Phantom lore.

But otherwise, some of the ideas in this series should have been adopted for at least Team Fantomen’s version a long tome ago to modernize the character.

The skull cave is furnished like a real home. It has electricity, antique furniture, a computer with Internet, and everything the modern man needs.

I really liked that the Singh Brotherhood is a well-known corporation nobody knows really is a crime syndicate; they’re right out of a Bond movie.

I liked that this Kit Walker actually had to go through a “Phantom training school” before he puts the costume on, most other superheroes just don a costume and immediately know how to fight crime.

The origin of the Phantom is told in a short animation, which I found pretty neat, and even though the makers of this show has updated the character and altered quite a lot, there are quite a few references to the familiar Phantom we all know and love.

Slight spoiler: I’ve no idea if there ever will be a series or at least another TV-movie, but this mini builds up to a continuation, since it ends with one of the good guys becoming the new leader of the Singh Brotherhood. End of spoiler.

“The Phantom” is surprisingly gory, I thought it would be more family oriented. Both episodes tend to become a tad draggy, but as a whole I found this mini-series very entertaining. It’s not really The Phantom, but it’s a good action show with a decent story and, as mentioned, several great ideas.

Pidde Andersson

Sweden Celebrates 60 years of Phantom!

Yes, yes, we all know that The Phantom turned 60 back in 1996. But his publishing history in Sweden- a great bastion of Phantom Fandom- has just reached it's 60th anniversary and so the The Scandinavian Chapter of the Lee Falk Memorial Bengali Explorers Club has produced a commemorative book "From Purple Ghost to Blue-Yellow Hero".

Highlights of this book (which I haven't seen, nor did I receive an advance copy for review purposes-what's up with THAT ?) include a beautiful cover (pictured above) by Phantom fan fave and all-around nice guy Sal Velluto as well as a fascinating tale of his childhood connection to The Phantom, and commentary by such diverse contributors as Phantom great Romano "Roy" Felmang:


Swedish Prime Minister Frederik Reinfeldt:

And journalist,film-critic, movie producer, actor and comics nerd-Pidde Andersson.



I was assured by Andreas Eriksson (Who graciously provided me with the above sneak-peek excepts of the book) that though this book is primarily in Swedish, it contains at least 10% English-language content (which he also stated was 10% more than any previously-published Swedish book about The Phantom)

A detailed list of contents (aimed at curious international collectors) can be found here:

http://www.schapter.org/wiki/Fr%C3%A5n_lila_v%C3%A5lnad_till_bl%C3%A5gul_hj%C3%A4lte

International collectors who are interested in this book can send an inquiry to:
boken@schapter.org

To tie in with the release of this exciting new tome, I briefly interviewed two of the book's contributors, cover artist Sal Velluto and Pidde Andersson who contributed an essay. An essay which I previously published here.

As an added bonus, I'm also including a previously unpublished interview with Felmang.


First up, Sal Velluto:

GWB: So, out of all the living artists to portray The Phantom, you were the one chosen to do the art for the cover of this book. You must have been very excited.

Sal: I resisted the idea of being the cover artist. I believed, and still believe, there are other artists who are more qualified than me to represent 60 years of Fantomen in Sweden. The fans know who I'm talking about.

GWB: How did this come about?

Sal: The folks from The Scandinavian Chapter asked me to contribute an interview and some artwork. They ended up liking the artwork enough to choose it for the cover.

GWB: Were there any special requests from the publishers or were you pretty much free to do your own thing?

Sal: Since my contribution was offered on a pro-bono basis, I was given the freedom to draw whatever I wanted. I like freedom....

GWB: Apart from the cover, can we expect to see any further Sal Velluto art in this book?

Sal: There will be an exclusive interview. Among other things I explain the mysterious circumstances that led me to The Phantom...

GWB: Were you asked to and/or did you contribute, any commentary to the book itself.

Sal: No. I think they ended up with too much material anyway.

