Christmas Miracle #3: Phantom Christmas Special

Sometimes Christmas is just a time of year, and stuff comes out at that time. You sometimes get stories that are set at Christmas that really have nothing to do with Christmas. Sometimes you even get stuff that comes out at Christmas and so it gets seasonal branding even though it has nothing to do with the holiday.

So that brings us to Phantom #1713. (Yes, the issue number is not a typo. This comic is a weekly that's been going since the 1940s.)

Every year Frew Publications in Australia brings out a 100 page Christmas Special for the Phantom. Which has nothing to do with Christmas. It's usually just a couple of classic Lee Falk Phantom stories and a couple of new stories that have yet to be printed by Frew, all together in one large volume.

This year's Christmas special is no different! So let's check it out!

Phantom at the Window: Phantom and Colour.

It's been a while since we've properly visited the world of the Phantom. So how about we do it in style this time? Fairly recently I picked up this incredible volume of Phantom reprints from Hermes Press -- a break from my usual loyalty to Frew comics.

This never actually happens in this volume, sadly.

This volume reprints Phantom Sundays from the very first one in full glorious colour. It's gorgeous and something I'm not used to since the Phantom is printed nearly exclusively in black and white by Frew (nearly exclusively -- they do have colour covers.)

I won't be going into terribly much detail on the stories here, but let's talk a little bit about the Phantom's relationship with colour, and about the Sunday stories in general, shall we?

Lord of the Jungle, the Hero who Stalks!

... the beasts call him brother, the Ghost Who Walks!

Defenders of the Earth was a Marvel Productions cartoon of the '80s that brought together characters from three King Features Syndicate comic strips - Lee Falk's The Phantom and Mandrake the Magician, plus Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon - to create a "brand new" group of world-saving, alien-beating adventurers. A friend once described it as a show that teamed "your grandpa's favorite superheroes" together; not only is this an apt description for a cartoon that starred characters who first collectively hit newspaper comic pages in the 1930s, but the observation might explain Stan Lee's apparent enthusiasm for the project. Lee, at the time part of Marvel Productions out in California, not only wrote the first issue of Marvel's DotE tie-in comic, but the (admittedly quite catchy) lyrics to the show's themesong.

The Phantom and Australia.

The Phantom is Australia's longest running comic book. It started being published in 1948 and continues to be published today. In fact the issue count for the Phantom puts American books like Uncanny X-Men or even Action Comics to shame, with the current issue of the series being #1633.

(Admittedly comics like Action Comics have stupidly low issue counts at the moment because of the reboots...)

So what has made the Phantom such an enduring character, so popular in Australia? I'm not really sure. Part of it is that it's actually a really damned good comic, but I think there's more to it than that. There's a feeling of familiarity in the Phantom. He's such a... colonial character, that he just suits Australians down to a tee.

Part of why Phantom is such an enduring character in Australia is down to Frew's efforts. They put out a new comic every couple of weeks, and make sure to pepper each issue with information and editorials which make the Phantom a really approachable character for new readers. But I don't really want to talk about the Phantom as he is now, I wanna talk about the past.

Phantom at the Window: Frew #1623

What's going on with that kid's hand?

Well it's been a while since we've seen the Phantom stalking people, so let's talk about Frew #1623, and maybe add a few more images to our already legendary collage.

Maybe? Son we found *seven* new images!

Frew #1673 is Frew's 2012 Annual Special. The Annual Specials are a tradition that's been going since 1991, and this is the 21st Annual Special ever. These books are enormous -- 250-300 page comic books. The equivalent of a trade paperback, and a large one, released to news agents as a regular comic book for $11. It's frickin' awesome.

And this is my first one since getting back into Phantom last year, so I'm totally chuffed to get Frew #1623. So why don't we take a little look at it together?

The Phantom Goes To War

That "By Popular Demand" caption isn't just bull crap
like on American comics, this is the most requested
Phantom reprint of all time.

The Phantom Goes To War (also known as The Inexorables) is the sixteenth Phantom story ever published. It began on the 2nd of Febuary, 1942, only a little less than 2 months after the attack on Pearl Harbor. It's a somber, violent story, and a lot of it is very out of character for Lee Falk's Phantom. It's rife with racism, hatred and even the story's hero killing. Things Falk avoided all through his career, otherwise.

The story was written entirely by Falk, and drawn by Ray Moore and (after Moore enlisted) Wilson McCoy. Falk himself enlisted while still writing the story, but never missed a single deadline, despite active service.

I guess I should start by saying that this story does not feature a Phantom at the window moment! It's mostly set outdoors, in the jungle. And it's mostly about the Phantom killing Japanese people, not peering at them through windows.

Phantom at the Window -- The Thuggees.

If you were ever to try and study the core elements that make up a Phantom story, or at least an old Lee Falk/Wilson McCoy Phantom story, I don't think you'd ever need to go further than The Thuggees. It's a story from 1949/1950, when Falk had really gotten his writing down, and knew exactly what he was doing with the character.

The tension from strip to strip is amazing. The art is flying at an almost unreasonable pace, and the whole thing is... well... it's seriously worth reading.

I got my copy in Frew #1234, but it's since been reprinted in #1496. I might need to pick up that issue too, because I think there may be some stuff missing from the #1234 printing. Oh well, even with what I think is a slightly incomplete copy of the story, why don't we have ourselves a nice hard look at a classic long-running Phantom story?

Phantom's in the window, again!

I'm so jealous! Why couldn't I win this
uhhh... "awesome" art?

So recently I bought a pile of 25 Phantom comics from a second hand store. Out of all of them, only two had classic Phantom stories from the newspapers. Almost all of them were Team Fantomen stories. (I talk more about that in this post, if you're confused.)

So out of 25 issues only two had newspaper stories. Out of 25 issues how many had a classic image of Phantom in a window? One. One of the newspaper issues.

This is why I hate Team Fantomen stories! They just don't honour the classic Phantom iconography!!

Fortunately, Sy Barry? Sy Barry knows what he's doing!

This story is actually a really typical Phantom story. It's about secrets. Secrets are really important to the Phantom, and to the Phantom mythology. A lot of Phantom stories are about either uncovering ancient secrets (a really common theme in Team Fantomen stories) or guarding secrets against people who just wouldn't understand.

Let's review Phantom #1607

In Australia Phantom has been published continuously since 1947 in a comic book format by Frew Publications. Frew's version of the Phantom comic is the longest running comic book based on the character in the world. Almost all the material in it is reprints of either newspaper strips or comic stories from the Scandanavian comic Fantomen.

I've be workin' on the... circus.

I've only recently gotten back into buying Frew Phantoms and I basically pick-and-choose, buying pretty much only the issues which have 'Phantom Classic' on the cover, because that usually means it's a reprint of a Lee Falk newspaper strip.

This comic isn't. It's a reprint of an old Team Fantomen story.

There's a Phantom at Your Window.

From "Little Toma", by Lee Falk and
Wilson McCoy. Reprinted in Frew #931A

Have you ever noticed that somtimes comics have themselves little visual motifs. Especially ongoing long-running series. They have these little visual queues or concepts that pop up again and again. I've noticed that.

I've especially noticed it with The Phantom. Sy Barry's punch panels are so iconic that they've been parodied about a million times.

But sometimes there's a less commonly recurring visual motif. Something that comes up every now and then... just often enough for you to notice it as a pattern. For example... the Phantom sure as hell likes peeping in people's windows!