Untitled

The Phantom Unmasked
The
Phantom
Unmasked
fff
America’s First
Superhero
k e v in pat r ic k
U n i v e r s i t y o f I o wa P r e s s | I o wa C i t y
University of Iowa Press, Iowa City 52242
Copyright © 2017 by the University of Iowa Press
www.uipress.uiowa.edu
Printed in the United States of America
Design by April Leidig
No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any form

or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher.
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of material used in this book. The publisher would be pleased
to make suitable arrangements with any whom it has not
been possible to reach.
The University of Iowa Press is a member of Green Press Initiative

and is committed to preserving natural resources.
Printed on acid-free paper
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Patrick, Kevin, 1968 – author.
Title: The Phantom unmasked : America’s first superhero /
Kevin Patrick.
Description: Iowa City : University of Iowa Press, 2017. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017005973 | ISBN 978-1-60938-500-2 (pbk) |
ISBN 978-1-60938-501-9 (ebk)
Subjects: LCSH: Phantom (Fictitious character) | Comic books,
strips, etc. — History and criticism. | Superheroes.
Classification: LCC PN6728.P5 P38 2017 | DDC 741.5/973 — dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017005973
Dedicated to the memory of my father,
Robert “Barney” Patrick
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
I n t ro d u c t i o n
The Forgotten Superhero 1
On e
The Ghost Who Walks 17
T wo
The Syndicated Superhero 35
Th r e e
The Phantom Abroad 57
Fou r
The “Yank Comics” Invasion 77
Five
Becoming “Fantomen” 99
Six
One Hero, Many Masks 123
Seven
Fans of the Phantom 147
Ei g h t
Who Owns the Phantom? 169
C o ncl u si o n
The Eternal Champion 195
Appendix 205
Notes 211
Works Cited 219
Index 249
Acknowledgments
While I am the sole author of this book, I would like to pay tribute to just
some of the people who have helped me write it, in so many ways, and across
many lands.
I am indebted to Dr. Simone Murray and Dr. Andy Ruddock at Monash
University (Melbourne, Australia), who oversaw my doctoral thesis upon
which this book is based, and provided me with indispensable guidance and
encouragement throughout my candidature.
I would like to thank my editor, Catherine Cocks, for her initial interest
in my doctoral research and for her long-distance editorial oversight, which
helped me refashion my thesis into an accessible book. I must also thank
everyone at the University of Iowa Press who have helped turn my raw manu
script into the finished volume you now hold in your hands.
I am especially grateful to the hundreds of “phans” who took part in
my online readers’ survey and willingly shared their thoughts and memo-
ries about “The Ghost Who Walks.” I am also thankful to the many online
comic-book stores, and the creators of numerous Phantom “phan” websites,
blogs, and message boards, who freely publicized my research. I hope they
find this book a sufficient reward for their efforts.
I must also acknowledge the tremendous support I received from the Aus-
tralian comics historian John Clements for providing me with copies of hun-
dreds of newspaper and magazine articles concerning the Phantom, which
greatly enriched my research.
I would also like to thank the editors, writers, and illustrators involved
with the production of The Phantom comic magazine in Australia, Sweden,
and India, who graciously agreed to be interviewed for my doctoral thesis.
While only a handful of their comments have been included in this book, they
provided me with thoughtful insights and observations, and I remain grateful
to them for their time and generosity. I would like to also thank Andreas
ix
x Acknowledgments
Eriksson for introducing me to many key members of “Team Fantomen”

prior to my research trip to Sweden in 2012.
I must also thank Yinan Li, who selflessly put aside her own work to help
me improve my own, and ensured that I got my draft-version manuscript
over the finish line.
Finally, my wife, Sophie, deserves my greatest thanks of all. Her support
for me throughout my PhD candidature never wavered, and she never lost
faith in my ability to complete this book, even though there were many times
when I doubted myself. I may be the sole author of this book, but none of
what you are about to read would have been possible without her. For these
reasons, and so many more, this book is for Sophie.
The Phantom Unmasked
ff
Introduction
The Forgotten Superhero
D
avid Gonzalez paid just over $10,000 for an abandoned, 1930s-era house
in Elbow Lake, Minnesota, not realizing that it held a treasure worth
many times that amount. While renovating the property, Gonzalez dis-
covered an old comic book among some newspapers used as insulation
in a wall cavity. It was a copy of Action Comics no. 1, featuring the debut of
Superman, dated June 1938. The back cover was accidentally torn by one of
Gonzalez’s relatives during an excited family tussle following its discovery,
stripping an estimated $50,000 from its market value. Nonetheless, Gonzalez
eventually pocketed half of the $175,000 that it fetched at auction on June 12,
2013. Stephen Fisher, auctioneer and CEO of ComicConnect.com, described
Gonzalez’s discovery as miraculous, given that just 100 copies from the com-
ic’s original 250,000-copy print run were known to exist (Kelsey, 2013).
Impressive as this auction result no doubt was, it would be but a fraction of
the revenues generated by Man of Steel, the latest motion-picture adaptation
of the Superman comic-book franchise published by DC Comics, which was
released in over 4,200 cinemas across the United States on July 14, 2013, co-
inciding with the 75th anniversary of the character’s debut in Action Comics.
Distributed by Warner Bros. (which, like DC Comics, is a subsidiary of the
Time Warner media conglomerate), Man of Steel took in a record-breaking
$125,000,000 at the U.S. box office on its opening weekend. By December
2013, Man of Steel had earned over $662,000,000 in global box-office receipts,
comfortably exceeding its estimated $225,000,000 production budget (Box
Office Mojo, 2013).
Global exposure for Man of Steel would extend far beyond the foyers of mul-
tiplex cinemas. Warner Bros. Consumer Products division oversaw a massive
“multi-category licensing campaign” to coincide with the film’s release, which
1
2 Introduction
led to a new generation of Superman merchandise encompassing children’s

books, novelty goods, apparel, and footwear (Warner Bros., 2013). The launch
of the Man of Steel motion picture illustrates the extent to which comic-book
superheroes today underpin vast, multibillion-dollar global media franchises
that span publishing, audiovisual entertainment, and licensed merchandise
— even if the print medium which launched them is no longer critical to their
continued profitability.
Yet how did a once unheard-of character in a ten-cent comic book become
such a lucrative property for one of the world’s largest media corporations?
It seems difficult to link David Gonzalez’s chance discovery with such a vast
commercial enterprise; even his wife Deanna seemed unimpressed at the
time: “I didn’t think anything of it,” she said. “It’s just a comic book” (Brown,
2013). Stephen Fisher of ComicConnect.com, however, claimed to know pre-
cisely why Gonzalez’s damaged copy of Action Comics no. 1 generated such
intense public interest. “It’s so noteworthy because [the comic] was a historic
milestone,” Fisher explained. “There was no such thing as a superhero or a
man in costume [in 1938]” (Kelsey, 2013).
Fisher was understandably keen to emphasize the comic book’s historical
significance, if only to drum up media coverage for the auction itself. But he
was entirely wrong in claiming that there was “no such thing” as costumed
superheroes prior to the arrival of Superman. For even as American children
were handing over their dimes for a copy of Action Comics no. 1 in 1938, many
of their parents were no doubt already familiar with the exploits of another cos-
tumed hero appearing in their daily newspapers. His name was the Phantom.
Clad in a skin-tight costume, cowl, and mask, the Phantom was a mys-
terious crime-fighter who used his totemic Skull Ring to brand his enemies
with “the sign of the skull.” Dedicated to “the destruction of all forms of
piracy, greed and cruelty,” the Phantom was thought to be immortal and was
thus known throughout the world as “The Ghost Who Walks, Man Who
Cannot Die.” Created by writer Lee Falk and illustrator Ray Moore, The
Phantom comic strip debuted in The New York Journal on February 17, 1936.
A full-color version of The Phantom, produced by Falk and Moore for Sunday
newspapers’ comic-strip supplements, premiered on May 28, 1939. The comic
strip is presently written by Tony DePaul and jointly illustrated by Mike
Manley (weekday episodes) and Terry Beatty (Sunday episodes). The Phantom
is owned and licensed by King Features (a division of the Hearst Corporation)
Introduction 3
and is published in 15 different languages, and currently appears in over 500

newspapers published in 40 countries (King Features Syndicate, 2016).
The Phantom remains a historically significant comic strip which brought
many of the dramatic devices commonly associated with the “hero pulp” maga-
zines of the 1930s, such as The Shadow and Doc Savage, to the adventure-serial
comic strip. The Phantom blended thematic and visual elements not previously
seen in comic strips and thus presaged the dawn of the costumed superhero.
Yet The Phantom has largely receded from American audiences’ collective
“pop culture” consciousness. Although it is one of the few Depression-era
comic strips to remain in continuous production, by 2005 it was said to be
appearing in just eighteen newspapers throughout the United States (Goulart,
2005). Even among comic-strip aficionados, The Phantom has never garnered
the level of acclaim enjoyed by such contemporaneous serials as Alex Ray-
mond’s Flash Gordon or Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant, and has received, at best,
only passing mentions in most published histories of the American comic strip.
Despite predating the “Man of Steel,” The Phantom was soon eclipsed
in its American homeland by the unprecedented popularity of Superman,
and has thus endured a troubled career as a comic-book franchise since the
1930s, and has not appeared in its own mass-market comic magazine on
American newsstands since the late 1970s. Recent years have seen a string
of small American comic-book publishers try their hand — without lasting
success — at reviving The Phantom, but their modernized (and excessively
violent) portrayals of the character are frequently at odds with the canonical
newspaper comic-strip version. However, these latter-day Phantom comics
are seldom seen beyond the confines of specialty comic-book retailers, and
so remain largely invisible to the wider American public.
While the Phantom may be all but forgotten in his American homeland,
he has consistently enjoyed greater success and popular recognition abroad.
Throughout the course of the character’s eighty-year history, the Phantom
has appeared under many different names (and, occasionally, in different-
colored costumes) in newspapers and periodicals throughout Europe, Latin
America, Asia, and Oceania. Yet nowhere does the Phantom enjoy a more
ardent following than in Australia, Sweden, and India, where he occupies un-
rivaled status as an adopted national hero in each of these countries. Singling
out these three countries above all others is not as arbitrary as it might first
seem. The Phantom comic strip has enjoyed its longest unbroken publishing
4 Introduction
history in all three nations, where it has appeared in various formats (and, in
the case of India, numerous languages) since the character’s debut in 1936.
Moreover, the Phantom has become an entrenched part of the everyday,
vernacular culture of Australia, Sweden, and India in ways that few other
American comic-strip characters have achieved. The following anecdote,
published in an Australian Phantom fan club newsletter, vividly illustrates
how the legend of “The Ghost Who Walks” had reached the farthest corners
of the globe:
Doug [Callaghan] was travelling through Nepal a couple of years back,
and one day was checking out a little bazaar in [Kathmandu]. Being the
good Phantom fan that he is, Doug was sporting the Skull Ring (on
his hard-hitting right fist, of course!) . . . Suddenly, this bloke in a tur-
ban jumps out from behind his stall with a Phantom comic in his hand
(written in Indian [sic]), and starts pointing at Doug’s Skull Ring and
shouting “Phantom . . . Ghost Who Walks . . . Cannot Die!” This, of
course, both shocked and delighted Doug, who says that [the Phantom]
has quite a strong following throughout all of India [sic]. (Jungle Beat,
ca. 1989: 5)
The remarkable story of The Phantom, whereby its relative obscurity in the
United States has been offset by its phenomenal success in Australia, Swe-
den, and India, is the subject of this book. It is a fascinating story which
provides new insights about the international production, dissemination, and
consumption of popular mass media. The Phantom Unmasked brings a multi
faceted approach to the study of global comics culture, which goes far beyond
the textual analysis mode that has until now dominated most academic stud-
ies of comic books. However, in order to appreciate the significance of this
approach, we must briefly consider how this controversial medium has been
historically examined.
Comic strips and comic books have earned high praise and thunderous
condemnation in near-equal measure from academics, journalists, and pop-
ular historians. Since the 1920s, millions of words have been written about
these entwined forms of graphic narrative. Countless profiles have been writ-
ten about their most celebrated practitioners, while numerous attempts have
been made to divine the popular appeal of their most notable creations. Early
academic interest in comics reflected a long-standing preoccupation with the
Introduction 5
potentially harmful effects of mass media on children’s welfare which, ac-

cording to Daniel G. McDonald (2004), underscored much of the early media
effects research conducted in the United States during the first half of the
twentieth century. By the early 1950s, M. Spiegelman, C. Terwilliger, and
F. Fearing argued that comic strips had clearly become “an important medium
of mass communication” capable of reflecting and molding “cultural patterns
and beliefs” (1952: 39). The medium’s cultural significance, they claimed,
could be best understood through a multidimensional, analytical framework:
A complete communication analysis of comic strips would be concerned
with a study of the intent of the producers of the strips, an analysis of
the content, and a study of the audiences’ responses. (Spiegelman, Ter-
williger, and Fearing, 1952: 39)
Yet few researchers in the United States and elsewhere — either then or now
— have made any systematic effort to look beyond the medium’s visual nov-
elty to understand the industrial practices and economic imperatives which
have historically governed the production, circulation, and reception of both
comic strips and comic books. Consequently, our present-day understanding
of this “important medium of communication” still remains, at best, under-
developed and incomplete.
It was not until the 1970s and 1980s, which saw the emergence and consoli
dation of cultural studies as an academic discipline that frequently champi-
oned formerly despised media forms — such as television soap operas (Ang,
1985) and romance novels (Radway, 1991) — that new opportunities arose
for the intellectual reconsideration of comics as a communication medium
worthy of sustained critical attention. Yet cultural studies’ enthusiastic en-
gagement with popular media forms, such as cinema, television, and genre
fiction, did not automatically extend to comic books. Given the once near-
ubiquitous popularity of comic books, such an oversight seems almost inex-
plicable. However, this paradox becomes understandable once we consider
how some of the earliest — and most influential — (British) cultural studies’
practitioners were trained in literary studies, and thus regarded comics with
suspicion, if not outright derision. Richard Hoggart, author of The Uses of
Literacy — widely regarded as a seminal cultural studies text — famously
dismissed comic books as “bad mass-art geared to a very low mental age”
(1998: 153). Stuart Hall and Paddy Whannel’s subsequent inquiry into the
6 Introduction
publishing practices and editorial conventions of British romance comics was

a notable exception (1964: 167 – 68, 180 – 90), but it was an isolated example
which only underscored cultural studies’ persistent disregard for comics, and
reflected the discipline’s historic predilection for studying audiovisual media
instead.
Paradoxically, the anti-comics campaigns of the 1950s formed the basis
for one of the earliest, and most significant, cultural studies investigations of
comic books and their audiences. Martin Barker’s account of the British “cru-
sade” against horror comics, A Haunt of Fears (1984), documents the extensive
role played by members of Britain’s Communist Party in mobilizing public
opinion against American “horror” comics. However, Barker’s later case study
of the controversial 1970s-era British comic magazine Action is arguably of
even greater relevance to this book (Barker, 1989: 17 – 61). Barker examined his
subject from multiple angles: recounting the commercial publishing industry
context that led to the creation of Action; interviewing key editorial personnel
about their deliberate cultivation of the comic’s aggressive image; engaging in
sustained textual analysis of the magazine’s comic-strip serials (paying par-
ticular attention to censored artwork); and, finally, asking the comic’s former
readers what they thought of Action. Barker thereby painted a near-complete
picture which documented the production, reception, and ultimate demise
of a comic book. The Phantom Unmasked adopts a similarly multifaceted ap-
proach, but one which gives equal weight to examining comic strips and comic
books as parallel media texts, while recounting the historical circumstances
surrounding their creation, investigating the industries which maintained
their production, and interrogating the audiences which consumed them.
The preceding discussion of the Man of Steel motion picture illustrates
how popular and pervasive comic-book superheroes have become in today’s
media-entertainment landscape. Yet this is by no means a recent phenome-
non; Weston Anson claims that although character licensing did not become
a major industry until the late 1970s, comic-strip characters had already be-
come successful licensing properties by the early 1930s (1984: 4). By charting
the commercial exploitation of The Phantom across Australia, Sweden, and
India since the mid-1930s, this book will delve into the largely unexplored
pre-history of modern media licensing industries.
While comic-book characters like Superman are indisputably valuable
commercial entities in their own right, the print medium which launched
Introduction 7
them is no longer pivotal to their success. Yet syndicated comic strips (serial-
ized in newspapers and periodicals), comic magazines, and other allied print-
media products have remained vital to the continued financial well-being of
The Phantom media franchise. This book will identify the persistent com-
mercial and creative linkages between newspaper comic strips, comic maga
zines, and book-format publications (such as comic-strip novelizations and
graphic novels), and how they have helped sustain The Phantom’s “brand” in
Australia, Sweden, and India.
The Phantom Comic-Book Readers’ Survey
Newspaper syndication agreements and comic-book circulation figures pro-

vide some bald statistical measures for gauging the popularity of The Phantom
among Australian, Swedish, and Indian audiences. What they do not reveal is
who reads The Phantom — and why. This book draws upon the findings of an
in-depth, online survey of nearly 600 readers of The Phantom, making it the
largest international survey of comic-book audiences ever conducted. Can-
vassing these readers’ opinions about The Phantom brings a new geographic
and cultural dimension to the traditionally Anglo-American focus evident in
previous studies of comic-book fandom and thus enriches the existing body
of audience reception literature. Given the extensive discussion of the survey
results throughout this book, it is appropriate to take this opportunity to
discuss in some detail the survey’s design and methodology.
The survey sought to obtain a mixture of quantitative and qualitative data
from a targeted sample of Phantom comic-book readers (aged between 18
and 65 years) from Australia, Sweden, and India. (A small number of read-
ers living outside these three countries also completed this survey. In some
cases, they identified themselves as expatriate Australian, Swedish, and In-
dian citizens living abroad, but in other instances, they appeared to be foreign
nationals who also happened to be Phantom comic-book fans. Nevertheless,
comments from members of these two subgroups have been occasionally
cited throughout this book.) The survey canvassed a broad range of topics,
such as how participants first discovered The Phantom, their opinions about
the character’s portrayal in print and audiovisual media, and the extent to
which they were involved in other aspects of comic-book fan culture. This
was done in order to establish whether survey participants could be broadly
8 Introduction
classified as members of a self-contained fan community solely aligned with

The Phantom, or whether they crossed over into the broader currents of
comic-book fandom in their respective countries. The survey consisted of
twenty-six questions, featuring a combination of multiple choice and open-
ended formats (see the appendix). Participants could complete the survey
anonymously, and, aside from seeking some initial demographic data (e.g.,
gender, age group, nationality, etc.), no further personal or identifying infor-
mation was sought, nor collected, from respondents.
A companion blog/website, Phantom Comic Book Survey (https://phantom
comicsurvey.wordpress.com), was launched to promote the survey, and to
direct readers to the online questionnaire, which was hosted by Rational
Survey (http://www.rationalsurvey.com). The survey was further promoted
on Phantom fan websites and message boards, including ChronicleChamber
.com (http://chroniclechamber.com) and the now-defunct Phantom Phorum.
While both of these websites were created and hosted in Australia, their
message board threads suggested they attracted regular input from Phan-
tom fans in Sweden, India, and the United States. Further promotional an-
nouncements were sent to English-language blogs and websites dedicated to
Indian comics, including Lost World — Indrajal Heroes (http://dara-indrajal
.blogspot.com) and Comic World (http://comic-guy.blogspot.com).
A similar announcement was submitted to the Swedish fan site Fantomen
.org (http://fantomen.org), which was translated into Swedish and published
online in March 2012. This announcement was subsequently reprinted in the
“Fantomen Klubben” (Phantom Club) page featured in the Swedish edition
of the Fantomen comic magazine (nos. 14 – 15, 2012). A full-page advertise-
ment for the survey also ran in the Australian edition of The Phantom (no.
1638, 2012). News of the survey was also circulated to members of the Lee
Falk Memorial Bengali Explorers’ Club via their electronic mailing list in
May 2012 (see chapter 8).
The survey was conducted exclusively online from March 18, 2012, to
March 16, 2013, and received 595 completed surveys. While the survey’s key
findings are discussed elsewhere in this book, it is worth noting some further
observations and anomalies which arose from the survey and considering
their implications for future research in this field.
According to the survey website’s analytics, only 28 percent of respondents
Introduction 9
completed the entire set of 26 survey questions. There are several possible
explanations for this. Some respondents may have simply chosen not to an-
swer some questions, while others may not have wished to spend an excessive
amount of time completing the entire survey. (Usage reports indicate that the
average survey completion time was twenty-six minutes.) Fluency in written
English may have also been a contributing factor, as some of the noticeable
shortfalls were evident in open-ended questions, which asked participants
to provide answers written in their own words. For example, Question 13,
which asked readers to nominate their favorite Phantom stories, received 472
responses, which accounts for nearly 80 percent of all submitted surveys.
(Some Swedish respondents, however, chose to answer these open-ended
questions in Swedish.)
Another statistical anomaly became apparent — nearly 3 percent of sur-
vey respondents neglected to indicate their country of residence. Whether
people simply overlooked this question (it was the final question on the sur-
vey) or declined to answer it remains open to conjecture. But such omissions
might have some bearing on the comparatively low response rate from Indian
readers, who accounted for just 6 percent of survey respondents. This does
not necessarily tally with the proliferation of English-language (or bilingual
English-Hindi) websites dedicated to the 1960s-era Indian magazine Indrajal
Comics (which featured The Phantom), or Indian comics generally. Nor are
such low survey participation figures borne out by the comparatively higher
number of Indian fans who linked to the companion Facebook page launched
to promote the survey, where they accounted for over 31 percent of “follow-
ers” by January 2013. But then, it is easier to “like” a Facebook page than it is
to complete an online survey. However, this apparent disparity demonstrates
how readers’ different levels of engagement with comic books may define
their relative status as “passive” or “active” members of the wider comics
fan community.
One audience segment that is noticeably absent from these survey results is
readers aged eighteen years and under, who may have started reading Phan-
tom comic books during their childhood or adolescence, and whom pub-
lishers no doubt hope will sustain the Phantom media franchise in years to
come. Despite their potential demographic significance, the administrative
and ethical burden associated with surveying children and adolescents under
10 Introduction
eighteen years of age (which typically requires obtaining permission from

their parents and/or guardians to secure their participation) made it imprac-
tical to include younger readers in this online survey.
Comics Studies and Comics Fandom
Phantom fans from Australia, Sweden, India, and elsewhere actively sup-
ported this research project from the outset. They did so possibly out of
gratitude that an academic “outsider” was taking a genuine interest in the
Phantom, and were keen to share their enthusiasm for this comic-book hero
with a wider audience. One survey participant said: “I enjoyed doing this
survey a lot, so many thanks, and best of luck with your academic endeavor”
(male respondent, 36 – 49 years old, Sweden, July, 5, 2012). Favorable academic
scrutiny could, from the survey participants’ perspective, both valorize the
Phantom as a unique comic-book hero and legitimize their own cultural sta-
tus as fans.
Comic-book readers have, in recent years, been the subject of increased
scholarly attention, being recognized as a significant audience cohort in their
own right, and as a discernible subculture within the wider constellation
of media fandom. Recent studies have considered the importance of letter
columns published in comic magazines, since these were one of the earli-
est channels of communication open to comic-book readers (Dittmer and
Larsen, 2007: 735 – 53; Pustz, 2007: 163 – 84; Gordon, 2012: 120 – 32). Others
have employed quasi-ethnographic methodologies in surveying fans’ inter-
actions within specialty comic-book stores in an effort to better understand
contemporary comic-book fan culture (Tankel and Murphy, 1998: 55 – 68;
Pustz, 1999; Botzakis, 2009: 50 – 59). More recently, there have been case
studies of fans who aligned themselves with specific comic-book publishers
(Brown, 2001), or individual comic-book characters, such as Judge Dredd
(Barker and Brooks, 1998) and Batman (Burke, ed., 2013; Pearson, Uricchio
and Brooker, eds., 2015). This book adopts similar strategies by considering
the editorial functions of letter columns appearing in different editions of
Phantom comic magazines, and by questioning fans themselves about their
individual engagement with the Phantom in order to understand why they
favor this particular comic-book hero above all others.
Introduction 11
Phantom comic-book fans’ keen endorsement of this research project may

have also owed something to the public declaration of my own fan credentials
when recruiting survey participants. Placing a full-page advertisement for
the survey in the Australian edition of The Phantom comic magazine, I in-
cluded a brief biographical note about my lifelong involvement in Australian
comics fandom, and disclosed that the first Phantom story I read as a child
in 1978 was “The Diamond Hunters” (Falk and Moore, 1992 [1937]: 6 – 54).
Such an admission carries the risk of being labeled a “scholar-fan” or an
“aca-fan”— an academic researcher who is also a “fan” of his chosen area of
study. Occupying such a position might outwardly undermine the traditional
academic stance of the objective, impartial observer. As Matt Hills points out:
The scholar-fan must still conform to the regulative ideals of the ra-
tional academic subject, being careful not to present too much of their
enthusiasm while tailoring their accounts of fan interest and investment
to the forms of “confessional” (but not overly confessional) academic
writing. (Hills, 2002: 11 – 12)
Conversely, Henry Jenkins, writing in Textual Poachers, drew attention to
his own involvement with science fiction and television fandom. This level
of personal involvement, he argued, allowed him to study popular culture
from a fan’s perspective, thus creating a unique opportunity to combine an
understanding of relevant theoretical frameworks and critical literature with
firsthand “access to the particular knowledge and traditions [of fan commu-
nities]” (Jenkins, 1992: 5).
Indeed, much of what we do know about the history of the Phantom, in all
his media incarnations, can be found in the vast body of fan literature dedi
cated to the character, both in print and online. However, Charles Hatfield
warns that “the pool of [comic] fan literature . . . [can be] of variable quality
and trustworthiness” (2006: 368). Hatfield’s reservations arise partly from fan
literature’s disproportionate emphasis on the superhero genre. This lopsided
focus, he argues, “[vacuums] out history in such a way as to reinforce . . . the
misconception of comic books as contiguous with superheroes” (2006: 368).
Hatfield may well be right in sounding this cautionary note. But comic-book
fans have nonetheless performed much of the heavy lifting of discovery, docu
mentation, and research which, in any other field of inquiry, would have been
12 Introduction
the preserve of academics. This is especially true of the Phantom, where it