GWB: Any plans to do the 100th Anniversary cover?

Sal: If I'm still around, on February 17, 2036 (that's when The Phantom will celebrate his 100th birthday) I'll lobby for a cover collage of the best covers from the past 100 years.


Next up, pop culture geek and friend of this blog, Pidde Andersson:

GWB: Who approached you about contributing to this book and how did you become involved with this project?

Pidde: One of the guys behind the book, Arne Olin, runs a comic book store here in Malmö. I read in a newspaper that Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt had written a piece for an upcoming book about the Phantom, and I mentioned this to Arne. He simply asked me if I'd like to contribute as well.

GWB: Were there any special requests from the publishers or were you pretty much free to do your own thing?

Pidde: I had already written a rather nostalgic article about the cover art of Fantomen in the 1970s on my blog, which in turn was inspired by a thing I wrote for Sal Velluto's blog, and this article was perfect for the book. I reworked it a little before sending it to them.

GWB: What was your connection to The Phantom, growing up?

Pidde: The Phantom, and even more so the Swedish comic book than the character, meant a lot to me. The Phantom stories themselves were most of the time thrilling, I was fascinated by the character's history and world, and many of the adventures - especially the ones produced by Semic - had this heavy, mysterious atmosphere. Dark, lots of shadows - things that disappeared when they started publishing in color. But the thing with the Swedish book, was that they kind of respected the readers. The book offered lots of info about the people making the comics, about the inspirations for the adventures and to on. And they have always crammed the book with wonderful back up comics - they still do. Blueberry, The Spirit, Bernhard Prince, Johnny Hazard, the list goes on and on and on... Fantomen made me interested in comics as a medium and art form, as did Knasen; the Beetle Bailey book, which always featured interviews with- and articles about the cartoonists.

GWB: You've said before that the Swedish Comics scene is on shaky ground, yet The Phantom has stayed in continuous publication for six decades. What do you think is the key to The Phantom's enduring success in Sweden?

Pidde: There are a couple of titles that "have always been around"; they are considered classic titles, so I guess Egmont do their best to keep them alive. I'm not sure who reads these titles, maybe it's the ones who "have always bought them". Meaning, adult, rather old people. I don't know who reads Fantomen today - probably very young kids and their 40+ parents, while teens and 20-somethings don't read comics at all, or stick to alternative stuff. Egmont publishes several thick, hardcover collections with popular comics; the complete Beetle Bailey and so on, and these expensive books are clearly aimed at middle-aged people who read the comics while growing up.

GWB: The Phantom is really quite different in Scandinavia than he is in the U.S.. Would you say that Sweden has a sort of proprietary feeling about the character?

Pidde: Yeah, I think we do. Maybe he's like the Statue of Liberty; nobody cares about the French, small one in Paris, when the Americans have a much bigger and cooler one in New York. And of course, everybody knows who The Phantom is over here, everybody can refer to the character, he's part of the Swedish heritage. Okay, I'm not sure about young kids, of course. Kids today don't think of Batman and Spider-Man as comic book characters, but movie heroes.

GWB: I know that sometimes Scandinavian comics fans don't care for American Phantom comics, even the ones published during Lee Falk's lifetime. Why do you think that is?

Pidde: Well, very few of them have been published over here, almost none. I, as a fan, have of course bought some of the different American incarnations, as have other fans, and they just didn't feel right. I always get the impression the people behind them don't really know the character and his world. Sometimes the art was a bit odd, not different in a cool way, like when a fan fave takes over a Marvel or DC title. Americans also seem to think they need to change the character whenever the title is revived; the old, beloved version won't do. However, since Fantomen is published every other week, 26 issues a year, lots and lots and lots of awful episodes have been produced by Semic/Egmont.

GWB: Do you expect The Phantom to see a 100th anniversary?

Pidde: Short answer: No. Will people read any comic books, printed on paper, at all in 40 years?

GWB: Thanks for your time on this.