has fallen to an informal, international network of fans — most of whom live
outside the United States — to piece together the historical and bibliographi-
cal narratives surrounding this character and his creators. Given the relative
dearth of comics studies literature from Australia, Sweden, and India, any
meaningful account of the Phantom media franchise must draw upon this
unofficial body of knowledge, albeit with a degree of critical caution.
Overview
The Phantom is a fascinating text in its own right, and one that can provide
the basis for a truly holistic case study which can draw historical connec-
tions between the aesthetic, commercial, and cultural dimensions of both
comic strips and comic magazines. This book maps the singular — and often
unpredictable — journey that The Phantom undertook on its way towards
achieving international acclaim in Australia, Sweden, and India, a journey
that only emphasizes the complexities which attended the global transmission
of American popular culture throughout the twentieth century and which
remain no less evident in the present millennium.
Central to the Phantom’s enduring appeal is the character’s quasi-mythical
origin story, his fantastic Afro-Asian milieu, and the diverse ensemble cast
who lend both mystery and realism to his adventures. Chapter 1 recounts
the dynastic legend behind the Phantom before mapping the boundaries of
his fictional world and introducing some of the key supporting characters
who have shared in his adventures over several decades. It looks at how the
author, Lee Falk, drew on a range of historical, literary, and popular culture
sources in creating The Phantom and considers the series’ contribution to the
development of the adventure-serial comic strip throughout the 1930s. This
chapter begins delving into the reasons behind the Phantom’s enduring popu-
larity by considering the survey responses given by Australian, Swedish, and
Indian readers, with specific reference to their assessment of the character’s
intrinsic appeal, his embodiment of “traditional” ideals, and the exotic allure
of his jungle realm.
The Phantom is but one member of the stable of popular comic-strip
characters owned and licensed by King Features, which is responsible for
syndicating opinion columns, puzzles, comic strips, and other “non-news”
Introduction 13
content to newspapers, magazines, and websites across the United States

and throughout the world. Chapter 2 reveals the important role that King
Features Syndicate (as it was originally called) played in making comic strips
an integral, and hugely popular, part of American newspapers in the opening
decades of the twentieth century. It will examine how King Features success-
fully exploited comic strips’ popularity as a means of boosting circulation
figures and generating advertising revenues for its newspaper clients. This
chapter will document the beginnings of the licensed merchandise industry
which grew up around comic-strip characters during the 1920s and 1930s, and
examine the Phantom’s earliest forays into allied print media formats. It will
illustrate the character’s troubled transition into America’s nascent comic-
book industry in the 1940s, and ask why the Phantom — acknowledged as
the forerunner of the costumed superhero — failed to enjoy the same level of
success attained by the likes of Superman, Batman, and Captain America in
this dynamic new medium.
The Phantom debuted just as King Features Syndicate was accelerating
its international expansion, which was being driven in part by the success of
its comic-strip features in foreign markets. Chapter 3 recounts the vital role
played by foreign media entrepreneurs, such as David Yaffa (Australia) and
Cornelius Bull (Sweden), who — as King Features’ overseas representatives
— helped foster local acceptance of American comic strips by making them
palatable to local publishers and audiences alike, often by concealing their
American provenance. This chapter looks at how their efforts in selling The
Phantom to women’s magazines (rather than newspapers) in Australia, Swe-
den, and India helped secure national exposure for the series and cemented
the character’s appeal as a “family favorite” with readers in these three coun-
tries for decades to come.
Prior to World War II, countries such as Australia, Sweden, and India had
little or no tradition of publishing comic magazines for juvenile audiences.
Popular, homegrown comic-strip characters were largely confined to news-
papers, and the perceived dearth of local writers and artists familiar with the
comic-book format meant that domestic publishers resorted to using cheaply
syndicated American comic strips to fill the pages of the earliest comic maga
zines published in these countries during the 1930s and 1940s. Chapter 4
looks at the raft of political, economic, and cultural factors which governed
the dissemination of American comic books in Australia, Sweden, and India
14 Introduction
before, during, and after the war. It will examine the growing outcry against
“American-style” comic books which gathered force in these three coun-
tries during the 1950s, and consider how — and why — the Phantom was able
to circumvent some of the worst criticisms leveled against American com-
ics. This chapter will also demonstrate how the popularity of The Phantom
helped galvanize domestic comic-book production in Australia, Sweden, and
India during the immediate postwar era.
But even as “The Ghost Who Walks” was enjoying considerable suc-
cess abroad, tumultuous changes affecting America’s newspaper industry
throughout the 1960s and 1970s would ultimately have a direct bearing on
the international production of The Phantom comic-book franchise. Chapter
5 discusses how competition from television, together with rising newsprint
costs, prompted many newspapers to reduce the space devoted to comic-strip
sections — a cost-saving measure which had deleterious effects on adventure-
serial comic strips, including The Phantom. In response to these changes,
the Swedish publisher Semic Press began commissioning locally drawn
Phantom stories that were better suited to its domestic market, a strategy
which saw Sweden emerge as a major production node in the international
Phantom comic-book franchise throughout the 1970s and 1980s. While the
Swedish version of The Phantom (published as Fantomen) proved popular in
neighboring Scandinavian countries, this chapter shows how its subsequent
syndication to the Australian and Indian markets frequently met resistance
from local publishers (and their readers), who objected — on commercial and
aesthetic grounds — to the sometimes-radical Swedish reinterpretation of the
character.
Just as the Phantom has been historically overshadowed by other comic-
book superheroes, he has also failed to secure lasting success for King Fea-
tures as a multimedia property, starring in a series of mostly ill-fated televi-
sion shows, feature films, and animated cartoons. Chapter 6 juxtaposes the
relative failure of these officially sanctioned media adaptations with a diverse
range of unauthorized interpretations of The Phantom which have circulated
in Australia, Sweden, and India since the 1960s. This chapter demonstrates
how these frequently subversive portrayals of the Phantom, spanning under-
ground films, TV parodies, and avant-garde artwork, are testimony to the
character’s enduring appeal. It will also show that the appropriation of the
Phantom by government agencies for use in public education programs —
Introduction 15
particularly in Australia — is a tacit acknowledgment of how the Phantom has

captured the imagination of foreign audiences in ways that more recognizably
“American” superheroes (such as Superman) have otherwise failed to match.
That the Phantom has been enormously popular among Australian, Swed-
ish, and Indian audiences for decades is beyond doubt; but why does “The
Ghost Who Walks” loom so large in the public imagination of three such
different and distinctive cultures? Chapter 7 delves further into the find-
ing of the international survey of Phantom “phans”— as they often refer to
themselves — in order to understand why so many Australian, Swedish, and
Indian readers identify with this comic-book hero. This chapter will look at
how the political economy of newspaper and magazine publishing in these
three countries has influenced readers’ exposure to — and perceptions of —
The Phantom comic. It will examine the correlations between Phantom
“phans” and mainstream comic fandom in Australia, Sweden, and India, and
will ask how (and why) “phans” have historically set themselves apart from
other comic-book fan communities.
For some people, of course, their enjoyment of the Phantom simply stems
from reading his latest exploits in their chosen newspaper or comic book. Yet
this has not discouraged various Australian, Swedish, and Indian companies
from actively cultivating audiences’ loyalty to The Phantom “brand.” Chap-
ter 8 looks at the different editorial strategies which international publishers
have used to encourage readers to identify with The Phantom, and how the
construction of fan identity has often been explicitly tied to the consump-
tion of licensed Phantom merchandise. This chapter addresses the symbiotic,
and occasionally antagonistic, relationship between The Phantom franchise’s
licensed corporate gatekeepers and their audiences. It will also gauge the
impact of digital media on the formation, conduct, and geographic reach of
Australian, Swedish, and Indian fan clusters, and will look at the informal
rivalry between international “phan” communities.
Eighty years after the character’s debut in the United States, the Phan-
tom faces an uncertain future. While the character has undergone significant
changes since the death of his creator, Lee Falk, in 1999, comic-strip heroes
like the Phantom no longer command younger readers’ attention as they once
did. The concluding chapter of this book reflects on the remarkable longevity
of The Phantom comic-book franchise and asks how it can survive in today’s
rapidly changing media environment.
16 Introduction
This book is, on one level, entirely about the Phantom — but it is also about
a good deal more than the creative vicissitudes of an American comic-strip
character. Charting the commercial passage of The Phantom across Australia,
Sweden, and India since the mid-1930s provides fresh insights into how the
interlocking structures of globalized media industries guide the international
production and dissemination of popular culture. Yet although media orga-
nizations, aided by teams of writers and illustrators, actively shape the form
and direction of The Phantom “brand” (in all its permutations), they are by
no means the sole participants in this process. As Marcel Duchamp once
remarked:
The creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator
brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and
interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the
creative act. (Sanouillet and Peterson, eds., 1989: 140)
Duchamp’s observation remains no less pertinent when we consider how au-
diences worldwide receive and “consume” the products of (American) mass
media, and the circumstances in which they do so. By canvassing Australian,
Swedish, and Indian readers’ opinions about the Phantom, this book reasserts
the vital role that audiences continue to play in sustaining “The Ghost Who
Walks” and the unique visual medium which helped endear him to genera-
tions of readers worldwide. In doing so, The Phantom Unmasked champions a
new investigative approach which can only deepen our present understanding
of global comics culture.
ff
Chapter one
The GHost Who Walks
O
n a bright winter’s day, the S.S. Trotter steamed into New York Har-
bor, carrying a valuable cargo of ambergris in its hull, which had been
retrieved at great risk from the South Seas by Diana Palmer, a beauti-
ful socialite and adventurous young explorer. The ship is boarded by
Fats Horgan, a pugnacious gangster, accompanied by over two dozen heavily
armed thugs, and a complement of vicious pirates from the Orient. Taking
Diana and her crew prisoners, Horgan demands to know the whereabouts of
the ambergris, a rare substance used to manufacture fragrances. Diana taunts
Horgan, demanding to know why he brought so many gunmen to overpower
her unarmed crew; momentarily flustered, Horgan tells her that this “extra
protection” is intended for someone else. “Sometimes I think he ain’t a man,
but a ghost,” he raves. “But here’s one job he won’t snatch under my nose!”
Unbeknownst to Horgan, a mysterious figure emerges from the cold depths
of the harbor, using a rope to haul himself aboard the S.S. Trotter. Moments
later, as Horgan threatens to toss Diana overboard, the interior lights across
the entire ship go out, plunging Diana’s locked cabin into darkness. “I don’t
like this,” cries Horgan. “Lights don’t just go out!” But before he can order
his men to investigate further, the door to Diana’s cabin swings open, reveal-
ing a sinister masked man, clad in grey, holding a pistol in his right hand.
“Right, Horgan. Lights don’t just go out,” he says in a low voice. “Don’t
move. I’m aiming at that fat tummy of yours.”
Thus ended the first week of the new comic-strip serial titled The Phan-
tom, which debuted in The New York Journal on February 17, 1936. In the
space of just six daily episodes, author Lee Falk (1911 – 1999) introduced the
key elements that helped define his mysterious new hero for decades to come.
The Phantom is unveiled as a ghostly figure, whose very name can terrify
17
18 Chapter One
even ruthless gangsters like Fats Horgan. Diana Palmer is portrayed as a

feisty, courageous, and beautiful heroine, who would embark on a tempestu-
ous love affair with the Phantom that would take her to the farthest reaches
of the world and change her life forever. Falk here depicts the Phantom as
a modern-day hero, capable of matching wits with rapacious gangsters, but
Horgan’s turbaned pirates will soon stand revealed as the emissaries of a sin-
ister organization which has terrorized the high seas for centuries. With each
successive episode, Falk would gradually weave an intricate legend around
the Phantom that set him apart from other contemporaneous heroes of pop-
ular fiction. In doing so, Falk created a mythical figure whose exploits tapped
into an ancient, heroic folklore of the kind which transcended the barriers of
geography and language. The Phantom thus became a universal, rather than
uniquely American, hero.
If we hope to understand how the Phantom became an internationally
acclaimed figure, we must consider the inherent appeal of his heroic persona,
and the dramatic accouterments used to embellish the legend surrounding
the character. To help us do this, we will hear from Australian, Swedish,
and Indian readers themselves, as they share their own thoughts about the
Phantom and his world throughout this chapter. The series’ success also owes
a great deal to the Phantom’s exotic jungle realm, which further enhanced
the character’s mysterious aura and proved especially popular with interna-
tional audiences. Yet as we will see, the Phantom’s status as the benevolent
(white) ruler of this fictional Afro-Asian landscape invited criticism from
both academic commentators and avowed fans, who were troubled by the
series’ underlying racial politics. These concerns were gradually alleviated, if
not entirely put to rest, by Falk’s inclusion of an ethnically diverse ensemble
cast of supporting characters, which better reflected the series’ modern-day
African setting.
Although the Phantom was arguably the first costumed crime-fighter
of his kind to be seen in newspapers, he was by no means the first action-
adventure hero to appear in “the funny pages.” Nor was Lee Falk’s myste-
rious masked hero entirely without precedent elsewhere in other forms of
American mass media. We will therefore see how the advent of adventure-
serial comic strips and pulp-fiction magazines in the 1920s and 1930s infused
the creation of the Phantom in ways that would eventually set him apart from
the costumed superheroes that would follow in his wake.
The Story of the Phantom
It would be nearly eight months after she first encountered the Phantom
aboard the S.S. Trotter that Diana Palmer would, along with newspaper read-
ers, finally learn the truth behind the legend of “The Ghost Who Walks.”
Having rescued her once again from the mysterious pirates who followed her
return voyage to the South Seas, the Phantom shares the story of his life with
Diana for the first time. “It’s a strange story,” he admits. “Sometimes I find
it hard to believe it, myself” (Falk and Moore, 2010 [1936]: 112). The Phan-
tom, we discover, is the twenty-first descendant of an English nobleman, Sir
Christopher Standish, whose father was killed by pirates known as the Singh
Brotherhood in 1525. Swearing an oath on the skull of his father’s murderer,
Sir Christopher declared vengeance “against all piracy, greed and cruelty,”
and pledged that “as long as my descendants walk the Earth, the eldest male
of my family shall carry out my work” (Falk and Moore, 2010 [1936]: 115).
Generation after generation, the eldest son had taken on the mantle of the
Phantom at his father’s deathbed. The Phantom explains to Diana that, upon
returning from his studies at Oxford, he swore the sacred “Skull Oath” and
assumed his role shortly after his own father was killed by the Singh Brother-
hood in the Bay of Bengal. “I took his place at once — and the Singh thought
that The Phantom had again returned from the dead!” (Falk and Moore, 2010
[1936]: 115). This unbroken succession, kept secret for centuries, led many to
believe that the Phantom was immortal, thus creating the legend of “The
Ghost Who Walks – Man Who Cannot Die.”
Lee Falk, in collaboration with his first illustrator, Ray Moore (1905 – 1984),
steadily crafted the image of the Phantom throughout the 1930s and 1940s
as a mysterious, elusive figure who strikes without warning. The Phantom
came to be known by the dreaded “Sign of the Skull,” etched onto the totemic
Skull Ring worn on his right hand. Whenever he felled an opponent with his
powerhouse punch, the Phantom left his indelible skull symbol on his jaw, a
grim reminder of their violent encounter. Sometimes the mere sight of the
“skull mark” was enough to intimidate criminals; in the 1943 story line “Bent
Beak Broder,” the Phantom torments a gang of escaped convicts by leaving
an impression from his Skull Ring wherever they go — on their clothes, their
getaway vehicles — and eventually drives their terrified ringleader into the
arms of the police (Falk and McCoy, 2008 [1943]: 209 – 47). Falk later gave the
20 Chapter One
Phantom a matching Good Mark ring, which was worn on his left hand, and
was thus symbolically closer to his heart. The Phantom bestowed the Good
Mark upon those who saved his life, or otherwise came to his aid in times of
danger. Stamped gently onto their wrist, the Good Mark — represented by
four crossed swords — granted its recipient “the protection of The Phantom
for life” (Falk and McCoy, 1994c [1958]: 3).
Falk introduced a dramatic device, known as “Old Jungle Sayings,” which
he used in narrative captions to reinforce the Phantom’s near-mythical qual-
ities. “When The Phantom moves, he shames the lightning,” used in the
1946 – 47 story “Mister Hog,” was the first of many “Old Jungle Sayings”
that Falk would coin for the series over the next fifty years (Falk and McCoy,
1992a [1946 – 47]: 141). Falk did, on occasion, invoke the “Old Jungle Saying”
which claimed that whosoever removed the Phantom’s mask against his will
and gazed upon his face would die. Such was the fate met by the leader of
the Toad Men, a modern-day pirate gang, who was shot dead in a gun battle
moments after unmasking the Phantom (Falk and McCoy, 1997 [1952 – 53]:
143 – 44).
The Phantom wasn’t averse to taking a human life, if left with no other
choice; at the climax of “The Diamond Hunters,” the Phantom shot and
killed the criminal nicknamed “Smiley,” who was about to ambush him with
a hunting rifle (Falk and Moore, 1992 [1937]: 50). Falk subsequently mini-
mized such lethal gunplay, preferring to let the Phantom shoot his opponents’
guns out of their hands. Nevertheless, the Phantom drew the line when it
came to using violence against women; when confronted by the villainous
Sala, member of the all-female crew of air pirates known as the Sky Band,
the Phantom confesses: “This is the tightest spot I’ve ever been in. You’re all
women here — and I couldn’t slug a woman if I wanted to” (Falk and Moore,
1996 [1936 – 37]: 51).
The Phantom was an undeniably violent and vengeful figure, but he was
also a compassionate hero, always prepared to come to the aid of those who
needed his help the most. In one adventure, the Phantom briefly became a
professional boxer known as “The Masked Marvel” in order to use his prize
money to rebuild a children’s hospital destroyed in a fire (Falk and McCoy,
1991 [1948 – 49]: 149 – 80). This story was frequently brought up by readers as
one of their favorite Phantom stories. As one Australian reader put it:
“The Masked Marvel” [is] my favorite story of all time, [it’s] corny [and]
sentimental, but epitomizes [the Phantom’s] devotion to the under
privileged and his willingness to sacrifice everything to help others . . .
I love the corny innocence of some of these [stories]. (Male respondent,
36 – 49 years old, Australia, July 2, 2012)
The Phantom cut a striking figure, clad in a grey costume, his face con-
cealed by a cowl and eye-mask, sporting black leather gauntlets and boots,
with a pair of automatic pistols slung from his belt. There were also times
when the Phantom traveled incognito, wearing his costume underneath an
overcoat, scarf, and trousers, while concealing his unmasked face beneath a
broad-brimmed hat and dark glasses. It was not uncommon for the Phantom
to remain in his civilian disguise, particularly during his adventures abroad,
where his costume might draw unwelcome attention from criminals and
authorities alike. However, it wasn’t until several years after the character’s
debut that Lee Falk granted the Phantom an alias —“Mr. Walker” (for “The
Ghost Who Walks”) — for everyday use (Falk and McCoy, 2008 [1943]: 213).
The Phantom’s constant companion was Devil, his fiercely loyal mountain
wolf, who became a ferocious beast whenever danger threatened his master.
They were later joined by Hero, a giant white stallion given to the Phantom
by the Maharajah of Nimpore as a reward for rescuing his daughter (Falk
and McCoy, 1998 [1944 – 45]: 33 – 93). Just as Devil would only accept food
from the Phantom, Hero would only let himself be ridden by his new owner.
Galloping through the jungle astride his mighty white horse, with a giant
wolf racing alongside him, the Phantom looked every inch the storybook
hero of a bygone era.
It is perhaps the totality of Lee Falk’s vision of the character, built up
over several decades, which has helped make The Phantom so popular among
international audiences. As one reader argued, it was the cumulative effect
of all these different facets of the Phantom which made him so appealing, so
memorable:
I love the costume; the visual quality of the character is wonderful. The
fact that he leaves Skull Marks on those he punches is also a wonderful
idea . . . The skull motif . . . is something that appeals to me. I also
really love the idea of the legacy that The Phantom mantle is passed
22 Chapter One
from father to son. It’s a brilliant piece of storytelling. (Male respondent,

18 – 35 years old, Australia, March 19, 2012)
The Phantom’s World
The Phantom’s identity and purpose are inextricably linked to his jungle
realm. He presides over his ancestral home from within the Skull Cave,
which contains more than just his throne, adorned with skull motifs; it also
contains a library of handwritten chronicles documenting all his forefathers’
exploits, the crypts of his twenty ancestors, and fabulous treasure rooms con-
taining priceless antiquities, gold, and jewels acquired from pirates and crim-
inals over several centuries. This secret lair is found in the Deep Woods, an
inaccessible stretch of jungle nestled in the African nation of Bangalla. The
Phantom receives counsel from his childhood friend, Guran, chieftain of the
Bandar pygmies, who use their deadly poison arrows to zealously guard
the secret of the Phantom dynasty from outsiders.
The Phantom’s African homeland is steeped in fantasy, evoking images of
lost worlds and forgotten civilizations of the sort popularized by such writers
as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Jules Verne, and Edgar Rice Burroughs. Yet
neither the Phantom nor his creator, Lee Falk, were entirely able to prevent
real-world politics from pressing up against the imagined borders of the Deep
Woods. As an adventure comic-strip serial, The Phantom stands as a remark-
able document, one that has continually — although not always deliberately
— touched upon the intellectually and emotionally charged issues of colo-
nialism and racial identity for over eighty years. For these reasons alone, it
is worth documenting how the character of the Phantom himself, and the
politics of his dynastic mission, has changed in response to the broader cul-
tural and political shifts which occurred throughout the United States and
elsewhere, particularly in the decades following World War II.
The Phantom was initially portrayed as a godlike figure who used elabo-
rate stagecraft to reinforce the belief that he was a supernatural being, who
could appear out of thin air, and thus terrify his “native subjects” into obey-
ing his own brand of jungle law. To this end, the Phantom was sometimes
aided by tribal elders who benefited from his rule. Paying his annual visit to
a remote village, the Phantom is greeted by Nobo, the resident witch doc-
tor who guides him through a secret passage that will allow the Phantom
to ascend unseen from beneath the earth, and miraculously appear on his
throne before the gathered tribe. When he asks Nobo why they must per-
sist with this “mumbo-jumbo,” the witch doctor explains: “It impresses my
people — and makes it easier for me to handle them — in your name” (Falk
and Moore, 1989 [1937 – 38]: 12). The Phantom’s very presence was deemed
essential to the preservation of peace and order in an otherwise lawless jun-
gle. When Diana Palmer asked Guran if the Phantom would ever leave the
jungle, he declared that this would be impossible: “We would be helpless!
Without The Phantom’s peace, there would be wars — killing. He is our pro-
tector” (Falk and Moore, 1992 [1937]: 52). The troubling racial politics of The
Phantom did not go unnoticed by contemporary critics; Lawrence Kessel’s
content analysis of American newspaper comic strips criticized The Phantom
(among others) for propagating “hatred and distrust for foreign people” and
for its frequent depiction of “negroes” (sic) as “ignorant, superstitious colored
people”— stereotypes that Kessel claimed were conveyed more “in the way
they were drawn than by what was said” (1943: 350).
Lee Falk, who always maintained that African Americans loved the Phan-
tom “because he has always seen black people as equal human beings” (quoted
in Resnais, 2011: 78) nonetheless took steps to soften the Phantom’s image. In
“The Childhood of the Phantom,” Falk depicted the young Kit Walker being
reprimanded by his father (the twentieth Phantom) for ordering his Bandar
tribe playmates to grovel at his feet, and declaring that Kit must learn “how
to treat [his] fellow-men” (Falk and McCoy, 1994a [1944 – 45]: 53). Falk even
went so far as to revise the origin of the Phantom’s ancestral dynasty, by re-
casting the first Phantom (Sir Christopher Standish) as a freedom fighter who
liberated the Bandar pygmy tribe from slavery (Falk and Barry, 1993a [1975]:
56 – 69). In this task, Falk was greatly assisted by his artistic collaborators,
such as Wilson McCoy (1902 – 1961), who softened the overtly racist carica-
tures favored by his predecessor, Ray Moore, albeit within the limitations of
his “cartoony” illustration style. Seymour (“Sy”) Barry (b. 1928), who took
over as illustrator on The Phantom comic strip in 1961 and remained with the
series until 1994, made a conscious effort to draw realistic portrayals of the
numerous African characters who began assuming more prominent roles in
the series during the 1960s, such as Dr. Lamanda Luaga, a physician who
24 Chapter One
subsequently became the democratically elected premier of Bengali (later