Pidde: My pleasure.

And last, but by no means least, My much awaited (by me, anyway) interview with Felmang:

GWB:When and how did you first become interested in art?

Felmang: Since I was a child (5 or 6 years) I spent the great part of my time drawing, in the rest, as many other children I was playing with my two friends (girls of course) Marisa and Floriana.

GWB: Were you a fan of The Phantom before you became a Phantom artist?
Felmang: 2- Mainly not. Since 7 years old I was a fervent reader of the comic art, something of Walt Disney, and especially Italian comics (called strips) with kids as main characters as example Tony Boy, Il Piccolo Sceriffo, Sciuscià (coming from the world Shoe shine), Nat of Santa Cruz, Forza John! and also comic book like Pecos Bill and Pantera Bionda (a sort of Sheena made in Italy). At ten years old I discovered the weekly magazine Intrepido and continued to collect it until the moment I start to cooperate as artist with the same magazine(1970: 750000/ 850000 copies a week,a real record!).I became a Phantom fan at 22 years in the F.lli Spada era, reading the very first adventures drawn by Raymond Moore and the new by Sy Barry.

GWB: Do you prefer The Phantom in Red, Blue or Purple?

Felmang: I'm Italian and of course always I saw the Phantom in red, probably is easy to discover him if hidden in the Jungle, but red is a good color for this character, red put him always in evidence respect the other characters of the strip.

GWB: One morning at the end of 1963 I noticed issue 51 of Il Vascello Mandrake at the newsstand. It was the Un mondo scomparso made by the Italian artist Domenico Mirabella. I bought it and found that Fratelli Spada Publications were produced in Rome.

Felmang: I considered the possibility of pursuing seriously a cartoonist's career. After telephoning the next day after, with my bronze face (as I had at the time) I went to via Enea 77, offices of the Fratelli Spada press, and presented myself as an illustrator of comics, with zero experience.

Daniela, a beautiful girl (niece of mr.Giuseppe Spada) working there in the redaction, gave me a issue of L'Uomo Mascherato from the American Adventures Series. The issue was 60 Le mani sull'isola (Sy Barry's The Island of the Dogs) - saying:

This is a recent story of the Phantom from the United States; the production is syndicated, but it's not enough to cover our weekly requirement. For this reason we need illustrators who imitate Sy Barry, the leading artist of the American comic-strips. Make us a couple of trial panels in this style!

During the following days I tried several times to draw The Phantom of Sy Barry, but the results were very poor. I could not confront such a demanding character tout de suite and succeed in imitating an artist, whom I considered the best at that time. So I had to practice and wait for a later opportunity.

In 1966, after my military service, the editor of F.lli Spada commissioned me I my first 8 pages Phantom story :Kaniska. He accepted the finished story which was also lettered but never published. I made my debut as a Phantom artist soon after, drawing a full length story called I Ladri della tomba del Gran Re . Some more Phantom stories in 1997 and various covers for Fratelli Spada and Editions des Remparts for Mandrake, The Phantom, Rip Kirby and Secret Agent.

GWB: Who (besides yourself) is your favorite Phantom artist?

Felmang: My favourite Phantom artist, except Sy Barry is without any doubt Ferri, he is really the best. I’m one of his fan since the first time I saw a Ph-comic drawn by him: Le anime di pietra. His Phantom comics drawn for F.lli Spada untill 1971 , about 40 adventures, are the best produced by this company. He left the comic field around the year 1971/72 for doing another job.

When in 1991 the Gammelredax asked me to produce more Phantom pages I called him. He was not interested to come back to the comic word and said no. But I insisted a lot and at the end he accepted to cooperate with me after about twenty years far away from the comics world. I am proud to had involved him to cooperate with me in many PH-episodes.

GWB: Who has influenced you artistically?

Felmang: Sy Barry and Germano Ferri, of course.

GWB: What's your favorite comics project you've worked on?