“Bangalla”) (Falk and Barry, 1995 [1962 – 63]: 6 – 56).
Despite these narrative and cosmetic changes, Richard F. Patteson none-
theless contends that The Phantom remains a modern-day continuation of
nineteenth-century imperialist romances, which expressed the need for
“white civilization” to establish “European authority over native peoples”
(1978: 115). Julian C. Chambliss and William L. Svitavsky further suggest
that many of the adventure heroes appearing in popular American fiction
from the 1910s through the 1930s “personify and reassert the racial and civil
superiority of the United States” distilled by the frontier ethos which grew
alongside America’s westward expansion (2008: 2). They therefore argue that
characters such as Tarzan — who Lee Falk acknowledged was an early in-
fluence on his creation of The Phantom (Madison, 1996: 48) —“successfully
reimagined the frontier crucible in an exotic [jungle] locale” by reiterating
contemporary American notions of Anglo-Saxon racial superiority (Cham-
bliss and Svitavsky, 2008: 8).
The belief that the African jungle was a lawless frontier which could only
be tamed by white civilization was reinforced by the introduction of the Jungle
Patrol in The Phantom comic strip in 1951 (Falk and McCoy, 1994b [1951 – 52]:
244 – 74). This elite paramilitary force was charged with policing the dense
wilderness which bordered the Deep Woods and six neighboring countries,
and thus became an extension of the Phantom’s power throughout the jungle.
The Jungle Patrol — clearly modeled on the French Foreign Legion — was
frequently called upon to put down tribal uprisings, and was originally staffed
entirely by white personnel. However, Falk gradually admitted African patrol
men to their ranks and appointed an African officer, Colonel Worobu, as its
titular leader, who remained answerable to the Phantom, who acted as the
organization’s Secret Commander (Falk and Barry, 1998 [1970]: 169 – 90). De-
spite these cosmetic changes, Fredrik Strömberg nevertheless maintains that
the strip’s basic premise — wherein “a white man in the jungle protects simple
savages by spreading law and order”— was entirely acceptable to American
audiences of the 1930s, but now remains problematic in today’s postcolonial
environment (2003: 81). This aspect of the comic strip became especially
troublesome for some readers as they looked back on the Phantom they’d
once enjoyed in their youth from a more critically informed, adult perspective:
Well, he is very different and has evolved greatly since I started to read
the comic. Since The Phantom is male-oriented, as [he] also has a legacy
from being a white heterosexual male in an African country, I am not
very proud of the fact that I like The Phantom. It is very difficult for me,
as a modern, well-educated woman, to even read these kinds of comics.
(Female respondent, 18 – 35 years old, Sweden, June 17, 2012)
The racial themes that underscored The Phantom continued to draw criti-
cism in the United States and abroad — especially in Sweden — and would,
as we will see in chapter 5, eventually lead to a dramatic reconceptualization
of the character and his milieu.
The series’ sexual politics were, by comparison, marginally more progres-
sive and were frequently conveyed through the turbulent romance between
the Phantom and Diana Palmer, who was introduced as a New York socialite
embarking on a dangerous “treasure hunt” to fund her late father’s Hospital
for Crippled Children (Falk and Moore, 2010 [1936]: 60 – 62). Throughout
the 1940s and 1950s Diana was portrayed as an intrepid explorer, pilot, and
professional swimmer whose exploits took her around the world. Diana’s
thirst for adventure would occasionally challenge the patriarchal lineage of
the Phantom dynasty, especially after she heard an account from the Phan-
tom Chronicles about Julie, the twin sister of the eighteenth Phantom, who
briefly donned her brother’s uniform and posed as the Phantom while he was
recovering from wounds (Falk and McCoy, 1999a [1952]: 6 – 19). Diana tries on
Julie’s costume in the Phantom’s absence and ventures into the Deep Woods,
only to run afoul of bank robbers hiding in the jungle. Despite aiding the
Phantom in their capture, Diana renounces any future intention of becoming
the next female Phantom, declaring instead that “from now on, I’ll just be a
female!” (Falk and McCoy, 1992b [1952 – 53]: 50).
Diana’s professional role was redefined and expanded throughout the 1960s
and 1970s, commencing as a nurse attached to United Nations medical mis-
sions to Africa and culminating in her reassignment as a human rights officer
for the UN (Falk and Barry, 1993b [1962]: 92 – 128; 1992a [1977]: 196 – 213).
Her strong, assertive personality, combined with her glamorous beauty, made
Diana Palmer especially popular with women and thus broadened the demo-
graphic appeal of The Phantom. As one Swedish reader observed:
26 Chapter One
I like Diana and her “independent” life and how [the Phantom] doesn’t
have a problem with strong women, even though they’re always [being]
rescued by him, of course. (Female respondent, 18 – 35 years old, July 11,
2012)
Diana’s career ambitions initially placed her at odds with the Phantom’s dy-
nastic obligations; although she accepts his marriage proposal, Diana initially
balks at his insistence that she give up her job with the human rights com-
mission to live with him in the Deep Woods. “But dear,” she explains, “when
we’re married I needn’t quit my job . . . this is 1977” (Falk and Barry, 1986a
[1977]: 40). Nonetheless, they eventually wed and Diana (in accordance with
Phantom tradition) relocates to the Skull Cave, where she later gives birth
to twins, a boy (Kit) and a girl (Heloise) (Falk and Barry, 1986b [1978 – 79]:
72 – 99). Her dilemma over whether to choose a career instead of marriage
was subsequently resolved when she resumed her role as a human rights
investigator for the UN at its regional office in Bangalla’s capital, Mawitaan.
While Lee Falk used such stories to reflect changing attitudes about
“traditional” gender roles throughout the 1960s and 1970s, he sometimes
struggled to balance his stories’ more fantastic elements with the real-world
politics of postcolonial Africa during this same period. Early episodes of The
Phantom were explicitly situated within the colonial milieu of prewar Asia.
The Phantom’s jungle lair was originally located on the island of Luntok,
“a British protectorate off the coast of Sumatra,” in the Dutch East Indies
(now Indonesia) (Falk and Moore, 2010 [1936]: 65, 87 – 90). In “The Prisoner
of the Himalayas,” Scotland Yard detectives beseech the Phantom to travel
to Barogar —“the most dangerous spot in India”— to investigate the dis-
appearance of its reigning Maharajah, as an important “matter of Empire!”
The Phantom agrees, acknowledging that “anything that happens in Barogar
endangers my jungle people”— thus suggesting that his “home” has shifted
to the Indian subcontinent (Falk and Moore, 2000 [1938]: 56). The series’
Asian locale is reiterated in the wartime sequence “The Inexorables,” when
Japanese forces invade Bengali (as the Phantom’s homeland was now known),
prompting Allied military commanders to declare that “our supply lines to
the Orient will be cut in half” if the invasion succeeds (Falk, Moore, and
McCoy, 1993 [1942 – 43]: 12).
These geographic distinctions became blurrier throughout the 1940s and
1950s, with stories alternating between ostensibly African jungles and mys-
terious highland kingdoms, presided over by Raj-era monarchs or cruel Arab
despots. The confusing topography of the Phantom’s world actually worked
to the series’ commercial advantage because it allowed international audi-
ences to appropriate his imaginary homeland as their own:
[The comic’s] location neutrality cut the boundaries very easily for an
Indian kid growing up in the 80s, [when] exposure to American pop
culture was really limited and most of the superheroes like Superman,
Batman [and] Spider-Man relied heavily on [this], while [the] Phantom
being a culturally and location-wise neutral hero always worked well for
us . . . and the universe created by Lee Falk was . . . balanced and well
defined. (Male respondent, 18 – 35 years old, India, November 22, 2012)
The first explicit reference to Bengali’s African location came in 1962 (Falk,
Lignante, and Barry, 1992 [1962]: 194), before the country’s name was changed
to Bangalla in 1972 (Falk and Barry, 1987 [1972]: 14); similarly, the nation’s
capital was changed from Morristown to Mawitaan (Falk and Barry, 1988
[1972 – 73]: 2). The switch from European to Afrocentric place names in The
Phantom mirrored similar transformations occurring throughout sub-Saharan
Africa. Despite inserting these specific references to Africa, Lee Falk always
maintained that the Phantom inhabited an imaginary continent:
I felt the Phantom isn’t actually in Africa. He is, yet he isn’t. It’s his own
continent, really. It’s Afrasian where he is . . . This is a jungle that looks
very much like Africa, but a thousand miles inland there are mountain
princes [who looked] very Asian, Indian or Arab . . . who still live like
[they’re in] the 15th century in their castles. (Quoted in Murray, 2005: 43)
Falk only occasionally alluded to the political upheavals and revolutionary
wars that marred Africa throughout the 1960s and 1970s. General Bababu,
one of the few recurring villains to appear in The Phantom, was continually
plotting to overthrow President Luaga of Bangalla, and, under Falk’s guid-
ance, came to personify the political instability of postcolonial Africa. But
even at his worst, General Bababu was portrayed as a vain, cowardly, and
near-comical figure, rather than a truly villainous despot (Falk and Barry,
1995 [1962 – 63]: 6 – 56). This approach, according to artist Sy Barry, simply
reflected the unique tenor of The Phantom comic strip:
28 Chapter One
It is a fantasy strip which takes place in the present day. It’s done in a
somewhat light vein and yet done somewhat surrealistically. You’ve got
realistic characters who feel pain, who have the same emotions as every-
one else has. But it’s done with a little bit of fantasy and escape element.
(Quoted in Strell, 1981: 59)
Falk’s more fantastic story lines were not always greeted with approval by
diehard Phantom readers (see chapter 5), but his undeniably successful blend
of fantasy and “realism” lent the series a lighter tone that was frequently
absent from other American adventure-serial comic strips. This approach
was, according to Jay Kennedy (1956 – 2007), King Features Syndicate’s com-
ics editor, key to securing wider syndication, even for ostensibly “realistic”
adventure serials like The Phantom. “Strips that make readers feel better in
the end do better,” he argued. “If someone was senselessly shot and killed, it
wouldn’t work” (quoted in Astor, 1995: 39).
Heroes of the Great Depression
The Ghost Who Walks may be steeped in the world of ancient lore and leg-
end, but the medium that brought his exploits to the attention of American
public was the modern publishing phenomenon of the comic strip. When
The Phantom made its debut in 1936, it did so at a time when a new style
of comic strip — the adventure serial — began captivating newspaper audi-
ences. This new genre challenged the comic strip’s long-standing reputa-
tion as a vehicle for comedy, which became entrenched when so many of its
earliest, most famous exponents — such as The Yellow Kid (1895) and The
Katzenjammer Kids (1897) — relied on physical slapstick and joke-telling for
their subject matter. It is worth noting that American cartoonists had already
begun experimenting with sequential narratives — that is, telling stories in-
stead of jokes — well before World War I. Some, such as Charles W. Kahles’s
Hairbreadth Harry (1906) and Harry Hershfield’s Desperate Desmond (1910),
lampooned movies serials’ cliff-hanger plots (Harvey, 1994: 11). Other car-
toonists, such as Frank King — creator of Gasoline Alley (1918) — gradually
abandoned the original humorous premise of their work in favor of episodic
drama (Perry and Aldridge, 1971: 131).
Roy Crane’s Washington Tubbs II (1924) is widely regarded as a pivotal

series which demonstrated the medium’s capacity for dramatic adventure.
Discarding the strip’s original grocery store setting, Crane cast his juvenile
hero, “Wash Tubbs,” on to the high seas, where he crossed paths with a mys-
terious soldier of fortune, Captain Easy. Robert C. Harvey argues that Crane
“set the pace for adventure strips in the thirties” and inspired a generation of
cartoonists who strove to equal Crane’s work as they, too, “further refined the
adventure comic strip” (1994: 71, 91). But Crane’s successors abandoned his
preference for exaggerated, cartoon-styled artwork in favor of more realistic
forms of dramatic illustration. They were led by Hal Foster’s comic-strip
adaptation of Tarzan of the Apes (1929), which was soon followed by Noel
Sickles’s daring aviator, Scorchy Smith (1930), Eddie Sullivan and Charlie
Schmidt’s police drama, Radio Patrol (1933), and Fred Martinek and Leon
Beroth’s maritime hero, Don Winslow of the Navy (1934).
This new cohort of illustrators (as distinct from “cartoonists”) rendered
their subjects in a realistic fashion, thereby heightening the suspense by
making their protagonists — and the dangers they faced — seem real (Har-
vey, 1998: 2). Yet as William H. Young observes, the adventure comic strip
also freely borrowed from other media forms and mirrored a similar vogue
for heightened visual realism evident in motion pictures, magazine illustra-
tion, and advertising art throughout the 1930s (1969: 406). It was in this in-
creasingly crowded field that The Phantom made its debut, at a time when
the “action-adventure” category accounted for approximately 25 percent of
comic strips on offer from America’s three major press feature syndicates —
United Features, Chicago Tribune, and King Features Syndicate (Barcus,
1961: 176).
The Phantom comic strip was therefore not an isolated media sensation,
but rather part of a larger generational and aesthetic shift towards dramatic
realism evident in other forms of contemporaneous mass culture. But this
does not adequately explain why comic strips of this kind became so popular
with American audiences throughout the 1930s. Some have argued that the
advent of the adventure-serial comic strip fulfilled the suppressed emotional
urges of Depression-era audiences. William H. Young suggests that the three
principal jungle-themed adventure strips of the 1930s — Tarzan of the Apes,
Jungle Jim, and The Phantom — each championed the idea of “one man im-
30 Chapter One
posing order on a chaotic land,” while their shared jungle settings embodied
“a rejection of modern technological civilization in favor of a primitivism that
accentuates individual worth” (1969: 411).
This desire for escape from mundane reality, made possible by comic
strips, was already identified as a key reason for their popularity long before
the onset of the Great Depression, nor was this need for escapist entertain-
ment confined to adults. Harvey C. Lehman and Paul A. Witty conducted
a survey of 5,000 children living in Missouri throughout 1923 – 24 in order
to gauge their response to the “Sunday funnies” comic-strip supplements
featured in their local newspapers. Lehman and Witty concluded that the
popularity of comic strips was largely due to their depiction of “unhampered
human activity through which the reader vicariously satisfies his thwarted
and restrained desires” (1927: 10). Comic strips, they claimed, allowed chil-
dren to “identify . . . with the most intrepid adventurer, or the most resolute
law-defying criminal” (1927: 210 – 11). That Lehman and Witty could, by the
late 1920s, already identify in humorous comic strips many of the arche-
typal characters (e.g., “adventurers” and “criminals”) and dramatic scenarios
more commonly associated with adventure-serial comic strips suggests that
the shift towards the adventure-serial format did not necessarily represent a
seismic break with the medium’s “comical” traditions.
Nevertheless, the Phantom represented a new breed of comic-strip ac-
tion heroes who resonated with American children coming of age during the
Great Depression. Confronted by the failed legacy of Prohibition and the on-
going economic wreckage of the 1930s, Michael C. Tucker claims this genera-
tional cohort rejected the “self-righteous moral instruction” that underscored
the children’s literature of the sort once enjoyed by their parents (2004: n.p.).
Spurning the old-fashioned, plucky boy heroes who adhered to the edicts
of family, church, and state, American children — and male adolescents,
especially — turned instead to “individualist heroes” who had no loyalties
other than to their friends and their own ideals, who craved wealth by any
means other than hard work, and who were “ready, even eager, to employ
violence” to achieve their goals (Tucker, 2004: n.p.). The Phantom was not
driven by the kind of mercenary self-interest pursued by soldiers of fortune
like Captain Easy, but his unique moral code (dedicated to fighting piracy) and
recourse to violence aligned him with this new breed of “individualist heroes.”
There was another tributary of popular American mass culture which gave
rise to a new type of action hero, which not only had a direct bearing on
the creation of The Phantom, but also presaged the dawn of the costumed
superhero. These new action heroes were to be found in the “pulp fiction”
magazines of the 1930s, which were crammed with densely typeset novellas
and short stories, frequently punctuated by lurid illustrations. Pulp magazines
bore all the superficial hallmarks of twentieth-century modernity, capitalizing
on readers’ interest in contemporary social and technological phenomena,
such as science fiction (Amazing Stories, 1926), Prohibition-era racketeers
(Gangster Stories, 1929), and aerial combat (Wings, 1928). Despite their up-
dated packaging, pulp magazines were carrying on an American publishing
tradition specializing in cheap, formulaic fiction pioneered by the “dime nov-
els” of the nineteenth century, of which Edward S. Ellis’s western adventure,
Seth Jones (1860), is considered a defining example (Bold, 1996: 23).
These in turn gave way to story magazines such as The Argosy (1882),
which soon reached a circulation of 500,000, making it the first successful
all-fiction magazine of its kind (Tebbel and Zuckerman, 1991: 174). Publisher
Frank Munsey hoped to duplicate his success with The Argosy by launching
a companion title, The All-Story, in 1905. But even Munsey could not have
foreseen the astonishing reception which greeted the October 1912 edition of
his newest magazine. That issue began serializing Edgar Rice Burroughs’s
second novel, Tarzan of the Apes, which, according to Lee Server, “drew new
audiences to the pulps, and influenced a generation of pop-fiction scribes”
(1993: 23). Among them was the young Lee Falk, who later acknowledged that
The Phantom was an amalgam of Tarzan and Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle
Book (1894) (Madison, 1996: 48).
The subsequent debut of The Shadow in 1931 instigated a new genre of
popular fiction magazines, collectively known as the “hero pulps,” which
would further shape the evolution of the costumed superhero. The Shadow
was an accidental success; in 1930, Street & Smith Publishers sponsored The
Detective Story Hour, a radio show presided over by a mysterious narrator
known as the Shadow. The program was intended to be a promotional vehicle
for Detective Story Magazine, but listeners besieged the publisher with re-
quests for “the magazine with that Shadow guy” (Server, 1993: 91 – 92). Fred
Blackwell, editor of Detective Story Magazine, was urged to quickly produce
a new title featuring the Shadow (Server, 1993: 92). He enlisted the help of
author Walter B. Gibson, who (under the pseudonym “Maxwell Grant”)
32 Chapter One
penned his debut adventure, “The Living Shadow,” and would guide the
character’s dark fortunes for nearly two decades afterwards. As Gibson later
remarked:
The emergence of The Shadow . . . represented a phase in the cyclic
evolution of mass fiction. Viewed in retrospect, the trend it set seemed
inevitable, but at the time no one expected it. (1979: 1)
The Shadow’s swirling black cape and broad-brimmed hat marked a visual
shift away from the pedestrian, plainclothes detectives of the dime-novel era
and edged closer to the distinctive costumes that would become the uniform
of the comic-book superhero.
The success of The Shadow did not go unnoticed by rival publishers who,
in following Street & Smith’s “hero pulp” formula, laid down the defining pa-
rameters of the superhero genre. Ironically, one of the most blatant imitators,
The Phantom Detective (1932), proved to be the most enduring, outlasting even
The Shadow. More significant, however, are claims that the Phantom Detec-
tive was the unacknowledged template for both the Phantom and Batman.
As Will Murray points out, the character was always referred to in text as
“The Phantom” by the series’ various authors — only rarely (and erroneously)
was he ever called “The Phantom Detective” (1997: 49). The character’s alter
ego, Richard Curtis Van Loan, was a bored Park Avenue playboy who waged
war on crime — just as the Gotham City millionaire Bruce Wayne was the
daytime alter ego of Batman, first seen in Detective Comics in 1939. There
are further similarities between The Phantom and its pulp magazine coun-
terparts. The Phantom’s distinctive Skull Ring, for example, was not with-
out precedent. Popular Magazines’ bloodthirsty avenger, The Spider (1933),
stamped his victims’ corpses with a spider-shaped seal (Server, 1993: 99).
Operator 5 (1934), star of an apocalyptic espionage series, wore a “death’s head
ring” concealing an explosive charge (Hutchison, 2007: 81).
If Lee Falk had stuck to his original plans for The Phantom, there is every
chance that his hero would have gone unnoticed amidst the jumble of masked
vigilantes crowding America’s newsstands during the 1930s. Falk had in-
tended that Jimmy Wells, an idle Manhattan playboy (briefly seen in “The
Singh Brotherhood”), would be the Phantom. Had he done so, Falk would
have inadvertently adopted a similar device used by Frank L. Packard for his
antihero, Jimmie Dale. First appearing in People’s Magazine (March 1914),
wealthy Jimmie Dale was a “gentleman cracksman” (safecracker) who left a

diamond-shaped paper seal as his calling card — and thus became known
throughout the underworld as “The Gray Seal” (Vineyard, 2009: n.p.). Then,
as Falk later recalled, “in the midst of the first story, I suddenly got the other
idea [and] moved The Phantom into the jungle and decided to keep him
there” (quoted in Tollin, 1988: 44). Murray, however, suggests that Standard
Magazines, publisher of The Phantom Detective, was closely observing Lee
Falk’s unfurling story to see if the society bachelor Jimmy Wells would stand
revealed as the Phantom — and thus sue King Features Syndicate for breach
of copyright (Murray, 1997: 52 – 53). Gerard Jones argues that Falk abandoned
his original plan to use Jimmy Wells as the Phantom’s alter ego, claiming
that an unspecified “copyright dispute” prompted Falk to transfer the strip’s
setting to “the jungles of India” (2004: 123 – 24).
Falk always maintained that, although he was aware of The Shadow and
The Phantom Detective, he never read them, preferring instead science fiction
and fantasy magazines, such as Amazing Stories and Weird Tales (Murray,
2005: 44). The influence of pulp magazines, Falk claimed, was most evident in
his first comic strip, Mandrake the Magician, which made great use of “seri-
ous” science fiction concepts (quoted in Gerosa, 2011: 118). But The Phantom
bore all the melodramatic hallmarks of pulp-fiction magazines; Falk’s opening
story line, “The Singh Brotherhood,” was dripping with exotic locales, lost
treasures, Oriental villains, and fearsome jungle tribes that could have been
torn from the pages of Adventure, Frontier Stories, Jungle Stories, and other
pulp mastheads of that era. Ray Moore’s moody, atmospheric artwork would
not have been out of place in such magazines, either, and only accentuated
the series’ pulp-era roots. All of these comparisons indicate that, in its use of
leitmotifs found elsewhere in popular American mass culture, The Phantom
comic strip was — superficially at least — influenced by the “hero pulps” of
the 1930s. Such comparisons are necessary in order to understand how the
dramatic conventions of pulp-fiction magazines were adapted to meet the
visual demands of the adventure-serial comic strip — and amplified almost
beyond recognition in the exploits of comic-book superheroes.
ff
Chapter Two
The Syndicated Superher0
W
hen asked how he came to create the Phantom, Lee Falk invoked the
“hero stories” he read as a child, and claimed he drew inspiration
from “Greek, Roman and Nordic myths” as he forged his newest
comic-strip character (quoted in Tollin, 1988: 44, 48). The Phantom
was unquestionably Falk’s brainchild, but his hero’s debut in The New York
Journal was only made possible through the collective efforts of a vast media
enterprise. The newspaper itself was owned by the controversial press mag-
nate William Randolph Hearst (1863 – 1951), proprietor of one of the largest
newspaper chains in the United States. Each episode of The Phantom bore
the copyright notice of the King Features Syndicate, also owned by Hearst,
which would eventually eclipse the financial worth of his newspaper mast-
heads (Nasaw, 2002: 593). The Phantom, therefore, was much more than a
comic strip; it was the product of a specific organizational demand for a mar-
ketable commodity that could be sold to an optimal number of media outlets.
By understanding the commercial imperatives that shaped the development
of comic strips throughout the 1930s, it will become apparent how companies
such as King Features Syndicate had, by the mid-twentieth century, come to
exert a profound influence on the development of mass-market print culture
in the United States.
The debut of The Phantom also coincided with the birth of the comic book,
an American publishing phenomenon that would be radically transformed
by the emergence of the costumed superhero genre prior to World War II.
King Features Syndicate should have been able to exploit The Phantom to
its commercial advantage in a new medium that was, in its earliest stages
of development, vitally dependent on newspaper feature syndicates for its
editorial content. Yet as we will see, the relative commercial failure of The
35
36 Chapter Two
Phantom as an American comic-book franchise was as much due to King

Features’ inability to recognize the unique demands of comic magazines and
their juvenile readers, as it was to the character’s problematic status as a bona
fide superhero. The company’s decision to strike licensing deals with publish-
ers who were themselves industry outsiders, unschooled in the dynamics of
comic-book storytelling and marketing, prevented King Features from fully
exploiting the superhero boom of the early 1940s, along with the subsequent
postwar vogue for jungle-adventure comics.
It can be argued that the evolving commercial structures and editorial
practices of America’s nascent comic-book industry militated against the
popular acceptance of the Phantom as the first true comic-book superhero.
While “The Ghost Who Walks” has rarely received this accolade from his
American compatriots, international fans have been quick to bestow such
honors on the Phantom, whom they claim is the true forefather of Superman
and all the costumed crime-fighters that followed in his wake. Nevertheless,
charting the Phantom’s troubled transition from newspapers to comic mag-
azines allows us to better understand the dynamics of America’s comic-book
culture during its formative years. Doing so also emphasizes the characteris-
tics which distinguished the Phantom from other comic-book heroes, in ways
that made him palatable to foreign audiences. Just as importantly, recount-
ing the development of the American media industries that helped launch
The Phantom provides us with the basis for understanding how “The Ghost
Who Walks” eventually came to be an internationally acclaimed comic-strip
character.
Feature Syndicates and the Birth of “the Funnies”
The production of a comic strip — like that of motion pictures or recorded

music — symbolizes an uneasy alliance between art and commerce. While
individual writers and illustrators may be publicly identified as the sole au-
thors of a particular comic strip, they are by no means entirely autonomous.
Instead, they must produce their work in accordance with the editorial, in-
stitutional, and economic demands of the feature syndicates that ensure their
work appears before the widest possible audience. If, as has been suggested,
“the history of the comic strip is the history of its method of distribution”
(Couperie and Horn, 1968: 135, 137), then we must understand both the his-
tory and the mechanics of the newspaper feature syndication business and
how it has influenced the creative and commercial life of comic strips like
The Phantom.
Newspaper syndicates, as they were originally known, first emerged in
the United States towards the end of the American Civil War (1861 – 65).
They initially sold sheets of newsprint with national news stories printed on
one side to small-town newspapers, whose editors then printed their own
local news and advertisements on the blank sides of each sheet they pur-
chased from the syndicate (Tornoe, 2011). Newspaper syndicates gradually
spread their operations to metropolitan newspaper markets throughout the
1870s and 1880s. Many of these newer syndicates, like those established by
newspaper editor Charles A. Dana and independent entrepreneur Samuel
McClure, initially sold stories by British and American authors (such as
Rudyard Kipling and Henry James) to the magazine supplements of Sunday
newspapers (Berchtold, 1935: 34 – 35; Watson, 1936: 44 – 46; Gordon, 1998a:
39). Whereas wire news services such as Reuters dealt with the instanta-
neous transmission of topical news stories, feature syndicates (as they were
now called) gradually specialized in commissioning and selling many of the
“non-news” items typically found in most newspapers and magazines today,
ranging from crossword puzzles and horoscopes to serialized fiction and ad-
vice columns.
The impetus behind the formation of feature syndicates was (and still re-
mains) largely economic. The syndication model of distribution allows com-
panies to amortize the high front-end costs associated with commissioning
editorial content by selling the material across their pool of institutional sub-
scribers. Another key difference between news agencies and feature syndi-
cates should be noted here. Whereas the former aimed to sell their services to
as many clients as possible, the latter sought to extract higher revenues from
their portfolio of editorial products by offering exclusive access (at increased
rates) to newspapers operating in a specific geographic market or “circulation
territory”— a business model that was pioneered by the Kellogg Newspaper
Company in 1905 (Watson, 1936: 51 – 52).
Comic strips had, by the late nineteenth century, introduced a dynamic
visual element to the composition of American newspapers and would even-
tually become “the backbone of the syndicate business” (MacDougall, 1942:
76). The American comic strip came of age during the circulation wars which
38 Chapter Two
engulfed New York City’s newspaper industry during the 1890s, with Joseph
Pulitzer’s New York World and Hearst’s New York Morning Journal as the key
combatants. Determined to outdo Pulitzer’s innovative use of illustrated news
stories and full-page cartoons, Hearst produced the first full-color, eight-page
comic strip supplement for the Journal in October 1896. The centerpiece was
Richard F. Outcault’s The Yellow Kid, long considered to be the first modern
comic strip, which Hearst had poached (along with its creator) from Pulitzer’s
New York World, where it had begun as a weekly, full-page cartoon known as
Hogan’s Alley (Inge, 1990: 137 – 38). Hearst’s gamble paid off, with the comic’s
popularity establishing the Journal as America’s largest-selling newspaper,
achieving a circulation of 1,500,000 by 1907 (Hagedorn, 1995: 31 – 32).
Hearst had, by this time, made his first forays into news and feature syn-
dication, commencing with the Hearst News Syndicate (1895), followed by
the International News Service (1906) and King Features Syndicate (1915).
Hearst, perhaps more so than any of his competitors, recognized the com-
mercial potential of this new entertainment medium and used comic strips
to spearhead the expansion of his newspaper interests. By 1900 Hearst began
publishing comic strips originally produced for the New York City market
across his stable of newspapers, commencing with the San Francisco Exam-
iner. By 1908 Hearst’s Sunday color comic-strip supplements were appearing
in more than 80 newspapers across 50 American cities (Nasaw, 2002: 233 – 34).
Hearst’s syndication strategy had, according to Ian Gordon, “opened a na-
tional market for comic strips” (1995: 54 – 55).
Hearst retained a lifelong interest in the comic strips appearing under his
newspaper mastheads. Only after selling his first comic strip, Mandrake the
Magician (1934), to King Features Syndicate did Lee Falk learn that strips
carried by the company were personally approved by “the Chief,” as Hearst
was known to his senior executives. “In the first years that I was with King
Features,” Falk later recalled, “I would get little notes from Hearst . . . telling
me what he liked and didn’t like” (quoted in Elman, 2011: 234). Yet Hearst
never lost sight of the comic strip’s primary value as an economic asset; in
1916 King Features Syndicate put its cartoonists on full-time salaries and
acquired copyright ownership of their work, so that, should any of their head-
line artists be poached by a rival syndicate, another staff artist could simply
take their place on a particular comic strip (Lee, 1937: 592).
Comic strips eventually became lucrative sources of advertising revenue
for feature syndicates and their newspaper clients. Hearst inadvertently laid
the foundations for this business model when his publishing subsidiary, the
International Magazine Company, purchased the humor periodical Puck in
1917. Unable to reverse the declining sales of this once-venerated cartoon
magazine, Hearst closed it down in 1918 but retained its distinctive mast-
head, which he used to promote his Sunday newspapers’ comic-strip supple-
ments under the uniform banner Puck – The Comic Weekly (Marschall, 1999:
866). Hearst leveraged his subsidiary companies’ printing and distribution
networks to further the growth of his newest comic-strip supplement. The
Hearst-owned Newspaper Feature Syndicate, a commercial forerunner of
King Features Syndicate, established centralized color printing at several
of its affiliated newspapers’ printing plants, which would deliver completed
comic-strip sections to other newspapers which lacked access to four-color
printing technology (Koenigsberg, 1941: 398). Hearst’s allied media busi-
nesses now encompassed all facets of newspaper publishing, printing, and
distribution, making his empire a forerunner of today’s vertically integrated
media conglomerates.
In 1931 the Hearst executive Hawley Turner convinced national consumer
brands to place comic-strip formatted advertisements in Puck; these adver-
tisements were complemented by point-of-sale displays in retail outlets high-
lighting the featured product’s promotion in Puck (Stewart, 2010).1 By 1934
Puck had secured nearly $2,000,000 in advertising revenues, which accounted
for almost 25 percent of the estimated $9,000,000 accrued by Sunday news-
papers nationwide that opened their comic-strip sections to advertisements
(Berchtold, 1935: 36). Puck’s market penetration was undeniable; by 1936
its circulation had grown to 5,500,000 copies (Spiegelman, Terwilliger, and
Fearing, 1952: 40).
So popular had newspaper comic strips become that they they seemed
capable of withstanding the economic calamity of the Great Depression.
While many newspapers throughout the United States scaled back their use
of syndicated content as a cost-cutting measure, few dared to reduce their
range of comic strips, which remained among their most popular features. In
1932 George Gallup published results from his newspaper readership survey,
which showed that comic strips were consistently read by more people than
the front-page news story, and that comic strips were marginally more pop-
ular among women than with men (Gallup, 1932: 23). Little wonder, then,
40 Chapter Two
that even during the worst depths of the Great Depression, America’s top
syndicated cartoonists reportedly earned weekly salaries between $1,000 and
$1,600 (Mott, 2000: 694). Feature syndicates did more than just weather the
economic storm of the 1930s; by the early 1940s, it was said that the in-
dustry, comprised of 250 separate companies, garnered between $15,000,000
and $40,000,000 in gross annual sales (MacDougall, 1942: 76). By the end of
World War II, King Features Syndicate was widely regarded as the indus-
try leader, providing editorial content which reached 52,000,000 American
households (Tebbel and Zuckerman, 1991: 155). Within a few years of Hearst’s
death in 1951, it was reported that King Features Syndicate supplied content
to an estimated 5,000 clients (Newspaper News, 1955: 19). It was by now clear
to anyone who cared to look that “the funnies” had become a very serious
business.
Comic Strips and American Mass Culture
The editorial influence of feature syndicates on the aesthetic development of

the comic strip grew more pronounced during the opening decades of the
twentieth century. Early American comic strips, such as The Yellow Kid,
were set in the crowded tenements of New York City and featured characters
which reflected the chaotic immigrant polyglot of the 1890s. Yet as comic
strips began circulating in small-town and rural newspapers throughout the
country, their multiracial, working-class, urban milieu gave way to characters
and settings which spoke “much less to the fringes of American society and
more to ‘middle America’ ” (Sabin, 1993: 17). This tonal shift was most visible
with the advent of domestic situation-comedy strips, such as George McMa-
nus’s Bringing Up Father (1913) and Sidney Smith’s The Gumps (1917), which
dealt with that “most bourgeois of all institutions, the family” (Couperie and
Horn, 1968: 45).
The feature syndicates’ business model helped make the comic strip an
integral part of American public life; the cultural critic Gilbert Seldes re-
marked that the syndication of comic strips “enabled America to think na-
tionally” (1957: 195). Comic strips helped shape a new form of visual print
culture; Sunday newspapers’ colorful comic-strip supplements in particular
were enjoyed by mixed-age audiences in living rooms across the country,
“thereby inviting individuals to enjoy the entertainment of the reading expe-
rience together” (Royer, Nettels, and Aspray, 2011: 280). Yet precisely because
they began reaching a nationwide audience, comic strips became subject to
ever more editorial and commercial edicts, as Gilbert Seldes noted:
[The comic strip] cannot be too local, since it is syndicated throughout
the country; it must avoid political and social questions because the
same strip appears in papers of divergent editorial opinions; there is no
room for acute racial caricature, although no group is immune from its
mockery. (Seldes, 1957: 194)
This level of racial and ethnic sensitivity did not, however, automatically
extend to the depiction of Africans, or African Americans, with many comic
strips adhering to long-standing “Sambo” or “minstrel” stereotypes pop-
ularized by illustrated humor journals throughout the nineteenth century.
This remained the case for many decades; a 1950 survey of American Sunday
newspaper comic-strip lift-outs (including Puck — The Comic Weekly) found
no examples of comic strips ostensibly about “American negroes” (sic), not-
ing instead that only a handful of (non-American) “negroes” (sic) appeared
“as natives in two strips with jungle settings” (Spiegelman, Terwilliger and
Fearing, 1952: 49) — an indirect reference to The Phantom.
The growing homogenization of syndicated comic strips was a by-product
of broader structural changes that had been steadily transforming America’s
newspaper industry since the late 1880s. The expansion of newspaper chains,
increased concentration of newspaper ownership, and the growing influence
of press associations and newspaper syndicates “contributed to the standard-
ization of newspaper content . . . and increasingly departmentalized report-
age” (Badaracco, 1997: 180 – 81, 185). Not everyone was perturbed by these
developments. Curtis D. MacDougall maintained that although the quality
of syndicated material had improved immeasurably throughout the 1920s
and 1930s, it did not supplant the local news coverage or features that typi-
cally gave newspapers their unique identity. Syndication, he added, proved
especially beneficial for comic strips: “One shudders to think what the comic
page of the average small-town paper would be like if it were drawn entirely
by local cartoonists” (MacDougall, 1942: 80 – 81).
The parallel expansion and consolidation of the newspaper publishing and
feature syndication industries throughout the 1930s proved beneficial for The
Phantom comic strip. The character’s growing popularity led King Features
42 Chapter Two
Syndicate to commission Lee Falk and Ray Moore to produce a full-color

version of The Phantom, intended for inclusion in Sunday newspapers, which
debuted on May 28, 1939. But the transition to this new format was not with-
out problems. Falk had always referred to the Phantom wearing a grey cos-
tume in the daily version, but when the first Sunday episodes of The Phantom
comic strip were being prepared for publication, a printer’s error meant the
character was given a purple-colored costume instead. “I was not present
when the suit was colored,” Falk later said (quoted in Ennart, 2011: 177). Nev-
ertheless, as Falk observed, the more expansive format of the weekly color
episodes of The Phantom offered different dramatic and visual possibilities:
The difference between the daily adventures and Sunday adventures is
that the latter are more imaginative. The format and color influence the
story. In black and white [daily strips], one can have characters discuss
things, while on big, colored pages, they need to act. (Quoted in Resnais,
2011: 77 – 78)
The Sunday color version of The Phantom comic strip served several pur-
poses: it was a new product which could be sold directly to newspapers; it
offered a drawcard for additional advertising revenue; and it provided fur-
ther opportunities to build the character’s profile as a commercial licensing
“brand.” The Phantom could now reach a vast national audience through the
pages of Puck and attain the level of public recognition and exposure neces-
sary for it to become a lucrative licensing property. King Features Syndicate
knew firsthand just how fast this market was growing; by the mid-1930s,
Popeye (the star of E. C. Segar’s Thimble Theater comic strip) had become
the company’s most successful brand-name character, licensed to publishers,
toy manufacturers, and food companies (DSN Retailing Today, 2004: 48).
The Phantom did not generate the same level of licensing merchandise as
Popeye, and his likeness appeared on just a few crudely manufactured items,
including a wooden figure and a ceramic mug, during the early 1940s (Hake,
1993: 125). He did, however, gain a foothold in newer forms of mass-market,
juvenile literature.
In 1932 the Whitman Publishing Company unveiled a new range of illus-
trated children’s novels known as Big Little Books. These chunky, pocket-
sized books contained over 300 pages per volume and sold for just ten cents,
making them remarkably good “value-for-money” reading in Depression-era
America. Big Little Books were illustrated novels featuring popular charac-
ters drawn from other media, such as radio serials and motion pictures, with
text printed on the left-hand page and an accompanying illustration on the
right-hand page.
Adventure-serial comic strips provided ready-made content for Big Little
Books, and Whitman negotiated book-publishing licenses with the country’s
major feature syndicates. The company’s first title was The Adventures of
Dick Tracy (1932), based on Chester Gould’s police detective hero, launched
by the Chicago Tribune Syndicate the year before. Whitman’s editorial staff
rewrote the comic-strip story lines to suit the Big Little Books’ condensed
prose format, while the accompanying illustrations were taken directly from
the comic strips, after their narrative captions and speech balloons had been
removed (Molson, 1984: 19). The Phantom (1936) marked the character’s self-
titled debut in Big Little Books, which was published before the comic strip’s
opening story line, “The Singh Brotherhood,” had even reached its conclu-
sion in newspapers by November 1936 (Griffin and Griffin, ca. 1999). It was
the first of six Phantom novels — all adapted from the comic strip — released
under Whitman’s Big Little Book imprint over the next eleven years.
By uncoupling the integration of text and image that was the medium’s de-
fining characteristic, Big Little Books represented something of a backward
step in the evolution of the comic strip. Yet by reinstating an equal balance
between words and pictures, Big Little Books repackaged comic strips as
suitable reading matter comparable to “real” children’s books of the kind
that would normally earn parental approval. These pocket-sized novels also
allowed children to enjoy self-contained stories about their favorite comic-
strip characters without laboriously following their exploits through each
day’s newspaper. Certainly, the Whitman Publishing Company could be in
no doubt about their popularity; Big Little Books were reportedly selling
1,000,000 copies per month by the late 1930s (Molson, 1984: 147 – 48).
The Phantom’s placement in Big Little Books arguably changed the public
perception of the character in subtle, unforeseen ways. The comic strip’s film
noir atmosphere, redolent with slinky femme fatales and sadistic villains,
and punctuated by scenes of explosive violence, was understandably toned
down for Big Little Books’ juvenile audience. The Phantom was originally
conceived for an adult newspaper readership, but Whitman’s editorial strat-
egies diluted the character’s sinister aura by making him “safe” for children.
44 Chapter Two
Their success in doing so was borne out by the company’s decision to release
The Son of The Phantom (Robertson, 1944), a hardback novelization of Lee
Falk’s 1944 – 45 comic-strip story line “The Childhood of The Phantom.”
The company correctly sensed that the book’s account of “the jungle child-
hood of the present-day Phantom” would resonate with young readers —
such was the demand that the book was reprinted twice more between 1944
and 1946 (Griffin and Griffin, ca. 1999). The Phantom, it seemed, was well-
suited to the Big Little Book format, which, as one author later observed,
seemed certain to form “an enduring relationship [with young readers] had
not comic books come along” (Stedman, 1977: 213).
The Comic-Book Explosion
Feature syndicates played an important role in the development of America’s

comic-book industry throughout the 1930s by supplying the editorial content
that was vital to ensuring this new medium’s success. But their involvement,
much like the birth of the comic book itself, came about almost by accident,
which led many feature syndicates to underestimate the creative and com-
mercial potential of this new publishing phenomenon.
The invention of the modern comic magazine was driven by economic
urgency. The Eastern Color Printing Company of New York printed comic-
strip sections for several eastern seaboard newspapers, but it needed new
business to keep its presses running at full capacity. Sales manager Harry
Wildenberg reportedly came up with the idea of collating folded-down
color comic-strip supplements into a 7" × 9" magazine, which could be sold
to businesses as promotional giveaways. Securing reprint rights for comic
strips owned by the McNaught, Public Ledger, and Bell feature syndicates,
Wildenberg showed the prototype magazine, titled Funnies on Parade, to
Proctor & Gamble, which placed an order for 1,000,000 copies in 1933.
Eastern Color Printing subsequently struck a deal with the Dell Publish-
ing Company to produce Famous Funnies (1934), a 64-page compilation of
newspaper comic strips, which became the first monthly American comic
book to be sold (rather than given away) via newsstands for a ten-cent cover
price (Beerbohm and Olson, 2007: 383). If feature syndicates harbored any
doubts about readers’ willingness to pay a dime for magazines stuffed with
old comic strips, they were cast aside once they took note of Famous Funnies’
sales, which approached 1,000,000 copies by late 1934, with profit margins
estimated to be around $30,000 per issue (Beerbohm and Olson, 2007: 383).
Dell Publishing, which had subsequently sold its stake in Famous Funnies
back to Eastern Color Printing, now partnered with the McClure Syndicate
to launch Popular Comics (1936), while former Eastern Color Printing em-
ployee Lev Gleason was appointed editor of Tip Top Comics (1936), published
by the United Features Syndicate.
William Randolph Hearst was no stranger to this emerging field, having
previously issued hardcover compilations of comic strips featured in the New
York Journal, including The Katzenjammer Kids (1902) and Happy Hooligan
(1902). In the mid-1930s, King Features Syndicate formed a partnership with
the David McKay Company, a Philadelphia book publisher already known
for its range of licensed Mickey Mouse comic-strip albums. McKay launched
King Comics (1936) and Ace Comics (1937), which were comprised entirely of
King Features’ comic strips, including Flash Gordon, Krazy Kat, and Lee
Falk’s first comic-strip series, Mandrake the Magician. McKay released the
Feature Book series in 1937, which offered complete (or near-complete) col-
lections of comic-strip stories dedicated to a single character, commencing
with Popeye and the Jeep. The two-part serialization of the first Phantom
adventure, “The Singh Brotherhood,” in the Feature Book editions no. 20
(1938) and no. 22 (1939) is regarded by some as the first American comic book
devoted to an individual “superhero.” But neither King Features Syndicate
nor the David McKay Company recognized the commercial opportunity
before them, and failed to exploit this idea further by promoting The Phan-
tom as an exciting comic book to younger readers eager for this new type of
magazine.
Comic-book publishing was, at this stage, largely a matter of pouring old
wine into new bottles; as Raymond W. Stedman notes, “little effort was made
to adapt the borrowed [comic strips] to their new environment and there was
almost no new material” (1977: 204). The almost guaranteed success of these
early comic books meant there was little incentive to exercise any degree
of editorial care; recalling his tenure as a young editor on Popular Comics,
Sheldon Mayer bluntly stated “it was a schlock operation . . . we bought the
material for practically nothing and slapped it together” (quoted in Wright,
2001: 4). Readers, initially at least, did not seem to mind; by 1942 Ace Comics
had attained a monthly circulation of 280,000, while King Comics drew close
46 Chapter Two
with 256,000 readers — and both had outstripped their pioneering rival, Fa-
mous Funnies, which had dropped back to 180,000 (Gilbert, 2002: 72 – 73).
Newspaper feature syndicates held a virtual stranglehold on the supply of
editorial content for America’s nascent comic-book industry, which allowed
them to raise their publication licensing fees from an average $5 – 10 per page
to nearly $100 per page by the early 1940s (Gilbert, 2002: 65). Smaller pub-
lishers, keen to enter this booming market, but lacking the capital required to
pay such exorbitant fees, began commissioning original stories and artwork
prepared exclusively for comic magazines — typically for rock-bottom pay
rates. The first of these “all-original” comics was New Fun (1935), printed in
black and white, which offered a pulp magazine-infused selection of cowboy,
aviator-adventure, and science fiction comics. The Comic Magazine Com-
pany pioneered the first single-themed comic books, Detective Picture Stories
(1936) and Western Picture Stories (1937); their deliberate avoidance of the
word “comic” was designed to distinguish their exciting, dramatic contents
from humorous anthologies like Funnies on Parade. But as Ted White points
out, many of these early “original” comic books still slavishly copied the
regimented layout of newspaper comic strips adopted by other comic mag-
azine reprints (1997: 22). Ironically, the turning point for America’s prewar
comic-book industry would come from a costumed hero previously rejected
by newspaper syndicates as too fantastic, even for “the funnies”— but Super-
man, as it turned out, was tailor-made for comic books.
In the Shadow of Superman
Clad in a skin-tight purple costume, his face concealed by an eye-mask and

cowl, and sporting a death’s head symbol on his gun-belt, the Phantom was
the visual prototype for the modern superhero. Despite the fact that the Phan-
tom predated the debut of Superman in Action Comics no. 1 (June 1938), the
character’s contribution to the superhero genre has been routinely overlooked
in most academic and popular surveys of comic strips and comic magazines.
Nor, for that matter, has the Phantom been embraced as a superhero — at
least not within the United States, the birthplace of the genre. The charac-
ter’s peripheral status as a “superhero,” and his marginal success during the
formative years of America’s comic-book industry, can be attributed to an
unforeseen mixture of aesthetic, editorial, and demographic factors.
From the outset, the Phantom defied straightforward categorization; by

1938 King Features Syndicate was promoting him as a “mysterious adven-
turer” and “strange personage” who brings “a thrilling novelty in strips”
(Scandinavian Chapter, 2011: 35). While this is an indirect reference to the
Phantom’s distinctive costume, he is not yet described as a “superhero.” This
is entirely understandable, as Superman had only just made his debut in
Action Comics, and the word “superhero” had not yet made its way into every
day use. But the company’s promotional rhetoric remained unchanged long
after the costumed superhero had become an established comic-book genre.
By 1967, King Features’ Blue Book sales catalog continued to refer to the
Phantom as a “jungle crusader” rather than a “superhero” (King Features
Syndicate, 1967: 14).
Even though he looked very much like a superhero, the Phantom possessed
none of the extraordinary powers or abilities commonly associated with such
characters. Like the pulp-magazine heroes who preceded him, the Phantom
was undeniably powerful and used his physical strength and athleticism to
overcome his enemies. Yet he could not match the extraterrestrial abilities
of Superman, who could not only fly, but also possessed super-strength and
was impervious to physical harm. Even the Phantom’s ability to return from
the dead as “The Ghost Who Walks” was an elaborate fiction designed to
intimidate evildoers. It was for these reasons that the comics historian Coul-
ton Waugh argued that, because he is mortal and can be killed, the Phantom
could not be regarded as “a superman in the wild, modern meaning of the
word” (1974: 260).
The Phantom may struggle to receive “official” recognition as America’s
first superhero, but to his international fans, there is little doubt about his
rightful historical status. One reader went to great lengths to enumerate the
Phantom’s contributions to the superhero genre, but chose instead to draw
connections between “The Ghost Who Walks” and one of Superman’s ear-
liest successors — Batman:2
The Phantom was the first traditional superhero. Forget Batman. The
Phantom was first to become who he was due to the death of his par-
ents, the first to wear tights with a cowl . . . The first to have a sidekick
(Devil), first to have a secret identity, and first to have a cave as his
hideout. And [he] was originally to be a rich playboy by day and become
48 Chapter Two
a hero by night (Jimmy Wells). (Female respondent, 18 – 35 years old,