Felmang: I’m human and of course imperfect, and was practically impossible to create a masterpiece of every episode I did. Furthermore I tryed to do my best every time, for this reason all the episodes are my favourite.

GWB: How do you feel about the current state of the comics industry? What, if anything, would you do to improve it?

Felmang: The comic industry of to day is very poor respect the 60’s and 70’s, it is only for an “elite” of readers and fans.

The comic industry of today is confused (please see the not professional Ph.strips in the first years after Sy Barry, and many American comic books of the same Phantom) it needs not only good artists, but also good scriptwriters with new great ideas, and this is not easier to achieve.

GWB: What advice would you give to an aspiring comics artist?

Felmang: I always suggest to the aspiring comic artists to (drop) sic this idea and start to think to another job.

The Phantom: A Ghost For All Seasons- Special Guest Post!

Hey, gang! I have a special treat for you today. And, since I don't really have to write anything, it's a special treat for me as well! Our "Swedish Correspondent", writer Pidde Andersson recently wrote an arts and entertainment piece on The Phantom and he agreed to let me post it on my blog. (Thanks, Pidde!) So, after persuading Pidde to translate his article from Swedish to English (Google Translator's version was vaguely coherent and highly -but unintentionally-humorous) here we go...

The Phantom: A Ghost For All Seasons

A couple of weeks ago, I ended up at a friend's place after some beers in the pub. This guy is a huge fan of The Phantom - the comic strip character. It was in the middle of the night and he took out an album from the 1960s with Swedish artist Robert Broberg. On the LP was a song called "Fantomen" ("The Phantom") and the lyrics were printed on the convolute. My friend had actually asked Broberg about this song when he performed here in Malmö recently, but Broberg had absolutely no memories of writing and recording it. Before I went home, we played the song a second time and sang the lyrics along with Broberg. Robert Broberg's "Fantomen" begins "Fantomen han har en trikå som är blå", which means (my translation and interpretation to fit the melody): "The Phantom, he's wearing tights that are blue".
But it's only in Scandinavia he has blue tights and red pants. Phantom creator, writer Lee Falk himself had never really thought about what colors his hero should wear when he created the character as a black and white daily strip in 1936 with art by Ray Moore. Sometimes I've read that Falk imagined some kind of camouflage suit, sometimes just a gray one. But when it was time for the full color Sunday pages to see the light of day, The Phantom showed up dressed in purple tights and blue pants.
I may be wrong, but after what I've heard, they had problems printing these colors in Sweden - and he ended up blue. In the beginning he was baby blue, but the color has gotten darker by the years.
The Phantom is the most well-known and popular action-adventure character in Scandinavia and especially Sweden. The Swedish comic book; Fantomen, is celebrating its 60th anniversary in 2010. What's interesting with this book is that since the last 40 years, it mainly features Phantom comics produced in Scandinavia.

The very first issue I bought was number 18/1976 - I couldn't resist the extremely cool cover (I'll get back to that one a little later in this article). But I actually had a Fantomen publication before that; the 1972 Christmas special (dated 1973 on its cover). I don't know where I got it from, but it contained two American Sunday adventures with art by Sy Barry. I found one of them - the one about the Goola-Goola witch - very thrilling. Not to mention the cover by Rolf Gohs. As a little kid, I thought it was rather scary. Just look:

Old covers of Fantomen often make me nostalgic. Even the ones for issues I never had and therefore haven't read. Each year, they had - and still have - the Best Cover of the Year contest, and in the issue with the ballot, they reprint all of the covers. I looked at them and my imagination went wild, some of those adventures must be extremely cool. Take this issue, for example - take a wild guess if I wanted to get hold of this one:

I liked The Phantom, I liked Westerns. What could be better than the Phantom as a gunslinger? But I don't think I ever got hold of this issue.

The cover that was voted Best Cover of 1976 was reprinted as a poster that came with an issue during 1977. Even though I hadn't read that adventure, I had the poster on my wall. It's a beautiful piece of art and I still wonder what Mr. Walker was up to in that story. Who's that hot chick he's picked up in the desert?