Australia, March 23, 2012)
Some fans, however, suggest that the Phantom represents an important

transitional figure in the evolution of the superhero genre, as much steeped
in the traditions of pulp-fiction magazines as he was in the formative de-
velopment of comic books. One reader described the Phantom’s adventures
as “straightforward pulp action plots” (male respondent, 18 – 35 years old,
Australia, April 27, 2012). Another reader drew connections and distinctions
between the Phantom and Batman which further highlighted the Phantom’s
pulp-era lineage:
Comparing him to a close competitor, Batman, the two are really quite
distinct. The Phantom’s characterization hasn’t really changed much
over time . . . For better or worse the Phantom is an old-fashioned kind
of superhero, more of a pulp hero, in fact . . . [He] can come off as a two-
dimensional invincible hero who’s often incredibly lucky. . . . A charac-
ter like Batman has moved with the times, in fact [he has] frequently
done so with occasionally regrettable results. (Male respondent, 18 – 35
years old, Australia, August 26, 2012)
The Phantom, according to Peter Coogan, came closest to challenging Super-

man’s status as America’s first recognizable “superhero” precisely because his
distinctive costume, dual identity, and superior strength and agility embod-
ied so many definitional aspects of the superhero. Yet other elements of the
Phantom’s persona, historical background, and his exotic jungle milieu bore
all the hallmarks of his pulp-fiction antecedents. For these reasons, Coogan
maintains that the Phantom did not represent a significant break from the
dramatic conventions ascribed to the Shadow, the Spider, and other “mystery
men” commonly found in pulp-fiction magazines (2006: 14). Superman, by
contrast, was the first truly omnipotent hero, the likes of which had never
been seen before in pulp magazines, newspaper comic strips, or comic books.
Furthermore, Coogan argues that Superman’s near-instant commercial suc-
cess led to a torrent of costumed superheroes flooding America’s fledgling
comic-book industry, thus initiating a cycle of “imitation and repetition”
which signaled the emergence of an entirely new genre (2006: 175). The
Phantom, by contrast, did not excite the same level of popular adulation or
commercial emulation.
Superman had an almost incalculable impact on the comic-book medium,
but no one was entirely sure what they had on their hands with this strange
new hero. Even publisher Jack Liebowitz, who chose Superman’s image to
grace the cover of Action Comics’ debut issue, kept the new magazine’s print
run pegged at a cautious 250,000 copies (Daniels, 2003: 22). It was not until
after the company conducted informal newsstand surveys, which disclosed
that children were demanding “the comic with Superman in it,” that Na-
tional Periodical Publications (aka DC Comics) reinstated Superman on the
cover of Action Comics’ seventh issue, by which time it was selling 500,000
copies per month (Daniels, 2003: 22; Jones, 2004: 141). Superman’s meteoric
success invited fierce competition; by 1940 it was estimated that 80 percent
of the 109 comic magazines published in the United Sates featured superhero
characters (Gabilliet, 2010: 20).
But why did comic-book superheroes resonate with America’s youth?
Some of their success can be attributed to historical timing; appearing prior
to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, comic-book super-
heroes soon became willing propagandists for America’s war effort, exhorting
readers to buy war bond savings stamps, while battling hordes of German and
Japanese soldiers. Early studies of America’s emerging comic-book culture
argued that superheroes were modern-day expressions of the “phantasies
of omnipotence” which were a recurring theme in ancient mythology, and
simply embodied the “greater magic needed in modern folklore” to confront
“the greater dangers which assail society and the individual” (Bender and
Lourie, 1941: 546).
The intrinsic visual appeal of comic books seems now almost tailor-made
for superheroes. However, the visual storytelling possibilities of this new
medium were not immediately recognized by its earliest practitioners, who
simply imitated the “uniform grids of equal-sized panels,” which, according
to Robert C. Harvey, characterized the layout of Sunday newspapers’ comic-
strip sections (1996: 29). They therefore ignored the comic book’s “spacious
page format” which would otherwise give artists the freedom to vary the
height and width of panels for greater visual and dramatic emphasis (Harvey,
1996: 29). It took the arrival of Superman, and the legions of superheroes that
50 Chapter Two
followed him, to show how comic books could tell stories in new and exciting
ways. Some critics, however, were far from convinced that comic books rep-
resented an advance in visual storytelling:
The composition of the [comic-book] page is often altered from the usual
“panels” into a hodgepodge of blotched lines and clashing colors in order
to catch the eye of the casual reader and to carry the action of the story
forward as rapidly as possible. A motion picture camera technique is in-
troduced into the “panels,” crowding together “close-ups,” “long shots” 
. . . and other compositional arrangements to keep the reader from fall-
ing asleep between murders. (Vigus, 1942: 168)
Yet it was the frenetic pace and chaotic artwork found in most comic books
which excited young readers the most. Their fast and furious action was not, as
Josette Frank, observed, “true to life,” but it was “life as young readers would
live it,” if only to escape the “humdrum of their daily routine [where] ‘nothing
ever happens’ ” (1944: 220).
If the superhero genre enhanced the popularity of comic books by ex-
panding the medium’s narrative parameters, it also challenged the economic
conventions of America’s magazine publishing industry. Typically speaking,
most magazines were reliant on revenues derived from a combination of paid
advertisements, readers’ subscriptions, and over-the-counter sales. By 1947
comic books had the largest aggregate sales of any group of periodicals in
America (89,000,000 copies) and accounted for over 23 percent of total aggre-
gate circulations of all periodicals in America by 1949 — yet they received less
than one percent of total advertising receipts accrued by the magazine pub-
lishing industry (Reed, 1997: 196 – 97). While advertising agencies were un-
derstandably keen to exploit this huge youth market, press reports suggested
that advertisers were reluctant to deal with an industry that was still prey to
“fly-by-night . . . operators,” where advertising rates had not yet stabilized,
and where undercutting on advertised page rates was apparently rife (Gilbert,
2002: 68 – 69). As a result, most comic-book advertising was confined to mail-
order products and services, such as novelty gadgets and home-study courses
(Malter, 1952: 507).
Yet for some publishers, the true economic value of comic books lay not
in the number of pages sold to advertisers, but in the commodity value of
the comic-book characters themselves. National Periodical Publications was
among the first to recognize this potential when it formed a subsidiary com-
pany, Superman Inc., in 1940 to license Superman’s trademarked image which,
by the end of the decade, was being used to endorse breakfast cereals, chil-
dren’s clothing, board games, and toys (Daniels, 2003: 72 – 75). Superman was
now “not so much a character who helped sell comic books as a product that
comic books sold” (Gordon, 1998a: 133 – 34).
The Phantom should have flourished amidst the explosive growth of Amer-
ica’s comic-book industry during the late 1930s and early 1940s. Even though
he defied easy categorization as a “genuine” superhero, the Phantom’s ties to
the earlier school of pulp magazine “mystery men” need not have been an
automatic barrier to success in the comic-book field. Street & Smith Publica-
tions, for example, launched popular comic-book versions of its leading pulp-
magazine heroes, Shadow Comics (1940 – 49) and Doc Savage Comics (1940 – 43),
which placed them among America’s biggest-selling comic-book publishers by
1942 (Gilbert, 2002: 72 – 73). Yet the Phantom’s commercial gatekeepers con-
sistently failed to exploit his potential at a time when the superhero craze was
at its peak. This failure must stem from King Features Syndicate’s decision
to award its comic-book publishing license to the David McKay Company, a
firm best known for publishing poetry, educational textbooks, and children’s
literature. Even as the comic-book industry evolved and expanded throughout
the 1940s, McKay published its key titles — Ace Comics and King Comics —
on the same “schlock operation” principles that characterized the industry’s
formative years.
The Phantom fared poorly during its initial transition from newspapers
to comic magazines. Oblivious to the surging demand for superhero comics,
McKay did not use the Phantom’s image on the covers of either King Comics
or Ace Comics for the duration of the war. Nor did the company exploit the
timeliness of Lee Falk’s story line, “The Inexorables” (concerning the Japa-
nese invasion of the Phantom’s jungle domain), even as rival publishers reg-
ularly depicted their top-selling superheroes in combat with Japanese troops.
Little thought was given to reformatting newspaper comic strips for the
comic-book page; the original panel sequence from daily newspaper episodes
of The Phantom was rearranged, or some panels were deleted altogether, in
order to condense the story line into monthly, four-page installments.
At a time when comics such as Superman and Captain Marvel were boast-
ing circulations in excess of 1,000,000 readers, how do we account for McKay’s
52 Chapter Two
ongoing indifference to the Phantom’s commercial potential as a headline “su-

perhero” drawcard? It could be argued that the relative success of Ace Comics
and King Comics was not dependent on adventure heroes like the Phantom
for their undeniably robust sales figures. It is also possible that McKay had
neither the desire nor the resources to become a dedicated comic-book pub-
lisher. As the industry pioneer M. C. Gaines was already pointing out by
1942, comic-book editors were now faced with the dilemma of “developing
constantly new episodes around already established characters” (1942: 20),
which typically required several months for a team of writers, illustrators, and
editorial assistants to produce (1942: 24). Since McKay primarily remained
a book publisher throughout the war, focusing its efforts on simply repack-
aging ready-made comic-strip artwork into magazines allowed the company
to allocate minimal resources to sustain these otherwise profitable ancillary
products.
Twilight of the Superheroes
Superheroes had an undeniable economic and cultural impact on America’s

comic-book industry during the first half of the 1940s, but it would be mis-
leading to suggest that they entirely displaced other types of comic maga-
zines. For even as superhero titles proliferated, several wartime publishers
were experimenting with new genres that would eventually supplant them.
These encompassed teenage humor (Archie Comics, 1942), literary adaptations
(Classic Comics, 1941), and horror (Spook Comics, 1946). The end of the war
ushered in dramatic changes for the industry, which would be most keenly felt
by the costumed crusaders that had fostered its birth and exponential growth.
Peacetime robbed most superheroes of their dramatic purpose; while some
survived (most notably Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman), scores of
formerly top-selling superhero comics had been canceled by 1948 – 49 (Gou-
lart, 1986: 241). Such turbulent times should have favored the Phantom, who
had long been overshadowed by larger-than-life superheroes. Yet even the
removal of the Phantom’s chief rivals would not necessarily guarantee him a
secure footing in America’s postwar comic-book industry.
While the output of some publishers, such as Dell Publications and DC
Comics, remained overwhelmingly geared towards children and adolescents,
other, smaller companies began courting adult readers. Lev Gleason Publica-
tions ran teaser advertisements for its violent new gangster comic, Crime Does
Not Pay (1942), which played both ends of the market by urging kids to “show
it to dad, he’ll love it!” (Goulart, 1986: 231). Prize Publications declared that its
new title, Young Romance (1947), was intended “for the more adult readers of
comics.” This latter genre — of which Young Romance was the first example
— was instrumental in broadening the appeal of comics beyond its tradi-
tionally male-dominated readership. By 1950, industry sources claimed that
women aged between 17 and 25 years were reading more comic books than
men, due largely to the popularity of romance comics (Robbins, 1999: 54).
The origins of “jungle hero” comic books date back to the late 1930s, but
they assumed greater prominence following World War II, as more salacious
examples of the genre began competing with “girlie magazines” for the atten-
tion of older male readers, including returned servicemen. The earliest jungle-
hero comics were modeled after Tarzan and, like Edgar Rice Burroughs’s cre-
ation, had their roots in pulp-fiction magazines. Publisher Martin Goodman
converted his pulp character, Ka-Zar (1936), into a supporting feature for
Marvel Comics (1939). Similarly, Fiction House transferred Ki-Gor, the un-
disputed star of its Jungle Stories magazine, to Jungle Comics (1940), where he
was inexplicably renamed Kaänga (Hutchinson, 2007: 193 – 200). This genre
proved immediately popular with American schoolchildren, who frequently
nominated Jungle Comics as one of their favorite titles throughout the 1940s
and 1950s (Witty, 1941: 102; Witty and Moore, 1945: 305; and Friedson, 1954:
80, 82, 88). Sensing a shift in the market, McKay made belated efforts to re-
position the Phantom as a jungle hero by finally featuring him on the cover of
Ace Comics (nos. 143 – 51, 1949) before quitting the comic-book field in 1949.
Yet even as superheroes steadily lost ground to their more primeval rivals,
the Phantom was once again eclipsed by a comic-book character that left an
indelible mark on the “jungle-hero” genre. Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, made
her American debut in Jumbo Comics in 1938 and became the first successful
female hero in American comic books, predating Wonder Woman’s debut
in All-Star Comics in 1941.3 What distinguished Sheena from other “vine-
swingers” was her flowing blond hair and her implausibly brief leopard-skin
costume, designed to show off her voluptuous figure. In her own way, Sheena
had a galvanizing effect on the postwar comic-book market. Her continued
success in Jumbo Comics, along with her own self-titled magazine (launched
in 1942), sparked a minor stampede of imitators such as Rulah, Jungle God-
54 Chapter Two
dess (Zoot Comics no. 7, 1947), Zegra, Jungle Empress (1948), and Lorna the
Jungle Girl (1953).
To survive in this intensely competitive market, publishers released new
titles that frequently commingled scenes of violent bloodshed, torture, gore,
and sexual titillation which were particularly evident in the crime, horror, and
jungle-hero genres (Vollmer, 2002: 70 – 85). Even Harvey Publications, which
had purchased the comic-book rights to The Phantom in the early 1950s,
billed the character’s exploits as “Weird Jungle Fantasy” and used cover il-
lustrations to promote the Phantom’s appearances in Harvey Comics Hits that
were entirely in keeping with the company’s visceral range of horror comics,
such as Chamber of Chills (1951 – 54) and Witches Tales (1951 – 54).
Such violent excess was, according to Stephen Becker, a by-product of
America’s experience of World War II, where the “constant repetition of
[brutality]” in all forms of mass media — including comic books — had de-
based society’s “capacity for horror” (1959: 242 – 43). It was also a reflection of
the different organizational structures and public obligations that governed
the newspaper industry and comic-book publishers:
After the war, a distinction became obvious. The newspaper comic strip
was part of a daily publication deemed essential to almost all American
families. As such, it had to maintain the standards of propriety and taste
raised by the newspaper itself. The comic book, on the other hand, was
an independent publication, available to anyone for (usually) a dime, and
responsible to no one for the quality of its contents. (Becker, 1959: 242)
The combination of relentless and violent action, images of scantily clad
women, and the overt racism common to virtually all “jungle comics” did not
go unremarked by the industry’s critics, whose voices were growing steadily
louder. John R. Cavanagh alleged that the comics’ frequent depiction of
“chained females and sexually suggestive situations” could harm the psycho-
logical development of otherwise well-adjusted, “normal adolescents” (1949:
34 – 35); Geoffrey Wagner’s acerbic study of American popular culture, Parade
of Pleasure, denounced Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, as an “Aryan mistress”
who makes “the local natives . . . bow in terror before her” (1955: 98); and
Fredric Wertham, author of the influential anti-comics tract Seduction of the
Innocent (1954), accused jungle comics of cultivating “race hatred” by de-
picting “Negroes” (sic) as “primitives, savages and ape men” (1954: 101, 103).
These sensational publishing tactics, deployed to expand the market for a

medium historically associated with children, brought unwelcome scrutiny
to bear on America’s comic-book industry. With retailers facing boycotts
organized by citizens’ committees protesting against objectionable comic
books, magazine wholesalers began refusing to distribute growing numbers
of titles that could be deemed offensive to community standards (Twomey,
1955: 621 – 29; Friedman, 2003: 201 – 27). With horror comics already being
singled out in the televised U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delin-
quency hearings in April 1954, the industry’s largest publishers formed the
Comics Magazine Association of America (CMAA) in October 1954 and de-
vised a stringent self-regulatory censorship policy (the “Comics Code”) that
was designed to stamp out the worst excesses of sexual and violent imagery
commonly associated with (but not necessarily confined to) “jungle hero”
comics (Nyberg, 1998: Wright, 2001: 86 – 108; and Hajdu, 2008).
While The Phantom newspaper comic strip had previously attracted criti-
cism for its pejorative racial themes and imagery (Kessel, 1943: 35), it appears
to have escaped notice throughout the anti-comics campaigns of the early
1950s. This seems odd, insofar as The Phantom dealt with many of the dra-
matic staples — such as warring tribes, scheming witch doctors, and greedy
poachers — that were common to virtually all “jungle hero” comics. But per-
haps the key difference between them was their respective levels of editorial
freedom; whereas “jungle hero” comics had (prior to the advent of the Comics
Code) greater scope to depict violent and sexually provocative stories and
images, newspaper comic strips like The Phantom were subject to greater ed-
itorial scrutiny by newspaper syndicates, which ensured their content would
not offend newspaper clients and their readers — in a sense, they had already
been vetted prior to their comic-book serialization. Nevertheless, Harvey
Publications, as a founding CMAA member, was subsequently forced to use
far milder cover illustrations when it issued a further series of eight Phantom
comics as part of its Harvey Hits title during 1957 – 61.
The Phantom could overcome the greatest physical obstacles and vanquish
the deadliest foes imaginable, but his existence beyond the boundaries of the
newspaper comic-strip page was beset by commercial misfortune through-
out the 1930s and 1940s. Bad luck and poor timing dogged the Phantom’s
earliest forays into new print media formats, as the once-popular Big Little
Book series in which he starred was overtaken by the rocketing sales of
56 Chapter Two
comic magazines, spurred on by the arrival of Superman. Although the

Phantom did not readily conform to the tenets of the comic-book superhero
genre, his relative failure as a comic-book franchise stemmed in part from
King Features Syndicate’s ill-advised partnerships with firms that did not
understand the dynamics of comic-book publishing. Even when the com-
mercial tides ran in King Features’ favor, the company’s licensed publishing
partners moved too late in promoting the Phantom at the peak of the “jungle
hero” comics craze following World War II. By cataloging and analyzing
these commercial missteps, we have seen how the origins and development of
America’s comic-book industry — together with King Features’ engagement
with that industry — had adversely affected the Phantom’s performance as
a comic-book franchise. Having done so, we can now follow the Phantom’s
path to Australia, Sweden, and India, and begin to understand how “The
Ghost Who Walks” came to enjoy popular acclaim in these three countries,
the likes of which he has rarely known in the United States.
ff
Chapter Three
The Phantom Abroad
A
s a boy growing up in the Australian bush during the 1930s, Stuart
Wood anxiously awaited the latest edition of the Australian Woman’s
Mirror, delivered each week to his childhood home by horse and cart.
His mother may have enjoyed the magazine’s short stories, recipes,
and sewing patterns, but Stuart always turned instead to the latest install-
ment of The Phantom comic strip. “I followed his adventures like a dedicated
fan,” he later recalled. As the origins of the Phantom unfolded over succes-
sive weeks in the Woman’s Mirror, Stuart vividly remembered the Phantom
living on an island called “Banda.” “A sketch of the island showed a volcanic
mountain . . . partially surrounded by a ‘necklace’ of smaller, low-lying is-
lands,” he said. “I always remembered Banda . . . fond memories from my
boyhood” (Wood, 1987: 15).
Less than a decade later, Stuart was a nineteen-year-old serving as a wire-
less air gunner with the Royal Australian Air Force, flying missions against
Japanese forces aboard a B-25 bomber patrolling the islands to the northwest
of Australia’s coastline. In August 1944 his squadron was sent to intercept a
Japanese convoy, their flight path taking them over the Banda Islands, 500
miles north of Darwin. After successfully completing their mission, Stuart
radioed his navigator and said, “Hey! Take us to the Banda Islands — I want
to see The Phantom!” (Wood, 1987: 15). Thirty minutes later, he looked down
from the top gun turret and saw the Banda Islands rising up from the sea:
And do you know, there was this volcanic-looking island sticking up
from the sea to about 1200 feet, and surrounding it a crescent-shaped
group of small islands — for all the world a replica of what I had seen in
that magazine, as a boy. (Wood, 1987: 15)
57
58 Chapter Three
The passage of time had perhaps clouded Stuart’s memory, as he confused

the Bandar pygmy tribe with the Phantom’s original home on the island of
Luntok, off the coast of Sumatra (see chapter 1). But his recollections are
nonetheless fascinating because they illustrate how comic strips had become
a popular form of visual entertainment for a generation of readers growing
up in the pre-television era. Furthermore, they demonstrate the international
reach of American mass media which, by the mid-1930s, could already stir
the imagination of a young boy growing up in the outback of Australia.
But how was The Phantom able to reach such far-flung readers so soon
after its American debut? To find out, we must now chart the international
circulation of The Phantom comic strip to the three countries where it has
achieved its greatest success and longevity — Australia, Sweden, and India.
This outward focus makes it possible to understand how the relative success
and failure of American mass media abroad could be determined by the insti-
tutional structures and commercial demands of foreign markets. Such an un-
derstanding is vital in order to gauge to what extent these factors influenced
the public reception of The Phantom in all three countries.
The international odyssey of The Phantom does, however, begin in the
United States. Therefore, we must first identify the commercial imperatives
that drove the foreign expansion of American media interests — particularly
those controlled by William Randolph Hearst — during the earliest decades
of the twentieth century. We can then see how foreign newspaper syndicates
and magazine publishers helped disseminate American comic strips from the
1930s onwards. Particular attention will be paid to how women’s magazines,
rather than newspapers, played a crucial role in promoting The Phantom
throughout Australia, Sweden, and India and helped make this “fantastic”
hero acceptable to mainstream audiences. This is an especially important
phase in the international publishing history of The Phantom; nearly 24 per-
cent of readers from Australia, Sweden, and India surveyed for this book
claimed they first met “The Ghost Who Walks” in the pages of newspapers
or magazines, rather than comic books. (By contrast, only 4.6 percent of sur-
vey participants indicated they first saw the Phantom in audiovisual media,
such as motion pictures or animated cartoons.) Such findings underscore
the important role that print media have played in sustaining The Phantom
comics franchise in overseas markets.
Some critics contend that the international syndication of The Phantom

comic strip raises deeper concerns about the shifting balance of Western
geopolitical influence, and the seductive appeal of American mass media.
Makarand Paranjape argues that The Phantom represented a fusion of the
British imperial adventure story and the “American comic-book fantasies of
the superhero,” which produced a “composite myth that combines the older
declining imperialism of the British with the newer, incipient imperialism
of the US” (2008: 12). The Phantom, conceived as an “undying white patri-
arch,” allowed the West, according to Paranjape, to reinvent “new playing
fields to enact its dramas of domination” (2008: 12). Paranjape here invokes
the specter of American cultural imperialism, which has been historically
framed as the unbridled, one-way flow of American mass media throughout
the world. Plotting the often complex — and occasionally unexpected — paths
The Phantom took to reach audiences in Australia, Sweden, and India allows
us to question the stark polarities which so often characterized the cultural
imperialism thesis.
Exporting American Laughter
The groundwork for the international expansion of American mass media

was being prepared in the aftermath of World War I. The United States
emerged from its brief and belated involvement in that conflict untouched
by the physical ravages of war and poised to undergo a remarkable phase of
unprecedented economic growth. The period from 1920 to 1929 was charac-
terized by relatively low unemployment, increased wages for industrial work-
ers, and stable consumer prices. These fortuitous conditions saw the United
States’ gross national product climb from $73.3 billion in 1920 to $104.4 billion
by 1929, as the quantity of manufacturing output leapt by 50 percent during
this same period (McCoy, 1973: 116). The United States also underwent
significant demographic change, recording more urban dwellers than rural
dwellers for the first time in the 1920 census (Gordon, 2004: 300). As cities
and suburbs fanned outwards across America, their residents would become
the bedrock of the new consumer-driven economy.
America’s mass media were no less affected by these industrial and eco-
nomic trends throughout the 1920s. The growth of urban population centers,
60 Chapter Three
made possible by the expansion of mass transportation networks and the rise
of the automobile, provided new markets for durable consumer goods, which
were now available to more households through the provision of cheap credit
(Gordon, 2004: 296 – 309). The electrification of America’s cities, suburbs,
and rural towns also ushered in new forms of mechanical entertainment,
from the public forum of motion-picture cinemas to the domestic enjoyment
of the phonograph and radio in the home. Thus American popular culture
flourished “as it developed facile means of communicating” with this “great
body of consumers for entertainment” (Handlin, 1966: 364).
William Randolph Hearst’s sprawling media empire, in its own way, came
to resemble the “super corporations” (such as Standard Oil and General Mo-
tors) which exploited new advances in mass production, distribution, and
marketing to hold down their costs, expand their market share, and ultimately
“move toward controlling their sectors of the economy” (McCoy, 1973: 121).
Hearst’s graphic, sensational newspapers were, according to Oscar Handlin,
“firmly planted in every city, briskly fighting off local emulators” (1966: 344).
In fact, Moses Koenigsberg (1879 – 1945), the founding director of King Fea-
tures Syndicate, cheerfully recalled how he used the veiled threat of Hearst
setting up a rival newspaper in their hometown to persuade newspaper pro-
prietors to subscribe to the company’s syndicated features (1941: 343 – 44).
American media organizations would ultimately use the financial collat-
eral, mass-production methods, and technical expertise they accrued through
their domestic business activities to propel their entry into foreign markets.
The key to their international success, according to William Read, stemmed
from their recognition that the United States was “not so much a single na-
tional market as a complex of submarkets” (1976: 9). Newspaper and magazine
publishers, for example, built up their national circulations by selling adver-
tisers access to specific geographic and demographic markets. They devel-
oped localized editorial strategies that appealed to distinct audiences, which
were in turn supported by regional sales representation and production facil-
ities, along with flexible, nationwide distribution networks. The knowledge
and expertise gained through servicing multiple regional markets throughout
the United States could, according to Read, be successfully applied to inter-
national markets (1976: 10).
Hearst’s media organization would, over time, embark on a successful pro-
gram of overseas expansion, relying on a multipronged approach that included

the outright acquisition of foreign media assets, launching international edi-
tions of its American publications (tailored to regional tastes), and the global
syndication of content produced by its subsidiary companies, including Hearst
International News and King Features Syndicate. But the company’s earliest
forays into foreign markets were far from encouraging. Hearst purchased the
British Weekly Budget in 1910 and converted it into the first British Sunday
newspaper to be published in the American-styled format, with individually
titled sections and supplements. Unable to find a local printer capable of pro-
ducing four-color broadsheets required for the comics section, Hearst had
the comics supplement specially printed in the United States and shipped
directly to Britain (Gifford, 1984: 110). But according to Moses Koenigsberg,
the Weekly Budget was nothing more than an “amusing plaything” for Hearst,
who allowed it to rack up losses of $250,000 before ceasing publication alto-
gether (Koenigsberg, 1941: 352 – 53). This seemed in keeping with Hearst’s
oddly cavalier attitude towards his media assets; according to Piers Brendon,
“life for Hearst was simply a huge spectacular and newspapers were its pro-
gram” (1982: 133).
King Features Syndicate initially seemed slow to pursue international sales
for its growing portfolio of comic-strip features. The company did not form
an international sales division until 1928, at which time King Features’ comic
strips reportedly appeared in just eight overseas newspapers (Reading Eagle,
1974: 44). Leading this new division was John A. Brogan (1893 – 1974), who
had served as an assistant sales manager with the firm since 1923, and under
whose guidance the company’s international expansion would begin in ear-
nest. Domestic economic pressures may also have forced King Features to
broaden its horizons; not only was it facing growing competition from rival
syndicates, but the range of domestic media outlets for its products was shrink-
ing. The total number of daily newspapers published in the United States
began steadily to contract, from 2,600 titles in 1909 to 1,854 titles in 1947,
even as nationwide newspaper circulations continued to climb during this
same period (Yale Law Journal, 1952: 949). But expanding overseas required
King Features Syndicate to collaborate with international business partners
who could help it make American comic strips — such as The Phantom —
household names in foreign lands.
62 Chapter Three
Marketing Modernity:
Selling American Comic Strips Abroad
That news stories could be packaged as a profitable commodity was by no