During 1977 I bought Fantomen regularly while saving money for a subscription. I remember one cover from this year very well. it was extremely suggestive and a bit creepy. However, back in 1977 I didn't get the title of the episode; "Kalisekten" - The Kali Sect. I didn't know who Kali was and what a sect was. And I didn't know how to pronounce it.

The cover for the adventure that tells the story of how The Phantom got his skull ring is a classic that has been reused several times. This cover was voted best of 1977 and ended up on my wall next to the Son of the Desert. I got this issue one day when I was going to sleep over at my grandparents. I remember lying in their twin bed in their rather dark home. It smelled of tobacco and I read this dark, atmospheric episode.

I was always looking forward to the next issue of my favorite comics when I was a kid. I found the ads for the next issue very tempting. Sometimes I could hardly wait. I remember the little ad for an adventure called "Skelettkusten" ("The Skeleton Coast"). A picture of The Phantom tied up on a beach while giant crabs crawled towards him. Whoah! That's the coolest thing I've ever seen! I remember actually telling other people how incredibly cool the next issue of Fantomen should be. Nobody gave a shit. Here's the über-cool cover:

I've actually no memories of Fantomen 5/1978 and the story "Schakalen" (The Jackal") - apparently, it's about the foreign legion. But the amazing cover was voted Best of the Year and ended up on my wall. By this year, I was subscribing.

Okay, let's have a look at Fantomen 18/1976, the first issue I bought. Now, this is one tough cover painting! And the adventure it's illustrating, "Vråkar över Vacul" ("Vultures over Vacul") by Norman Worker and Jaime Vallvé, was a dark, moody and a little scary story. Here's the Swedish cover:

...And here's the amazingly crappy cover for the Australian edition:

As you maybe know, The Phantom is incredibly popular in Australia. The Australian comic is published by a company called FREW and contains among other things the material produced by Team Fantomen in Sweden. I've never hold an actual copy of FREW's comic in my hand, but everybody says it's a cheaply made product with lousy printing on lousy paper. Most of all, the edition often has really ugly covers - quite often, they've just enlarged or copied (badly) a panel from the issue's episode. Okay, this cover is pretty fun:

As you can see, The Phantom is purple in Australia, just like he is in the U.S.A., but his pants seem to be purple as well.

Even if The Phantom is an American comic, the character is more or less forgotten in his home country. Every now and then throughout the decades, attempts have been made to put out comic books with original material on the American market, but none of them have been very successful. Quite often, the stories have been rather odd; it's like the writers don't know the character, it's obvious they didn't grow up having The Phantom as one of their favorite characters. And the artwork has often been weirdly awkward - unlike the artist hired by Team Fantomen, the ones working for the American books have had problems drawing The Phantom himself and his pretty strange costume. The Phantom often looks extremely funny.
When the good, old publisher Gold Key put out their Phantom comic, they had really nice covers. Painted and attractive. It's just that The Phantom is funny looking on them. Here's one example:

And he looks hilarious on this one:

Note that The Phantom on the cover above wears the skull ring on his ring finger, something he actually did in the very first adventures - back in the 1930s.

Here's a third cover, on which the Ghost who Walks (with strangely visible ears and the stripes on his pants going in the wrong direction) has ended up in the same situation as Conan in the first Conan movie, in other words: he's chained to the Wheel of Pain:

After Gold Key, it was classic publisher Charlton's turn to give The Phantom a try. Well... I really don't know what to say about this:

But this cover is really cool and would've made a great poster for my room when I was a kid:

It almost reminds me of Tarzan - but I was never a huge Tarzan fan. The Phantom was much, much tougher. Hmm. Come to think of it, this could also be the cover of an issue of The Savage Sword of Conan.