means a novel concept when King Features Syndicate decided to venture
abroad. International news bureaus, such as Associated Press (est. 1846)
and Reuters (est. 1851), were already well known to newspaper publishers
worldwide, who relied on their services to secure international news stories
they could not otherwise obtain through their own resources. However, few
newspaper publishers outside the United States seemed to recognize that
trading in “non-news” features, such as crossword puzzles, horoscopes, or
comic strips, could form a profitable adjunct to their core publishing busi-
ness. This void was often filled by independent companies which, in part-
nership with American firms like King Features Syndicate, introduced the
features syndication business model to their domestic markets.
In Australia, that opportunity fell to David Yaffa (1893 – 1947), who created
the Yaffa Syndicate in 1921 as an Australian outlet for international news pho-
tographs, which he sold personally through his contacts in Sydney’s news-
paper industry before branching interstate. Yaffa secured local syndication
rights for several leading American magazines, including Time, Fortune, and
The New Yorker. In 1928 Yaffa launched Newspaper News, a trade journal for
Australia’s newspaper and magazine publishing industries (The Mail, 1947:
4). It was around this time that Yaffa Syndicate became the Australian repre-
sentative for King Features Syndicate.
David Yaffa had, by this time, cultivated strong personal ties with the
Australian publishing magnate Frank Packer (1906 – 1974) and his Sydney
Newspapers Ltd. (later Consolidated Press) group. Yaffa successfully placed
several of King Features’ comic strips, including Bringing Up Father and Tim
Tyler’s Luck, with Packer’s flagship Sydney newspaper, the Daily Telegraph,
in the mid-1930s.1 Yaffa Syndicate expanded its operations throughout Aus-
tralia and New Zealand, but not everyone was impressed by its owner’s busi-
ness acumen; the Australian Journalists’ Association openly mocked Yaffa in
the pages of its satirical newspaper, Syndicated Weakly (1936), arguing that
his company’s cheaply imported American comics were squeezing Australian
cartoonists out of the market (Ryan, 1979: 39). Yaffa’s close association with
Packer also drew fire from the Printing Industries Employees’ Union of Aus-
tralia, which threatened industrial action after learning that Packer (together
with Yaffa) was developing a 16-page color comic supplement to be printed
in the United States for inclusion in the new Sunday Telegraph newspaper,
due to be launched in November 1939. The threatened strike was narrowly
averted, and the comic-strip lift-out (titled Charlie Chuckles) was eventually
printed in Australia by Yaffa’s own company, Rotary Color Print (Griffen-
Foley, 1999: 81 – 86).
Bulls Press (Bulls Presstjänst AB) occupied a similarly pivotal role within
Sweden’s newspaper industry and throughout the Nordic region. The com-
pany was founded by a Norwegian shipowner, Cornelius Bull (1878 – 1931),
who visited the United States on a business trip in the late 1920s and was re-
portedly impressed by how American newspaper columnists and comic strips
appeared in so many newspapers sold throughout the country. After consult-
ing several newspaper publishers about the feature syndication business, Bull
approached both King Features Syndicate and the Ledger Syndicate and
offered to represent them in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland (Bulls
Press, 1994: 4 – 5).
Returning to Norway in 1929, he established Bulls Press as the first feature
syndicate offering editorial copy, comic strips, and prefabricated advertise-
ment layouts and illustrations to newspapers throughout Scandinavia, and he
opened the company’s first Stockholm office later that year. Following Bull’s
premature death from heart disease in 1931, Bjarne Steinsvik (1899 – 1968),
one of Bull’s closest associates, was appointed president of the company, a
position he held for nearly four decades (Bulls Press, 1994: 4 – 5). The com-
pany encouraged the Stockholm newspaper Aftonbladet (est. 1830) to develop
a daily, full-page comic-strip section modeled on the American newspaper
format. Launched on May 28, 1934, and featuring several of King Features’
series (including E. C. Segar’s Popeye and Russ Westover’s Tillie the Toiler),
the comic-strip section was the first of its kind to appear in Swedish news-
papers (Newsweek, 1934: 23; Bulls Press, 2004: n.p.; Gustafsson and Rydén,
2010: 205).
King Features Syndicates’ expansion into India took a different path. With
no domestic equivalent of the Yaffa Syndicate or Bulls Press evidently in
existence,2 King Features instead dealt directly with Bennett, Coleman &
Co., which owned The Times of India (est. 1861), the country’s largest-selling
English-language newspaper. King Features’ comic strips began appearing in
64 Chapter Three
the weekend edition Sunday Times of India, commencing with Felix the Cat
in 1948. At first, Bennett, Coleman & Co. seemed content to secure comic
strips from competing feature syndicates, as Felix the Cat shared space with
a comic-strip adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel Treasure Island
furnished by United International Features (U.S.), in the Sunday Times’ chil-
dren’s section. Ultimately, Bennett, Coleman did not seek to act as King Fea-
tures’ local agent or regional sales representative. Instead, Bennett, Coleman
opted to use its relationship with King Features to its own advantage, using
the company’s roster of comic-strip characters to expand and diversify its
postwar publishing activities.
King Features Syndicate no doubt benefited from its timely entry into the
Australian, Swedish, and Indian markets by staying ahead of its American
competitors and securing the support of international business partners, who
(with the exception of Bennett, Coleman & Co.) aggressively promoted the
company’s editorial products to local media outlets. But there were other, less
tangible factors which might explain why King Features Syndicate was able
to secure a dominant place within these three countries.
American comic strips, as they evolved throughout the 1920s and 1930s,
were at once both familiar and exotic to foreign audiences. In some re-
spects, they bore a superficial resemblance to the humorous cartoons that
had long been staple features of local magazines and newspapers since the
late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, such as The Bulletin (Austra-
lia, 1880 – 2008) and Allt för Alla (Everything for Everybody, Sweden, est.
1912). Yet most of the cartoons appearing in these magazines usually relied
on typeset captions or dialogue placed beneath a single illustration to con-
vey its comedic message. The celebrated Swedish comic strip 91:an (no. 91),
about an oafish army conscript, is a case in point. Created in 1932 by Rudolf
Peterson (1896 – 1970) for Allt för Alla, 91:an was originally drawn as a series
of pictures accompanied by rhyming captions, which gave it the appearance
of a children’s story book (Strömberg, 2010: 34). By contrast, American comic
strips integrated text and image within a series of illustrated panels, which
were used to tell brief, self-contained humorous episodes. So commonplace
has this technique become that it is perhaps difficult for present-day audi-
ences to appreciate the impact of this visual storytelling innovation. These
comic strips were, in their own way, as excitingly modern as other American
entertainments of their era, such as motion-picture “talkies” and jazz music.
American comic strips better captured the everyday social mores of urban
life as it was experienced by newspaper audiences living in metropolitan cen-
ters, in ways that local cartoonists (or their editors) were sometimes slow to
recognize or exploit. In Australia, for example, comical situations involving
stereotypical outback characters, such as itinerant workers (“swaggies”) and
aboriginal farmhands, formed the basis for many cartoons published in such
journals as Melbourne Punch (1855 – 1925) and Aussie (1920 – 32) well into
the 1920s (Lindesay, 1983: 11 – 17, 95 – 101).
Such rustic themes seemed increasingly parochial when compared with
imported American comic strips. A key example from this period was Bring-
ing Up Father (1913), created by George McManus (1884 – 1954), which starred
Maggie and Jiggs, two penniless immigrants who unexpectedly became mem-
bers of the nouveau riche class. McManus’s artwork embodied streamlined,
Art Deco elegance, which lent the series a sophisticated patina that belied
the characters’ vaudeville antics. While the violent and stormy relationship
between Maggie and Jiggs puzzled some readers — Danish audiences found
the idea of a wife abusing her husband baffling, but amusing (Newsweek, 1934:
23) — Bringing Up Father was, prior to World War II, King Features Syndi-
cate’s most widely read comic strip, appearing in over 600 newspapers world-
wide (Koenigsberg, 1941: 448).
The strip’s success was not lost on foreign cartoonists and publishers;
during the 1930s Saptahik Hindustan, a Hindi weekly based in Delhi, intro-
duced a comic strip that gave vent to “the problems that nag . . . middle-class
families in their day-to-day life” (Joshi, 1986: 213). The Swedish cartoonist
Rune Moberg (1912 – 1999) acknowledged that Bringing Up Father influenced
his creation of the comic-strip version of Lilla Fridolf (Little Fridolf ) in 1955,
starring the rotund, henpecked husband who had originally appeared as a
character in a radio play (Strömberg, 2010: 35). The popularity of Bringing
Up Father reflected the commercial and aesthetic inroads made by American
comic strips abroad throughout the 1930s. Its success allowed King Features
Syndicate to emphasize the universality of (American) humor as a key selling
point when promoting its comic strips to international clients.3
Newspapers themselves were becoming a more visual medium, as ad-
vances in printing technology allowed them to reproduce halftone photo-
graphs and illustrations with greater clarity, while new typeface designs and
simpler, clearer page layouts further transformed their overall appearance.
66 Chapter Three
Comic strips, therefore, became an integral part of the new emphasis on

graphically oriented newspaper packaging and design. Nor was this trend
confined solely to the “popular” press; in Australia, for example, K. S. In-
glis claims that as the twentieth century progressed, both broadsheets and
tabloids alike subscribed to the “law of increasing brightness,” whereby “the
headlines have grown higher . . . the display advertisements more seductive 
. . . [and] the photographs larger and more vivid” (1962: 152).
Syndicated American comic strips also promised financial benefits for in-
ternational newspaper clients. The growing emphasis on domestic comedy
scenarios in American strips, with a recurring cast of characters, was de-
signed to make reading “the funnies” a habit-forming experience for Ameri-
can newspaper buyers; foreign newspapers clearly hoped this ritual could be
encouraged locally. Indeed, overseas newspaper staff had long taken a keen
interest in American industry developments; Swedish journalists and editors
who visited the United States during the late nineteenth century brought
back with them news of the editorial innovations then being unfurled by
Pulitzer and Hearst in New York City (Gustafsson and Rydén, 2010: 135 – 36).
In Australia, David Yaffa’s trade journal, Newspaper News, kept the local
industry abreast of the latest trends in American newspaper publishing.
American comic strips were also cheap and in plentiful supply; by the early
1930s, feature syndicates could already draw upon dozens of series, which had
several years’ worth of backdated daily and Sunday newspaper episodes that
could be supplied to foreign clients at a fraction of their original production
cost. Sometimes overseas newspapers had little choice but to use syndicated
American content, especially in markets where local writers and illustrators
were as yet unschooled in the techniques and traditions of modern American
comic-strip storytelling. Conversely, overseas publishers would sometimes
emulate American comic strips in their efforts to produce equivalent domes-
tic series. In 1920, the Australian newspaper Smith’s Weekly acquired samples
of the American comic strip The Gumps to provide its staff cartoonist Stan
Cross (1888 – 1977) with the template for developing an equivalent Australian
domestic comedy strip, titled You & Me (Ryan, 1979: 18).
It was in this context that overseas intermediaries, such as the Yaffa Syn-
dicate and Bulls Press, played a crucial role in brokering the international
acceptance of American comic strips. They typically possessed greater local
knowledge of domestic media markets and could readily identify and cultivate
strategic industry contacts on behalf of their American business partners.

There were also practical advantages in using overseas representatives: they
could sell new features, collect licensing revenues, and arrange the distribu-
tion of syndicated content to local clients more cheaply and efficiently than
American syndicates could ever hope to from afar. Local syndicates were
also necessary to translate and otherwise modify American comic strips in
ways that made them more palatable to international audiences. In the case
of Bringing Up Father, Jiggs’s fondness for corned beef and steamed cabbage
was replaced by rice and fish for Chinese readers, and became boeuf miroton
for the benefit of French audiences (McManus and La Cossitt, 1952: 66).
Even English-language markets occasionally requested changes to American
idioms and expressions; in Australia, Flash Gordon was renamed Speed Gor-
don (Couperie and Horn, 1968: 137),4 while references to American dollars
and cents were replaced with the then-equivalent Australian currency units
of pounds, shillings, and pence (Holden, 1962: 159).
Daily newspapers were not the only print media outlets to embrace the
American comic strip. The “periodical press,” comprising weekly and monthly
magazines, was equally keen to exploit this new medium’s potential in attract-
ing readers and boosting circulation figures — which, as with newspapers,
were essential requirements for securing advertising revenue. But as will be-
come clear, women’s magazines — rather than newspapers — would become
largely responsible for introducing The Phantom to a generation of readers in
Australia, India, and Sweden.
Women’s Magazines — For All the Family
“Periodical magazines” first appeared in the eighteenth century and initially

catered to the “cultural interests of the gentry,” but their readership gradually
evolved into a “mass market of high commercial value and enormous breadth
of coverage by the early twentieth century” (McQuail, 2005: 31). Despite the
proliferation of specialized titles catering to niche markets, Denis McQuail
maintains that the “periodical magazine still belongs largely to the domes-
tic and personal sphere” (2005: 31) — an indirect reference to the women’s-
interest magazines which have long dominated this publishing category. Yet
neither the volume nor the popularity of women’s magazines, already evident
by the mid-twentieth century, could automatically ensure that they received
68 Chapter Three
serious consideration from media observers. Frank S. Greenop’s History of

Magazine Publishing in Australia (1947) is perhaps indicative of contempora-
neous attitudes towards women’s magazines, which he dismissed as “insig-
nificant . . . journals designed to cater for the never-jaded palates of fashion
and film-minded females” (1947: 256). Such chauvinistic disregard ignores
the fact that, prior to the arrival of television, many women’s magazines were,
in practice, consumed as general interest publications by entire households.
The initial placement of The Phantom comic strip in women’s magazines —
in Australia and Sweden, at least — owed something to the growing popular-
ity of Lee Falk’s first comic-strip serial, Mandrake the Magician (1934). The
success of the latter strip helped demonstrate that American-style adventure
serials could find an appreciative audience among magazine readers and es-
tablished Falk’s profile as a “brand name” author in overseas markets.
The Phantom made its antipodean debut in The Australian Woman’s Mirror
on September 1, 1936, its front cover inviting readers to “Meet The Phantom!”
on page 49. The weekly magazine commenced with the inaugural Phantom
adventure, “The Singh Brotherhood” (which had yet to reach its conclusion in
American newspapers), and compiled five daily newspaper installments into a
single, full-page “episode.” From the outset, the Woman’s Mirror marketed The
Phantom as an adult feature, billing it as an “exciting picture serial” (instead of
a “cartoon” or “comic strip”) and situating it away from the magazine’s chil-
dren’s supplement (Australian Woman’s Mirror, 1936: 49). The Woman’s Mirror
took deliberate steps to portray The Phantom as an Australian, rather than
American, comic strip. Aside from replacing American spellings and slang ex-
pressions with their “correct” Australian equivalents, the strip’s weekly text
synopsis referred to Diana Palmer as a “young Sydney girl,” while the opening
setting was changed from New York Harbor to somewhere “off Sydney Heads”
(Falk and Moore, 1938: 5, 9).
When the Woman’s Mirror purchased the local magazine rights to The
Phantom, it did so in response to the commercial threat posed by a rival mag-
azine. Launched in 1924 by the proprietor of The Bulletin, Henry Kenneth
Prior (1893 – 1967), the Woman’s Mirror was a modestly priced family maga-
zine that was pitched squarely at Australian housewives, who were awarded
prizes for contributing recipes and practical household tips to the magazine.
These were published alongside book reviews, short stories, and feature ar-
ticles emphasizing “the domestic sciences” (Lindesay, 1983: 103). Despite
its drab appearance, the Woman’s Mirror garnered a sizable following and,
within a year of its debut, boasted the highest circulation of any weekly peri-
odical in Australia (Rolfe, 1979: 290).
But its comfortable dominance of the women’s magazine market was seri-
ously challenged in June 1933, when Frank Packer launched The Australian
Women’s Weekly. Originally conceived by its founding editor George War-
necke (1894 – 1981) as a newspaper for women, the Women’s Weekly was an
innovative blend of topical news stories and “traditional” women’s features,
such as society pages, fashion supplements, and a gardening section. Selling
for just two pence (one penny less than its rivals, including the Woman’s
Mirror), the Women’s Weekly was an immediate success and sold over 121,000
copies of its debut issue — well ahead of the pre-launch estimates of 50,000
copies (Griffen-Foley, 1999: 25, 27 – 28).
But the Weekly’s success also invited competition from rival publishers;
even though the magazine’s circulation had already climbed to over 157,000
by 1934 (Rolfe, 1979: 300), both Packer and Warnecke were reportedly con-
cerned about Associated Newspapers’ plans to relaunch its ailing Woman’s
Budget as the upmarket Woman magazine in December of that year (Griffen-
Foley, 1999: 40). In anticipation, new editorial features were planned for the
Women’s Weekly, including its first comic strip, Lee Falk’s Mandrake the Ma-
gician. Warnecke, however, had grave reservations about this newest addition
to the magazine:
I felt at first that Mandrake wasn’t homely enough for our readers and
too American . . . But we were urgently in need of an adult strip and
Mandrake was the best then available. (Quoted in O’Brien, 1982: 55)
Reassured by David Yaffa that the series was gaining popularity in the United
States (where it had debuted in June 1934), Packer agreed to pay the Yaffa
Syndicate A£5.00 for each weekly installment of Mandrake the Magician,
which debuted in December 1934 and would become one of the magazine’s
most-read features for decades to come (O’Brien, 1982: 55). Thus, the combi-
nation of their artificially low unit cost, along with the perceived dearth of a
suitable local equivalent, gave imported American comic strips a competitive
advantage in Australia, as elsewhere.
The Australian Woman’s Mirror was therefore understandably keen to pur-
chase the magazine serial rights to Falk’s newest comic strip — The Phantom
70 Chapter Three
— from the Yaffa Syndicate, in the hopes of fending off its biggest rival. Nev-
ertheless, the success of Mandrake the Magician fed mounting public concerns
over the corrosive influence of American culture within Australian society.
The Cultural Defence Committee, founded by the Fellowship of Austra-
lian Writers, launched a blistering attack on the moral effects of imported
American comic strips. Its 1935 pamphlet, Mental Rubbish from Overseas,
condemned Mandrake the Magician in particular as an outrage not only to
“common sense and science, but also common morality and intellectual de-
cency” (Cultural Defence Committee, 1935: 5). Such comic strips were, ac-
cording to the committee, the product of a debauched society where belief in
witchcraft and demonology, brought to America by superstitious European
immigrants, “found new stimulus from contact with Aframerican negro [sic]
ideas of voodoo” (1935: 5). This chorus of disapproval, briefly silenced for the
duration of World War II, would eventually grow louder in Australia, Sweden,
and India in the postwar era.
The debut of The Phantom in Sweden’s Vecko-Revyn (Weekly Review)
magazine arose out of equally dramatic changes that were sweeping the pub-
lishing landscape. The Bonnier group (Bonnier AB), Sweden’s oldest and
largest media business, traced its origins back to Denmark in 1804, when
Gerhard Bonnier (born Gutkint Hirschel, 1788 – 1862) opened a bookshop, to
which he later added a lending library and publishing business in Copenha-
gen. It was under the direction of his son Albert Bonnier (1820 – 1900) that the
foundations for the company’s future growth were first laid (Larson, Lind-
gren, and Nyberg, 2008: 78). Moving to Stockholm in 1837, he established
his own publishing company, Albert Bonniers Förlag, which specialized in
subjects ignored by other publishers, such as child-rearing books and popular
ballad collections (Gedin, 1977: 75). Greater economic prosperity in Sweden
fostered the growth of a middle-class reading public during the mid-to late
nineteenth century, prompting Bonnier to launch Europeiska följetongen (Eu-
ropean Serial Novel), which published translated works by notable European
authors (Gedin, 1977: 75 – 76). The company also purchased an initial block
of shares in Dagens Nyheter (Today’s News, est. 1864), one of Sweden’s largest
daily newspapers, and eventually became its principal owner in the 1920s
(Larson, Lindgren, and Nyberg, 2008: 79).
Yet it was the explosive growth of the “popular weekly press” during the
1920s which posed both the greatest threat to, and opportunity for, the Bon-
nier group. Catering to general family readerships and niche audiences alike,
this new generation of popular magazines emphasized colorful illustrations
and eye-catching photographs. The largest and most successful of the “popu-
lar press” publishers was Åhlén & Åkerlund, whose titles included Husmodern
(The Housewife), Radiolyssnaren (The Radio Listener), and Film-Journalen (The
Film Journal). The company’s now-sole owner, Erik Åkerlund (1877 – 1940),
sold the firm to Bonnier in 1929, which maintained Åhlén & Åkerlund as a
subsidiary firm. With this acquisition, the Bonnier group “had taken a decisive
step towards becoming a modern-style media conglomerate” (Gustafsson and
Rydén, 2010: 195).
Nonetheless, the purchase of Åhlén & Åkerlund was greeted with some
trepidation within Bonnier family circles; not only did the purchase represent
a significant financial gamble for the company, but it also highlighted the
commercial threat that these new magazines posed to Bonnier’s traditional
publishing interests. Karl-Otto Bonnier (1856 – 1941), son of Albert Bonnier,
expressed the dilemma in these terms:
We felt though, more and more . . . how the huge sales of weekly mag-
azines encroached on the sales of books . . . we had the feeling that the
future belonged to the weekly press — insofar as the masses and their
reading was concerned — rather than to books. (Quoted in Gedin, 1977:
79)
Bonnier’s acquisition of Åhlén & Åkerlund was therefore both a defensive as
well as an opportunistic maneuver, which allowed the company to stave off
further losses to the popular weekly press by, in turn, becoming Sweden’s
dominant magazine publisher.
One of the first titles to be launched under Bonnier’s newly incorporated
magazine division was Vecko-Revyn in 1935. Conceived as a more youthful, vi-
brant counterpart to the literary Vecko-Journalen (Weekly Journal, est. 1914),
Vecko-Revyn was an avowedly “modern” women’s magazine which placed
great emphasis on glamorous photography and lively coverage of fashion and
entertainment news (Gustafsson and Rydén, 2010: 195, 206). While it was
never as explicit as the Woman’s Mirror in its attempts to promote The Phan-
tom as an “adult” serial, Vecko-Revyn nonetheless took deliberate steps to
72 Chapter Three
ensure that its newest feature would appeal to its female readership. The first
full-page installment of Fantomen (The Phantom) appeared in Vecko-Revyn
on May 26, 1940; printed in red and green duotones, it reprinted (albeit in
edited form) the first three daily episodes of the 1938 story line “Adventure in
Algiers” (Falk and Moore, 1989a [1938]: 89 – 98). It helpfully began with a four-
panel prelude, “The Story of The Phantom,” which explained the character’s
origins and ancestral legacy. The story then proceeded with Diana Palmer’s
excited response to the Phantom’s impending arrival, which provoked a stern
rebuke from her Aunt Lily, who forbade Diana from marrying this “myste-
rious person [who] is obviously a fortune hunter” (Falk and Moore, 1989b
[1938]: 89). With this first weekly episode, Vecko-Revyn was able to foreground
the romantic drama that lay at the heart of Fantomen, confident that it would
resonate with its readership.
The debut of Fantomen in 1940 coincided with the magazine’s surging
popularity throughout World War II; by 1945 Vecko-Revyn had an estimated
circulation of 216,000 readers, placing it comfortably ahead of older, estab-
lished “family” magazines such as Hemmets Veckotiding (The Home Weekly
Magazine) and Allas Veckotiding (Everyone’s Weekly Magazine), both pub-
lished by the rival firm Allhem (Sandlund, 2001: 364). Vecko-Revyn’s success
would continue unabated throughout the decade, with weekly sales surpass-
ing 400,000 copies by the early 1950s (Gustafsson and Rydén, 2010: 256).
Leaving aside the intrinsic appeal of the strip itself, it seems safe to suggest
that Fantomen achieved the level of public recognition that it did because of
its prominent placement in Sweden’s most popular women’s magazine.5
The Phantom came considerably later to India and took a somewhat dif-
ferent route to reach this vast new market. When the opening episode of The
Phantom story titled “The Rope People” (Falk and McCoy, 1998b [1951]:
128 – 49) first appeared in The Illustrated Weekly of India on February 24,
1952, both the magazine and its publisher had undergone significant changes
in the few short years since India had gained independence from Great Brit-
ain. For over a century, Bennett, Coleman & Co. was the British-owned pub-
lisher of The Times of India, the largest-selling English-language newspaper
in the country. It had grown out of The Bombay Times and Journal of Com-
merce, a twice-weekly publication launched by a consortium of British firms
and individual investors in 1838 (Barns, 1940: 228 – 29; Pande, 2011: n.p.).
The Bombay Times was subsequently amalgamated with two other English-
language newspapers in 1859 and was eventually relaunched as The Times of

India in September 1861 (Barns, 1940: 270; Natarajan, 1962: 83, 116).
When Thomas Bennett was appointed editor of The Times of India in 1892,
the company was restructured and renamed Bennett, Coleman & Co.6 and
undertook a program of modernization and expansion, including the con-
struction of new editorial offices and the installation of new printing presses
(Natarajan, 1962: 170). The newspaper’s illustrated weekly supplement —
first published in January 1880 — was redesigned and relaunched as The
Times of India Illustrated Weekly in 1901 (Barns, 1940: 307). By the 1920s, The
Illustrated Weekly of India (as it was now called) had become India’s “main
popular organ of non-political journalism,” which catered to the growing
(middle-class) public’s interest in science, technology, and commerce (Na-
tarajan, 1962: 190). This lucrative demographic proved particularly receptive
to Western-style media formats.
Bennett, Coleman & Co. remained in British hands until 1946, when it
was purchased by Ramkrishna Dalmia (1893 – 1978), a colorful and eccen-
tric Calcutta (Kolkata) stock market speculator and industrialist who used
to consult astrologers prior to making major investment decisions (Sahni,
1974: 195). Dalmia subsequently sold the firm to his son-in-law, Sahu Shanto
Prasad Jain, in 1948, whose family still retains control of The Times of India
Group, as it is now known (Pande, 2011: n.p.). By 1947, when India gained
independence from Great Britain, the Illustrated Weekly had become the na-
tion’s most popular magazine, with weekly sales of 50,000 copies outstripping
those of its nearest rival, the Orient Illustrated Weekly, which had estimated
sales of 30,000 copies (Taussig, 1947: 31). By now, the magazine was increas-
ingly modeled after Western photojournalism magazines such as Life (U.S.)
and Picture Post (U.K.), and it billed itself as “Asia’s Finest Picture Maga-
zine.” Western-style comics and cartoons were steadily becoming a regular
(if not integral) feature of India’s English-language “periodical press” (Mal-
han, 1980: 19). This was certainly true of the Illustrated Weekly, which now
devoted a single, full-color page to American comic strips. The Illustrated
Weekly, however, clearly regarded The Phantom (and comic strips generally)
as essentially children’s fare and promoted its comic-strip page in tandem
with its children’s supplement, “The Young Folk’s League.” This was in con-
trast to Sweden and Australia, where Vecko-Revyn and The Australian Wom-
an’s Mirror both promoted The Phantom as an “adult” comic-strip serial.
74 Chapter Three
The Phantom: Romantic Hero for the Middle Class
Of course, knowing how and when The Phantom comic strip came to be
published in these foreign magazines is one thing; understanding why these
publications chose The Phantom is an altogether more speculative matter. Yet
it is one worth exploring further, if only to understand how the Phantom’s
lengthy affiliation with these magazines helped secure readers’ lifelong devo-
tion to “The Ghost Who Walks” throughout Australia, Sweden, and India.
In aesthetic terms, comic strips complemented the visual appeal of such
magazines as Vecko-Revyn and the Illustrated Weekly, which made eye-
catching photography and colorful illustrations a cornerstone of their editorial
appeal. Conversely, the addition of The Phantom introduced a much-needed,
dynamic visual component to the somewhat drab Woman’s Mirror, which
now faced serious competition from the colorful and stylish Women’s Weekly.
Adventure-serial comic strips also became increasingly sophisticated graphic
narratives throughout the 1930s and 1940s and mirrored the visual excitement
common to many Hollywood movies of that era, which were also extensively
documented in these magazines.
Mention should also be made of the Phantom’s role as a romantic hero.
Many of Lee Falk’s earliest story lines (ca. 1936 – 40) dwelt on the “cliff-
hanger” love affair between the Phantom and Diana Palmer. A mysterious,
masked lover, the Phantom would frequently appear out of the shadows and
seize Diana in a passionate embrace before departing once again on a perilous
mission. They were frequently separated (or threatened) by nefarious villains,
or (just as effectively) by Diana’s interfering Aunt Lily, who plotted to find
a wealthy bachelor for her niece, usually with disastrous results. Competing
with the Phantom for Diana’s affections were two dashing army officers, Cap-
tain Melville Horton and Lieutenant Byron. The tempestuous relationship
between the Phantom, Diana, and her uniformed suitors made The Phantom
a perfect companion piece to the romantic fiction serials that were already
popular staples in such magazines as the Woman’s Mirror.
These factors go some way towards explaining why The Phantom was
deemed appropriate for women’s magazines and their readers; but how did its
inclusion in such publications ultimately aid the commercial success of The
Phantom? To begin with, these magazines, unlike newspapers, were distrib-
uted nationally and could reach audiences well beyond metropolitan centers,
thus ensuring that The Phantom circulated among a genuinely national read-
ership. Even though these magazines were ostensibly meant for women, they
were frequently read by most members of the “typical” family household. By
the late 1950s, market research had confirmed that The Australian Women’s
Weekly was read by one husband in three (Davies and Encel, 1965: 224), while
anecdotal accounts from retailers disclosed that husbands and sons fought
over the latest issue of the Women’s Weekly just to read Mandrake the Magi-
cian (Harvey, 1945: 570). There is little reason to suggest that similar scenes
did not occur in households that received the Woman’s Mirror instead. Eileen
Gomm recalled how, as a child, she used to “read my mother’s copy of the
Woman’s Mirror and anxiously check-up on The Phantom’s adventures” well
before the character appeared in his own comic magazine (1997: 97). Anders
Yngve Pers’s 1966 study of the Swedish press claimed that 25 – 30 percent of
most Swedish women’s magazine readers were male (1966: 16, 18).7 So even
though The Phantom may have been initially promoted as “adult” entertain-
ment, principally intended for a female readership, it scored an avid following
among adult male household members and young children, too.
The Illustrated Weekly of India, however, was never intended to be exclu-
sively for women; its publisher, Bennett, Coleman & Co., chose to reach that
market through the movie magazine Filmfare (1953) and Femina (1959), an
upmarket women’s magazine comparable to Vecko-Revyn (Natarajan, 1997:
256 – 57). A brief survey of the issue cover-dated February 24, 1952 (in which
The Phantom first appeared) indicates that the Illustrated Weekly aimed for a
broader, more inclusive readership. Joining such regular features as the cross-
word puzzle, book reviews, and astrology forecasts was a special report on the
death of King George VI, the serialized life story of Lady Mountbatten, and
photographic essays about Rhodesian tobacco farms and the temples of Ang-
kor Wat. The magazine’s advertisements, for such varied products as home-
tuition courses, men’s business shirts, chocolate biscuits, and hair-removal
products, indicate that it was intended largely for a prosperous (English-
speaking) middle-class, family readership. Comic strips like The Phantom,
therefore, were ostensibly included for the benefit of children, rather than
adults — but it would not be unreasonable to suggest that at least some adults
also read The Phantom, if only as a guilty pleasure to be savored when no
other family members were present.
The Phantom became an integral part of all three magazines for decades
76 Chapter Three
thereafter even as they changed their demographic focus or altered their

format. The Phantom’s continued exposure in these magazines would yield
promotional dividends for the character’s eventual transition to comic books
after World War II, but it also ensured his popular status in other, more subtle
ways. The Phantom’s inclusion in these conservative mass-market magazines
meant he received an unspoken endorsement as a “wholesome” character
who appealed to the entire family in ways that other American superheroes
(largely confined to “disreputable” comic books) could rarely hope to match.
The international syndication of The Phantom comic strip does, at first
glance, seem to conform with the “largely one-directional flow of informa-
tion from core to periphery” which was central to the enduring conception
of American cultural imperialism (Schiller, 1976: 6). Yet as we have seen, the
international acceptance of American comic strips was far from assured, and
was fraught with commercial risk and uncertainty. Foreign intermediaries
were needed to tailor American comics for domestic tastes and to identify
media outlets unique to their respective markets, which were prepared to
gamble on their success. This unpredictable, and sometimes chaotic, process
meant that few — if any — of the companies which invested in The Phantom
comic strip could have anticipated its eventual success. Nor could they have
foreseen how the Phantom would spur the development of domestic comic-
book industries in Australia, Sweden, and India in ways that allowed these
countries to become both “centers” and “peripheries” in the global circula-
tion of American comics culture.
ff
Chapter Four
The “Yank Comics” Invasion
C
arroll Rheinstrom’s job was to sell superheroes to the world. As the
head of MacFadden Publications International, Rheinstrom acted as
the overseas distributor for National Periodical Publications, whose
roster of comic-book characters included Superman, Batman, and
Wonder Woman. Yet not even their incredible powers could overcome foreign
publishers’ early indifference to American superheroes. After making his first
trip to Sweden in the late 1940s, Rheinstrom recalled:
I was turned down by every publisher I visited. When I returned to my
hotel, my Swedish interpreter, a clerk from the American embassy, told
me, “Mr. Rheinstrom, I’m only a clerk. I think these publishers are all
crazy. These magazines would be terrific money-makers. Don’t laugh
at me, but someday I will be your publisher in Sweden.” And one year
later, he was. (Quoted in Marx, ed., 1985: 19)
Unbeknownst to Rheinstrom, the self-effacing embassy clerk, T. Armas Morby
(1909 – 1980), had established his own public relations company in 1938 and
had made invaluable American contacts in his capacity as press and publicity
liaison for Allied armed forces’ newspapers during World War II (Berglund,
n.d.; Gustafsson and Rydén, 2010: 262). After the war Morby formed a new
publishing company, Press & Publicity AB, to launch his first comic book,
Seriemagasinet (The Comic Strip Magazine), in January 1948. Capitalizing on
its early success, Morby launched Swedish editions of Superman (Stålmannen,
1949) and Batman (Läderlappen, 1951), their popularity cementing Press &
Publicity’s position as Sweden’s largest comic-book publisher by the mid-1950s
(Bejerot, 1954: 82; Gustafsson and Rydén, 2010: 262).
77
78 Chapter Four
However apocryphal it may sound, this story nonetheless demonstrates the

cultural barriers and the commercial opportunities that confronted American
newspaper feature syndicates and comic-magazine publishers as they sought
entry into new foreign markets. For these American media companies were
not so much selling a physical commodity, but the very idea of the comic book
itself to countries that had little or no direct experience of this new form of
illustrated periodical.
The explosive growth, and attendant popularity, of American comic mag-
azines in Australia, Sweden, and India suggests a narrative of untrammeled
commercial success. But as we will see, a combination of economic, regula-
tory, and cultural factors meant that American-style comic books had to be
modified in order to meet the unique conditions of these three countries both
prior to and during World War II. While this new generation of American
comic books was wildly acclaimed by their intended audience, they were
roundly condemned by parents and educators, prompting foreign govern-
ments to adopt extraordinary measures designed to curb the publication and
sale of “objectionable” comics to children. Contemporary critics were quick
to label comic books as a uniquely American phenomenon, one that was alien
to the values and aspirations of other nations. Ironically, the popularity of
American comics generally, and The Phantom in particular, galvanized do-
mestic comic-book production in Australia, Sweden, and India and provided
new creative opportunities and commercial outlets for local publishers, writ-
ers, and illustrators throughout the postwar era.
Exporting American Comics, 1938 – 1945
The international circulation of American comic strips during the 1920s and
1930s was made possible through alliances struck between American feature
syndicates and their licensed overseas representatives, who in turn sold comic
strips to local newspapers and periodicals. American comic books, however,
reached foreign shores during the mid-to late 1930s on an infrequent, even
ad hoc basis through less formal distribution channels. In some instances,
American and international press syndicates collaborated in repackaging
American comic strips as periodicals for resale in foreign markets. Although
these periodicals tried to convey the appearance of imported American comic
books, they nonetheless conformed to local publishing industry conditions
and practices that were often quite different from those prevalent in the
United States.
Australia’s initial exposure to American comic books demonstrates how
this new medium fanned outward from America to English-speaking coun-
tries prior to World War II. By the mid-1930s, Australia had already become a
lucrative market for unsold American magazines that were “dumped” on the
local market (Coleman, 1963: 146). Towards the end of the decade, these back-
dated magazines were being joined by ever-growing quantities of imported
American comic books, which were distributed via railway station bookstalls
and newsagents, or through selected discount retail chains, which sold three
comic books for one shilling (Ryan, 1979: 150, 154).
These were by no means the first, nor the only, example of children’s pe-
riodicals available to Australian readers. Pals (ca. 1920 – 25), a children’s mag-
azine published by Melbourne’s Herald & Weekly Times newspaper group,
featured a mixture of illustrated fiction serials and occasional cartoons that
was clearly modeled on imported British “children’s papers,” such as Gem
and Magnet (Lindesay, 1983: 119, 123). Throughout the 1930s, successive Aus-
tralian children’s magazines, such as The Kookaburra (ca. 1931 – 32), Fatty
Finn’s Weekly (1934), and The Comet (ca. 1936 – 37), made greater use of comic-
strip serials, but they were not yet “comic books” as we recognize them today
(Gordon, 1998b: 6 – 9).
Having introduced the American adventure-serial comic strip to local
audiences, Australian women’s magazines would now become pioneering
comic-book publishers. Fitchett Brothers (Melbourne) added the American
science fiction comic Buck Rogers in the 25th Century to its popular women’s
magazine, The New Idea, in April 1936 — just months before the Phantom’s
debut in the Woman’s Mirror. Shortly thereafter, Fitchett Brothers released
the first issue of The Adventures of Buck Rogers in November, making it the
first locally published example of an American-style comic magazine. It was
the first successful comic book of its kind in Australia, and remained in print
until 1953.
Spurred on by his rival’s success in this new market, Henry Kenneth Prior
unveiled The Phantom magazine in May 1938, the front cover announcing
its presentation of the “thrilling picture story reprinted from The Austra-
lian Woman’s Mirror.” Sensing that The Phantom would, like the Woman’s
Mirror, prove popular with the whole family, the magazine featured con-
80 Chapter Four
tent intended for both children and adults. The fourth issue included pro-
motions for the Woman’s Mirror’s “Piccaninnies” children’s page, together
with advertisements for McKenzie’s porridge, Heenzo cough medicine, and
the Woman’s Mirror Cookery Book (young readers were urged to “show this
page to mum!”). The magazine’s somber covers and black-and-white interiors
reflected the austere production values common to most Australian comic
books of the period.
Because it did not share a common language with the United States, Swe-
den never experienced the physical influx of imported American comic books
seen in Australia during the late 1930s. Nonetheless, translated versions of
American comic strips figured prominently in many of the earliest Swedish
comic books released prior to World War II. They were initially modeled on
the popular Christmas album (julalbum) that had been a staple children’s gift
since the late nineteenth century. Today, the oldest surviving julalbum is Jul-
stämning, first published by Åhlén & Åkerlund in 1906 and now published by
Jultidnings Förlaget, a division of Bokförlaget Semic (Strömberg, 2010: 25).
Featuring illustrated stories, cartoons, and puzzles, these Christmas albums
were sold door-to-door by schoolchildren, who received a commission (in the
form of money or gifts) from publishers and distributors based on the number
of orders they obtained, and this remains a traditional Christmas practice in
Sweden to this day.
Åhlén & Åkerlund began publishing Christmas albums featuring Swed-
ish comic-strip characters, commencing with Adamson (1921), created by
Oscar Jacobson (1885 – 1945) for the humor magazine Söndags-Nisse (Ström-
berg, 2010: 19). Following the company’s acquisition by the Bonnier group
in 1929, Åhlén & Åkerlund introduced Christmas albums featuring Amer-
ican comic-strip characters, including Popeye (Karl-Alfred, 1936) and Walt
Disney’s Donald Duck (Kalle Ankas Julbok, 1941). However, the company’s
attempts to popularize American-style comic magazines in Sweden were not
immediately successful. Launched in 1937, Musse Pigg Tidningen (Mickey
Mouse Weekly) was modeled on the Disney-licensed British magazine of the
same name (Gifford, 1984: 52 – 53). Despite public awareness of both Mickey
Mouse and the Disney “brand,” the magazine, containing a selection of Brit-
ish and Swedish-drawn comic strips, ceased publication in 1938 (Bejerot,
1954: 80; Pilcher and Brooks, 2005: 244).
Bulls Press played a key role in furnishing American comic strips for these
Christmas albums, and it continued to provide Åhlén & Åkerlund with new
adventure-serials from King Features Syndicate for subsequent titles, in-
cluding Flash Gordon (Blixt Gordon, 1941), Prince Valiant (Prins Valiant,
1942), and Lee Falk’s Mandrake the Magician (Mandrake, 1945). Yet none
of these would ever match the enduring popularity of The Phantom album
(Fantomen, 1944), which continues to be published every year by Jultidnings
Förlaget. The first Fantomen album contained an edited version of Lee Falk’s
Phantom adventure “The Golden Circle” (Falk and Moore, 1989c [1939 – 40]:
6 – 46), which had been previously serialized in Vecko-Revyn during 1940 – 41.
Åhlén & Åkerlund used the Christmas album to cross-promote the Fan-
tomen comic strip; the 1946 edition urged readers to follow the “excitement-
charged adventures” of Fantomen, who appears “like a flash every week in
Vecko-Revyn.”
The use of American comic strips in these early Australian and Swedish
comic magazines would have continued unabated were it not for the eco-
nomic disruptions caused by World War II. Yet the war did not entirely arrest
the international circulation of American comic strips; that they continued
to appear in overseas publications is perhaps testament to the international
popularity of American comic-strip characters, as well as the determination
of American feature syndicates and their international partners to pursue
their business interests as best they could, regardless of wartime constraints.
The economic consequences of war were already being felt by King Fea-
tures Syndicate through its exposure to foreign markets, long before the Jap-
anese attack on Pearl Harbor. Shortly after Australia joined Great Britain
in declaring war against Germany in September 1939, the Commonwealth
government introduced import licensing restrictions that prohibited the im-
portation of “unnecessary goods” (such as printed matter) from non-sterling
currency markets — chiefly the United States and Canada (Butlin, 1955:
115 – 22; Johnson-Woods, 2006: 114). These restrictions, designed to con-
serve local sterling currency reserves needed for Australia’s war effort, led
to bans on both imported American comic magazines (The Argus, 1940: 11)
and syndicated comic-strip artwork intended for publication within Australia
(Courier-Mail, 1940: 2). These measures were soon followed by the Com-
monwealth government’s decision in 1940 to ration newsprint supplies and
ban the production of any new, ongoing periodicals or newspapers (Butlin,
1955: 458 – 59).
82 Chapter Four
These restrictions jeopardized the supply of content from King Features

Syndicate to its Australasian representative, David Yaffa, but such wartime
controls were not always rigorously enforced, nor were their effects as onerous
as anticipated. For example, in February 1940 the Woman’s Mirror advised
readers that stocks of the fourth edition of The Phantom magazine would be
limited “owing to paper restrictions.” The fifth and final issue of The Phan-
tom comic, released in September 1940, urged readers to continue following
the character in the Woman’s Mirror. The Phantom magazine was presumably
canceled so that Henry Kenneth Prior could preserve his newsprint alloca-
tion for producing the Woman’s Mirror and The Bulletin instead.
Despite the embargo on syndicated American comic strips, The Phantom
continued to appear in the Woman’s Mirror for the duration of the war. Nor
was this an isolated case; according to the Australian Journalists’ Association
(AJA), not only did many prewar American comic strips continue to appear in
local newspapers from 1940 to 1945, but several newspapers managed to ob-
tain new American features for their comic-strip sections, in blatant defiance
of wartime restrictions. The AJA also pointed out that several Australian pub-
lishers continued to release new “comic strip magazines” featuring material
“imported from America” (ca. 1945: 17 – 19).1 That many of the comic strips
cited by the AJA — such as Prince Valiant, Flash Gordon, and Mandrake the
Magician — were owned by King Features Syndicate speaks volumes about
David Yaffa’s determination to ensure the uninterrupted supply of syndicated
American press features to his Australasian clients. But enforcing these bans
remained difficult, if not impossible; when imported proof-sheets were no
longer obtainable, Australian syndicates and publishers simply hired local
artists to redraw American comic strips by copying or tracing them directly
from U.S. newspaper comic-strip sections (Ryan, 1979: 46).
The Phantom became embroiled in a propaganda war which highlighted
the difficult conditions that threatened King Features’ commercial interests
in the Scandinavian market. Bulls Press had sold The Phantom to Norway’s
Aftenposten (Evening Post) newspaper, where it appeared as Fantomet on No-
vember 25, 1939, just a few months prior to the German invasion in April
1940. Following the United States’ entry into the war, Norway’s commis-
sary government (dominated by the fascist Nasjonal Samling Party) banned
the use of American comic strips in Norwegian newspapers in 1942. Bulls
Press’s Norwegian representative, Einar Wyller, smuggled copies of the latest
Fantomen episodes from Sweden into Norway via boat. The artwork was
modified to remove all traces of its American origins prior to being delivered
to Aftenposten where, in defiance of the newspaper’s commissariat-appointed
managers, Fantomet continued to appear for the duration of the war (Steen,
2011: 337).
However, Bulls Press’s decision to circumvent the Norwegian ban on im-
ported American comic strips was driven by economic, rather than political,
considerations. Fearful that the war would disrupt access to its Scandinavian
markets, Bulls Press used clandestine courier networks to smuggle material
to newspapers in occupied territories (Bulls Press, 1994: 9 – 10). Bulls Press’s
commitment to its international clients was fueled by deteriorating economic
conditions in Sweden. Although Sweden remained neutral during the war, it
was not entirely shielded from the political and economic upheavals that arose
as the conflict flared across Europe. Germany’s naval blockade of the North
Sea severed Sweden’s vital maritime trade link, leading to sharp reductions
of imported goods, which forced the Swedish government to impose wide-
spread rationing in 1942 (Kent, 2008: 234). The war brought mixed blessings
to Sweden’s newspaper industry; public demand for the latest war news led
to increased circulations, but the rising cost of newsprint and printer’s ink
forced many newspapers to print fewer pages per issue. Many newspapers
were thus forced to scrap their weekend supplements and comic-strip sec-
tions (Gustafsson and Rydén, 2010: 220), which were key outlets for Bulls
Press’s syndicated material.2
India’s wartime experience highlights the informal and irregular channels
whereby American comic books circulated throughout the world during the
1940s. India, still under British colonial rule, became a vital source of ma-
terial supplies and military personnel for Britain’s war effort. Following the
United States’ declaration of war against Japan, India became a strategic op-
erational base for the Allies’ South East Asia Command, from where British
and American forces launched operations against the Japanese in neighboring
Burma (Spear, 1970: 215 – 16). American soldiers brought with them not only
weapons and machines, but comic books as well. Aabid Surti (b. 1935), cre-
ator of the famed Indian comic-book hero Bahadur, recalled how he received
his first-ever comic book (featuring Mickey Mouse) from soldiers traveling
through Bombay (Mumbai), who threw copies from the train to children
begging for money and food (Sharma, 2011).
84 Chapter Four
There was little evidence of locally published children’s periodicals, of

any description, in the decade following India’s independence from Great
Britain in 1947. Aside from the children’s supplements appearing in English-
language newspapers (such as The Times of India), the earliest — and possibly
only — example from this period was Chandamama, an illustrated “children’s
paper” edited by the film producer B. Nagi Reddy, and initially published in
Telugu and Tamil editions in July 1947 (McLain, 2009a: 158). The bulk of the
comic books available to Indian readers following the war would be imported
from Great Britain and the United States by local publishers, many of whom
had commercial interests in wholesale book distribution and retail bookstalls
(Altbach, 1975: 40).
Australia, Sweden, and India would soon become valuable markets for
America’s comic-book industry, which was now facing some unique challenges
arising from its explosive wartime growth. By 1945, approximately 70,000,000
Americans read comic books. While children comprised their largest audi-
ence, the Market Research Company of America estimated that 41 percent
of men and 28 percent of women between 18 and 30 years of age read comic
books as well (Wright, 2001: 57). However, readers abandoned former war-
time favorites like Captain Marvel Adventures, which once posted sales of
1,000,000 copies per issue in 1943, but saw its sales plummet by 50 percent
by 1949 (Goulart, 1986: 17; Wright, 2001: 57). This economic downturn was
exacerbated by the demobilization of American soldiers, whose comic-book
purchases at military postal exchanges (PXs) had previously exceeded sales of
mainstream magazines to service personnel by ten to one (Newspaper News,
1946b; Wright, 2001: 57).
American publishers were thus compelled to look abroad in search of un-
tapped foreign markets. Yet attempts to resume the prewar practice of dump-
ing backdated American magazines in English-speaking countries were met
with resistance. The Publishers’ Export Company, which bought unsold
American magazines for international resale, conceded that continuing im-
port licensing restrictions in Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa (which
accounted for 25 percent of their sales) greatly hindered its business (News-
paper News, 1946a: 1). The changed postwar environment therefore required
American comic-book publishers to develop new strategies, and form new
international partnerships, that would allow them to circumvent foreign em-
bargoes on imported American magazines.
American Comics in Australia:

The “Peacetime Invasion”
Giving evidence to the Tariff Board inquiry into Australia’s publishing indus-
try in November 1945, the Australian magazine publisher Kenneth Murray
acknowledged domestic concerns about the cultural impact of cheaply im-
ported American periodicals. “The Australian mass mind,” he argued, “has
unconsciously become conditioned to a foreign sentiment, as the continual
reading of the American viewpoint . . . [induces] contempt for Australian
things” (Ideas, 1946: 82). To overcome this problem, Murray suggested that
the Commonwealth government should adopt policies that maintain the
“strict and permanent prohibition of ‘dumping’ [backdated] magazines in
Australia,” as well as encourage “the republication of overseas magazines in
Australia” (Ideas, 1946: 81, 83). This would not only create economic opportu-
nities for local publishers and printers, argued Murray, but would foster “the
Australianizing of the publication . . . and the inclusion of purely Australian
material” (Ideas, 1946: 83). Murray’s anxiety about the influence of American
culture was disingenuous at best. In 1946 Murray commissioned local writ-
ers and illustrators to contribute to the acclaimed Climax Color Comic series
(1947 – 48), the first Australian-drawn comic magazine to be printed entirely
in color (Ryan, 1979: 188, 190). High production costs, however, forced Mur-
ray to abandon the project in favor of using cheaper American content. And
it was Carroll Rheinstrom’s company, MacFadden Publications International,
which furnished Murray with his runaway hit, Superman All Color Comic
(1947), which boasted sales of 150,000 copies per issue.
The unprecedented success of Superman All Color Comic in many ways set
the parameters for the postwar “boom” in Australian comic-book production.
Eager to satisfy pent-up consumer demand for escapist reading, Australian
publishers scrambled to secure licensing deals with the major American com-
ics publishers and their international representatives. American publishers
overcame the existing ban on imported periodicals by supplying print-ready
artwork (sent through the mail to avoid detection by the Department of Trade
and Customs) to Australian firms, who assembled, printed, and distributed
the comics locally (Patrick, 2012a: 167). By 1949, there were already ninety
individual comic-book titles being published in Australia (Current Affairs
Bulletin, 1949: 71). Even though the attrition rates among competing titles
86 Chapter Four
remained high — 40 percent of titles available in 1949 had disappeared by