In the late 1980s, DC Comics got the idea of putting out their own version of The Phantom. They tried the title out by publishing a four issue mini-series. The artist of choice was Joe Orlando. Orlando was a classic comics artist who in the 1950s worked for legendary EC Comics and their line of horror comics. But when it came to The Phantom, well ... Orlando just couldn't handle the mission.

This mini-series was rather crappy, but it sold well enough to generate an ongoing, monthly Phantom comic. Here's the first issue:

Maybe it's just me, but doesn't this look kind of like, well ... "The Ghost Who Takes a Dump"?

The DC book was short lived, but after a few years, comics giant Marvel Comics stepped in. They had earlier in the 80s published the silly comic Defenders of the Universe, based on a Saturday morning cartoon. I remember that I 25 years ago or so asked the comic book store Metropolis in Stockholm to send me the worst comic they had. I received an issue of Defenders of the Universe. In this comic, The Phantom, Mandrake, Lothar, Flash Gordon and their children (!) fight Flash's arch enemy Ming of Mongo.

In the 1990s, another Phantom cartoon appeared on TV, one that also took place in the future: Phantom 2040. I used to catch it and it was decent, but it sure wasn't "my" Phantom, the real one. Marvel put out a comic book based on the show - and The Phantom looks like he's escaped from a freak show!

Later on, Marvel started an ongoing comic starring "our" Phantom, the "real" one. But this was of course Marvel's very own interpretation of The Phantom. Within short, the title went belly up and this cover says it all:

The publisher putting out The Phantom in the States right now is Moonstone, but they'll soon lose the rights to Dynamite, who threatens to alter the character dramatically. But the stuff Moonstone has put out is nothing to write home about. The comics are often curiously amateurish; they've tried to make a modern action comic and the results don't feel at all like The Phantom. And as usual, the artists have had problems drawing our hero. I don't know what the hell to say about this version (check out his Dumbo ears!):

...Or this Frazetta inspired piece of art:

It's not exactly ugly, but it isn't The Phantom, so to speak...

Okay: in Scandinavia, The Phantom is blue with red pants. In the U.S.A. and Australia, he's purple. What does he look like in the rest of the world? Like this, for example:

Yup, in Italy - where he's called L'Uomo Mascherato (The Masked Man) - he's red with light blue pants. He's looking like a damn traffic light running around in the jungle! Apparently he's red in England as well. Here's another Italian example.

The sadistic killer The Crimson Executioner (Mickey Hargitay) in the Italian B-movie classic BLOODY PIT OF HORROR seems to be heavily inspired by the Italian Phantom.

Rather surprising, The Phantom is extremely popular in India, of all countries. It seems like his Indian comic is published both in Hindi (or whatever it is):

...and in English (and talk about "bad"):

But seriously, what kind of strange cover is this? "The Playmate"? It sure sounds kinky... What the hell are they up to over there in India?

_ Pidde Andersson


You can also read this and other articles and reviews by Pidde at Xomba.com:

http://www.xomba.com/phantom_ghost_all_seasons

My Talk With Pidde-

Hey, gang! I've been having an ongoing conversation since yesterday with screenwriter, film critic, comics writer, blogger, super-Phan and all-around-nice-guy, Pidde Andersson. We've been talking about The Phantom, the differences between American Phantom comics and their Swedish cousins from Team Fantomen, Phantom artists, Bengali, etc.

If you'd like to subject yourself to this scholarly discourse, you can find it on this blog and at Mykal Banta's Gold Key Comics blog. To follow along, I recommend you start here (we're in the "comments" section:

http://www.goldkeystories.com/2010/02/phantom-blind-mans-bluff.html

We are also chatting it up on my blog under the following posts:

http://falkonthewildside.blogspot.com/2010/02/just-where-is-bangalla-anyway.html

http://falkonthewildside.blogspot.com/2010/04/lions-tigers-and-leopards-oh-my-part.html

and Pidde's awesome blog can be found at :

http://www.toppraffel.tk/