1952 (Connell, Francis, and Skilbeck, 1957: 155) — their numbers continued
to swell, reaching 150 titles by 1952 (Ideas, 1952: 237).
Ron Forsyth (1907 – 1991) was well-placed to understand how popular —
and profitable — comic books had become in Australia. Prior to the war, For-
syth had joined Frank Packer’s Consolidated Press, where he became adver-
tising manager of the Sunday Telegraph. After serving with the Australian
Army during the war, Forsyth opened a bookstore and commercial lending
library in Sydney, where he had ample opportunity to witness the booming
comic-book trade firsthand. Forsyth’s wife, Sylvia (née Eisen), encouraged
him to meet with her friend, David Yaffa, to discuss business opportunities
in the comics field. Yaffa informed Forsyth that the only remaining comic
strip for which he could offer comic-book publishing rights was The Phantom.
However, Yaffa stipulated that Forsyth could not reprint any episodes which
had been recently published in The Australian Woman’s Mirror.3 Undeterred,
Forsyth persuaded his brother-in-law, Jack Eisen, along with fellow veter-
ans Lawford “Jim” Richardson (1908 – 1987) and John Watson, to each invest
A£500 to form Frew Publications and purchase the rights to The Phantom.4
The confluence of personal connections, access to capital, and fortuitous tim-
ing allowed Frew Publications to thrive in the aggressive business climate of
postwar Sydney.
Forsyth assembled the first issue of The Phantom at his bookstore prem-
ises, which reprinted the 1939 story “The Slave Traders” (Falk and Moore,
1989b [1939]) and went on sale in September 1948. The debut issue reportedly
sold out its print run of 50,000 copies, and sales of subsequent issues would
climb to 90,000 copies per issue by 1950 (Shedden, 2001; Snowden, 1973:
6). These figures placed The Phantom among Australia’s top-selling comics,
including the local edition of Walt Disney Comics (120,000 copies) (Ideas,
1948: 190) and the Australian-drawn superhero series Captain Atom (100,000
copies) (Ryan, 1979: 190).
The small Australian market made full-color printing prohibitive for all
but the largest magazine publishers, and accounted for Frew Publications’
thrifty production standards on The Phantom, which was printed in black
and white and used paper covers instead of the slick, glossy covers common
to most Australian comic books of the time. Yet the comic’s rough quality
seemed to enhance the Phantom’s appeal among Australian children, who
placed him alongside their favorite heroes from the Saturday movie matinees.
As one reader recalled:
The pictures were simple [and] easy to follow, and left room for the
imagination. (I think this is an important contributing factor to The
Phantom’s long term success). And they were great to color in! The sto-
ries were generally interesting and very easy to read . . . As a young boy
in the fifties and early sixties, jungle and western adventures in comics
and the cinema were top of my — and other boys’ — lists. The Phan-
tom fitted into that perfectly, second only to Tarzan! (Male respondent,
50 – 65 years old, New Zealand, June 19, 2012)
Frew Publications wasted few opportunities to exploit Lee Falk’s Australian
profile for its commercial advantage. From the outset, The Phantom magazine
carried the front-cover blurb “By LEE FALK, author of MANDRAKE,”
to reinforce the author’s connection with Mandrake the Magician, which was
then appearing in The Australian Women’s Weekly. The company’s next major
success was The Phantom Ranger, an Australian-drawn cowboy comic created
by Jeff Wilkinson (1924 – 2007), modeled on The Lone Ranger (Ryan, 1979: 196;
Patrick, 2006). The Phantom Ranger sold 100,000 copies per issue in Australia,
generated a successful range of licensed clothing and accessories, and was pro-
duced as a radio serial in 1952 (Jones, 1951: 3; Ryan, 1979: 196; Patrick, 2012a:
168). Frew subsequently chose the Phantom to costar in their new title, Super
Yank Comics (ca. 1951), to bolster readers’ interest in Catman, an American
superhero which Frew contracted to be redrawn under license by the Austra-
lian cartoonist Lloyd Piper (1922 – 1983). The success of The Phantom provided
Frew Publications with the financial means required to expand its publishing
activities, and therefore played an indirect, but no less indelible, role in foster-
ing the development of locally drawn comics in postwar Australia.
Of Danish Ducks and Swedish Supermen
The Swedish debut of Fantomen (The Phantom) in 1950 coincided with the
explosive growth of the local comic-book industry, which initially saw Amer-
ican content dominate the output of most Swedish publishers throughout the
late 1940s and early 1950s. However, Sweden’s unique publishing environ-
ment, together with the country’s exposure to European publishing trends,
88 Chapter Four
shaped both Fantomen and the Swedish comics industry in ways that set it
apart from the Australian market.
One of Sweden’s first comic-book publishers had Danish roots and would
eventually dominate Sweden’s comic-book industry. Gutenberghus, the pub-
lishing company founded by the Danish printer Egmont Petersen (1869 – 1914),
grew rapidly in Scandinavia’s flourishing weekly magazine market through-
out the 1920s and 1930s. In 1948 Gutenberghus obtained the Scandinavian
publishing rights to Walt Disney’s Donald Duck comic book. Due to paper
shortages in Denmark, the company’s Swedish subsidiary, Hemmets Journal
Förlag, published the first edition of Donald Duck (renamed Kalle Anka &
C:o) in September 1948, whereupon it sold 100,000 copies, making it the
most successful comic yet published in Sweden (Engblom, 2002: 61; Dorph-
Petersen and Kaster, 2003: 62 – 63).
Donald Duck’s first serious rival, however, was Superman, who led the
American superhero “invasion” of Sweden. Rechristened Stälmannen (Man
of Steel) for its Swedish debut in September 1949, the magazine’s sales nearly
matched those of Kalle Anke & C:o (Engblom, 2002: 61). The publisher
T. Armas Morby used his comic-book venture to further the expansion of his
company, Press & Publicity, in the same way that the success of The Phantom
allowed Ron Forsyth to turn Frew Publications into one of Australia’s largest
magazine publishers in the 1950s. Press & Publicity subsequently switched its
focus to “cowboy” comics, including Vilda Västern (1952), Prärieserier, and
Texas (both 1953). The artwork for many of these titles was supplied by Brit-
ish, Franco-Belgian, and Italian publishers, for whom cowboy comics were
as popular as they were in the United States, if not more so (Gifford, 1984:
96 – 97). By the mid-1950s, Morby’s new Centerförlaget imprint controlled 30
percent of Sweden’s comic-book market (Gustafsson and Rydén, 2010: 262).
Comic strips had become a popular fixture in many of the Bonnier group’s
weekly magazines, but some members of the Bonnier family were reportedly
wary about the company entering the comic-book market (Bulls Press, 1994:
26). Undeterred, Lukas Bonnier (1922 – 2006) approached Bjarne Steinsvik,
president of Bulls Press, and secured the comic-book rights to Fantomen.
Despite his father’s misgivings about this new venture, Lukas Bonnier re-
mained certain that the character’s exposure in Swedish newspapers (such
as Svenska Dagbladet) would ensure its success (Pilcher and Brooks, 2005:
246). The following anecdote from one Scandinavian reader suggests that
Bonnier’s hunch was, indeed, correct:
It was my father’s favorite comic. He had read it as a child . . . sneaking
up to the neighbor’s mailbox and reading it from the local newspaper
before the neighbor had fetched it. My father is 74 years young now, and
we read the Swedish [Fantomen] comic book together. (Male respon-
dent, 36 – 49 years old, Finland, October 8, 2012)
Bonnier appointed Rolf Janson (b. 1925), a commercial artist from Åhlén &
Åkerlund’s advertising department, as editor of Fantomen. Janson, too, en-
joyed reading Fantomen in the daily press (Bonnier, 2010: 76), but he had
to comply with Swedish postal regulations, which stipulated that no single
feature could take up more than half the space of any periodical sent by mail
to subscribers, in order for publishers to receive discounted postal delivery
rates (Pilcher and Brooks, 2005: 246). Therefore, Janson was forced to allocate
just twelve pages for the lead Fantomen story, “The Maharajah’s Daughter”
(Falk and McCoy, 1998a [1944 – 45]: 34 – 93). The rest of the magazine was
taken up with other translated American comic strips, including Hopalong
Cassidy and King of the Northern Mounted. The first issue of Fantomen was
printed in color on leftover letterpress machines, after Åhlén & Åkerlund
shifted to offset printing, but the old presses could not correctly reproduce
the character’s costume, which now appeared blue, instead of purple.5 The
debut issue was released in October 1950 and sold 50,000 copies; sales for
subsequent editions reached 72,000 copies per issue by 1951 (Pilcher and
Brooks, 2005: 246).
Its success vindicated Lukas Bonnier’s belief that there were enough young
readers who were entranced by the “jersey-clad” hero and his mystical world
of the “Deep Woods” (Bonnier, 2010: 76). Under its Serieförlaget imprint,
the Bonnier group gradually released a handful of comic magazines using
translated American comic strips that adhered to already proven trends and
genres, such as domestic comedy (Blondie, 1951), jungle adventures (Tarzan,
1951), and westerns (Tom Mix, 1953). Unlike Frew Publications in Australia,
Bonnier seemed unwilling to capitalize on its hero’s popularity and refrained
from launching companion Fantomen titles until the 1970s. This reflected
internal disquiet about whether the company should deepen its commitment
90 Chapter Four
to this potentially controversial medium — fears that, as it turned out, would

be well-founded in the coming decade.
Comics Under Fire, 1945 – 1955
The Phantom became an undisputed comic-book star at a time when there

was a near-insatiable demand for American-style comics in countries like
Australia and Sweden. We should not underestimate the sensory appeal these
comics held for children living outside the United States, for whom such
publications were an unprecedented novelty. The dynamic juxtaposition of
words and images which defined the medium synthesized elements from
earlier forms of children’s entertainment (such as illustrated magazines and
motion pictures) in new and exciting ways. Thus, argues Ulf Boëthius, chil-
dren’s avid interest in comic books reaffirmed their historical role as avant-
garde consumers, who “pioneer the modern [and] fall upon new media and
products” (1995: 48).
Comic books were also affordable and ubiquitous, sold at pocket-money
prices, and obtainable through a variety of retail outlets, such as newsagents
(Australia), railway bookstalls (India), and tobacconists’ kiosks (Sweden).
They were also accessible to children in ways that books were not. Comic
books’ emphasis on visual storytelling appealed to children in countries
like India, where illiteracy rates remained stubbornly high; as one child re-
marked, “You don’t have to understand each and every word [in comics] —
the pictures tell you quite a lot” (quoted in Bhalla, 1962: 6). This situation
was exacerbated by the parlous state of children’s book publishing in postwar
India, which, according to one observer, remained “dismal” as publishers
struggled to recoup high production costs in a retail marketplace which man-
dated that book prices be kept “within reach of common buyers” (Bhatta
charya, 1986: 21). But children’s exposure to books was not automatically
assured, even in more prosperous countries. A 1953 survey of Australians’
reading habits warned that, in communities without adequate public librar-
ies, the consumption of comic books would “persist . . . throughout [adult]
life and be transmitted, by example, to a new generation” (Current Affairs
Bulletin, 1953: 46).
Authors, educators, and other commentators objected to these “Ameri-
can” comics on several grounds. The Indian novelist Khwaja Ahmad Abbas
declared his opposition to “the very basic idea of comics,” arguing that they
prevented children from acquiring a “taste for literature” and thus stunted
their “intellectual growth” (1955: 19). The Norwegian author and educator
Knut Ingar Hansen argued that superheroes’ reliance on physical strength
and deadly weapons to resolve conflicts embodied values that “we do not
[want to] promote in our society” (quoted in Jensen, 2010: 57). This view
was echoed by the Swedish child psychologist Nils Bejerot, who argued that
masked (American) heroes like the Phantom embodied the kind of lynch
mentality historically associated with the Ku Klux Klan (1954: 120). John
Metcalf, chief librarian of the Public Library of New South Wales, pointed
out that American comic books were no longer “comical” in the original
sense of the word, and that many of those now printed in Australia were
“originally designed for adults” (Woman, 1954: 12). Such distinctions were
lost on most adults, who felt that comic books were entirely inappropriate for
children; a Morgan Gallup poll conducted in 1953 found that 69 percent of
Australians favored “censored control of children’s comics” (Mayer, Garde,
and Gibbons, 1983: 166).
The intensity of public debate surrounding comic books provoked gov-
ernments in Australia, Sweden, and India to introduce legislation which po-
liced the production and dissemination of comic books, especially to minors.
The controversy reached the highest levels of India’s government after Prime
Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, appalled by the contents of a “horror comic”
given to his grandson, called for them to be “suppressed ruthlessly” (Times
of India, 1955: 7). The Indian Parliament’s Lok Sabha (House of the People)
unanimously passed the Young Persons (Harmful Publications) Bill in No-
vember 1956 (Times of India, 1956: 9), which prohibited the production and
sale within India of any publication which used illustrations to portray “acts
of violence or cruelty” or “incidents of a repulsive or horrible nature” (Min-
istry of Home Affairs, n.d.).
Australia’s federal government amended the Customs (Prohibited Imports)
Regulations in 1952, which now banned the importation of comics which “un-
duly [emphasized] matters of sex, horror, or crime [and were] likely to en-
courage depravity” (Patrick, 2011: 140). Several state governments throughout
Australia introduced measures to further control the publication and distribu-
tion of comic books within their jurisdiction. Victoria and New South Wales
passed laws which held magazine wholesalers liable for the publication and
92 Chapter Four
distribution of “obscene” literature (Iliffe, 1956: 134 – 39). Gordon & Gotch,

Australia’s largest magazine distributor, sought to protect itself from pros-
ecution under these new laws by instigating a secret censorship program,
whereby publishers were required to submit forthcoming magazines distrib-
uted by the company for review prior to publication (Harty, 1959: 12). The
Phantom was not spared; throughout 1954 – 58, Frew Publications removed
all traces of knives and whips from villains’ hands, and altered some of Diana
Palmer’s revealing costumes to make them more modest (Stubbersfield, ca.
1989: 4 – 7).
Nevertheless, The Phantom comic magazine benefited from the character’s
ongoing appearance in The Australian Woman’s Mirror during this heated
period. The character’s popular association with this conservative women’s
magazine lent him a “wholesome” luster which helped shield The Phantom
from the worst criticisms leveled against comic books. In fact, the Phantom’s
virtue and bravery proved sufficient to overcome even the sternest parental
objections to comics, according to this Australian reader:
I am an avid collector of Phantom comics . . . I found out recently that
both my grandfathers also read The Phantom. My mum’s father was of
the opinion that comics were a waste of space (it was the 1950s, when
comics were first looked upon as trash, apparently), but he would allow
my mum, her sisters, and her brothers to read The Phantom, as he saw
him as a moral character, and therefore a good role model for his chil-
dren. (Female respondent, 36 – 49 years old, Australia, July 16, 2012)
The Phantom’s comic-book stablemates were not always so fortunate; the
Federation of Victorian Mothers’ Clubs singled out Frew Publications’ cow-
boy series, The Phantom Ranger, as an example of the kind of “trash [which]
polluted children’s minds” (The Argus, 1950: 7).
Public anxiety about comic books was no less evident throughout Scandi-
navia, where teachers and librarians, as the recognized experts on children’s
reading and “appropriate” juvenile literature, played a pivotal role in shaping
the public debate about comics (Jensen, 2012: 260 – 63). However, unlike Aus-
tralia and India, the political response to the comics controversy in Sweden
was tempered by broader concerns that any attempt to censor comic books
posed an unacceptable threat to press freedoms (Larson, 1958: 24), which
were protected under the Freedom of the Press Act (1766) (Hadenius and
Weibull, 1999: 130). Motions were raised in the Riksdag (Swedish parlia-
ment) throughout 1953 – 54 calling for investigations into children’s literature
and reading habits, with a particular focus on the “destructive influences” of
comic books and detective magazines. The Straffrättskommittén (Criminal
Law Committee) proposed amendments to the Swedish penal code which
made the publication and sale of literature which, through words or pictures,
“brutalized” children a criminal offense, punishable by fines or prison sen-
tences (Bejerot, 1954: 202).6 Some of the Swedish comics industry’s leading
figures took steps to deflect its critics’ charges of placing profits ahead of
social responsibility. Bjarne Steinsvik, president of Bulls Press (and one of
the industry’s major content providers), insisted that all “curse words” and
references to alcohol be removed from any comic strips it syndicated, while
scenes of excessive violence were to be modified or deleted entirely (Bulls
Press, 1994: 8).
American Comics: Emulation or Domination?
The initial postwar success of The Phantom comic-book franchise in Aus-

tralia and Sweden seems like yet another instance of American media cor-
porations exploiting their vast economies of scale to syndicate cheap content
to overseas media outlets, typically to the detriment of domestic rivals in
foreign markets. By purely statistical measures, this would seem to be the
case; in 1954 it was estimated that two-thirds of the comic books published in
Australia used material “originating [from] America, but printed here under
license” (Bartlett, 1954: 8). Similarly, the published output of Sweden’s six
largest comic-book companies was dominated by translations of American
comic-book series, or syndicated American newspaper comic strips (Bejerot,
1954: 80).
But American comic-book publishers and feature syndicates deserve some
credit for providing the economic and creative stimulus for postwar comic-
book production in countries like Australia, India, and Sweden, where there
had been little or no such publishing activity beforehand. Admittedly, Amer-
ican firms achieved commercial dominance in foreign markets by offering
publishers a guaranteed supply of ready-made artwork that could be easily
reformatted for use in comic magazines, at a fraction of their original pro-
duction costs. While the economics of using cheap American content were
94 Chapter Four
undeniably compelling, when it came to publishing adventure-serial comics,

foreign publishers initially had little choice but to use American material, as
there were few (if any) locally produced equivalents available to them.
This becomes apparent when considering the haphazard development of
Australia’s comic-book industry during the early 1940s. The wartime ban
on imported American magazines effectively handed Australian publishers a
captive market. The first companies to dabble in this largely untested market
— such as the New South Wales Bookstall Company and Frank Johnson
Publications — were usually forced to rely on individual cartoonists to assem-
ble an entire comic magazine. However, most established Australian cartoon-
ists at that time were schooled in the tradition of single-panel “gag” cartoons
and were unfamiliar with the narrative techniques of comic magazines. De-
spite their often primitive quality, these early Australian-drawn comics were
snapped up by children hungry for escapist wartime reading.
Following the war, new American comic-book titles, now available as
print-ready artwork to Australian publishers, fueled the dramatic expansion
of domestic comic-book production. Australia’s newspaper conglomerates
leveraged their combined publishing, printing, and distribution networks to
achieve commercial dominance of this new market. However, surging con-
sumer demand for comics ensured there was also scope for newer, smaller
firms — such as Frew Publications — to establish themselves (Patrick, 2012a:
165 – 66).
American comic books also provided Australian publishers with new
characters, genres, and concepts that might be successfully emulated using
local writers and artists. Kevan Hardacre (b. 1927) recalled how he produced
his own jungle hero comic, Char Chapman – The Phantom of the East (1951),
after Peter Gormley, a Sydney press agent, asked Hardacre to “do something
like The Phantom” for his client, Young’s Merchandising, on the grounds
that The Phantom was “the biggest-selling comic then published” (quoted
in Patrick, 2008). Even Frew Publications attempted to duplicate their initial
success with The Phantom; the staff artist Peter Chapman (1925 – 2016) ac-
companied publisher Ron Forsyth to see a psychoanalyst to try and identify
the reasons for the Phantom’s popularity. “He didn’t tell us much more about
The Phantom than we didn’t already know ourselves,” Chapman recalled,
“but we partly based our next [comic-book hero], Sir Falcon, on the explana-
tion that he gave us” (quoted in Patrick, 2007c).
But such trends were not always evident in other countries. In Sweden, for
example, the growing popularity of Fantomen did not appear to inspire the
same degree of imitation seen in Australian comics following the release of
The Phantom in 1948. A notable exception was Kilroy, the translated version
of an Italian comic-book series, Amok – Il Gigante Mascherato (Amok – The
Masked Giant), a Phantom “knockoff” created by Cesare Solini and Anto-
nio Canale in 1947, which made its Swedish debut in Seriemagasinet in the
late 1940s (Bono, 1999: 91). It was no accident that Press & Publicity should
recruit an Italian-drawn superhero to compete with Fantomen, given the ap-
parent dearth of Swedish writers and artists skilled in producing “American-
style” adventure comics. Aside from a few short-lived historical adventure
(Münchhausen-Bravader, 1933) and science fiction strips (Allan Kämpe, 1943)
appearing in Swedish magazines during the 1930s and 1940s, the Swedish
comics historian Fredrik Strömberg maintains that the “realistic adventure
genre has never been really big” among local cartoonists (2010: 43). As the
1950s progressed, Swedish-drawn comics would find greater acceptance in
broadly humorous genres, or in publications geared towards young children.
It seemed that Swedish readers were — for now, at least — content to let im-
ported comic-book heroes slake their thirst for adventure.
Comic books came relatively late to India and, as such, locally drawn comic
books did not really captivate Indian audiences until the 1960s and 1970s,
long after the postwar comic-book “craze” had subsided in Australia and
Sweden. Despite India’s large population, imported British and American
comics still only reached a relatively small readership. In 1962 one Indian
distributor said that although demand for imported comic books had grown
by 25 percent in the previous decade, his company still only imported a rather
modest 25,000 comic magazines per month (Joshee, 1962: 6). These were
miniscule sums given that, by 1966, approximately 12,000,000 Indians were
deemed to be “literate in English” (Altbach, 1976: 41). Domestic magazine
publishing was further stymied by the scarcity of imported newsprint, the
allocation of which was controlled by the Office of the Registrar of Newspa-
pers for India during the 1960s (Kasbekar, 2006: 113).
When set against this challenging backdrop, the eventual success of The
Phantom comic-book franchise in India seems all the more remarkable. Yet
just as it was with the birth of America’s comics industry during the mid-
1930s, economic concerns drove the birth of India’s comic-book industry in
96 Chapter Four
the early 1960s. Anant Pai (1929 – 2011) was a junior executive in Bennett,
Coleman & Co.’s book-publishing division at the time when his supervisor,
P. K. Roy, remarked that the company’s printing presses lay idle after orders
were met for India’s calendar production season. Roy thought they could
be used to print comic books to keep them operating at peak capacity, and
initially suggested that Superman would be a suitable title. Pai, however, rec-
ommended the company choose The Phantom instead, on the grounds that
its “steamy tribal . . . milieu” would be more familiar to Indian audiences
(Rao, 2001: 38).
The Phantom thus became the designated “star” of the company’s first comic
magazine, Indrajal Comics, which also contained locally produced educational
features (Our New Age of Science) and humorous comic strips (Little Raju).
Bennett, Coleman & Co. marketed the comic in The Times of India, promoting
it as a “modern, educational comic” that was “specially designed for Indian
children” (Times of India, 1964a: 14; 1964b: 6). Mindful of the anti-comics furor
which convulsed India in the 1950s, the first issue also contained an editorial
which emphasized its positive contribution to the nation’s modernization drive:
The truth is that the medium of comics is an EXCELLENT one, and,
there are GOOD COMICS and BAD COMICS . . . The medium of
COLOUR COMICS could be . . . effectively employed in a variety
of ways in our country and made to serve the cause of the eradication
of illiteracy and of imparting education through entertainment. (“Chi-
trak,” 1964: n.p.)
Indrajal Comics was launched in March 1964, printed in color and simulta-
neously published in Hindi, English, and Marathi-language editions. The
magazine’s Indian provenance was reinforced by Govind Brahmania’s strik-
ing cover illustrations which utilized the flat, two-dimensional aesthetic com-
mon to Indian calendar art to great effect (Joshi, 1986: 216 – 17; Jain, 2007:
34, n.376). Brahmania’s illustrations emphasized the faux-Indian trappings
common to many of Lee Falk’s stories; as Falk himself later disclosed, he
invented the Phantom’s Afro-Indian domain partly to indulge his desire
to write stories featuring rajas and Bengal tigers (Sanghvi, 1999). The first
issue contained Falk’s 1954 story “The Belt” (Falk and McCoy, 1999b [1954]:
54 – 71), but this had to be modified to appease local readers’ sensibilities. The
Phantom’s fictional country, “Bengali,” was changed to “Denkali” on the
grounds that readers would have been confused by the presence of Bandar
pygmies in what they presumed was meant to be the Bengali region of north-
east India. Furthermore, the name of the pirate who murdered the Phantom’s
father in “The Belt” was changed from “Rama” to “Ramalu” in deference to
the Hindu deity (Salinkumar, 2010). These changes, according to one Indian
reader, greatly enhanced the comic’s appeal to local audiences:
Most of the success of The Phantom lies in the fact that Indrajal Comics
was able to sanitize and reinterpret this [fictional] world to suit the life
and times of India at that time. [The] inking and print quality was top
notch (as compared to . . . later [series], like Diamond Comics). (Male
respondent, 18 – 35 years old, India, December 4, 2012)
King Features Syndicate remained the chief content provider for Indrajal
Comics throughout the 1960s and 1970s, supplying Flash Gordon and Man-
drake the Magician, which gradually alternated with The Phantom as the mag-
azine’s headline features. Despite the magazine’s initial success, the Phan-
tom’s influence over India’s comic-book industry would not become apparent
until much later.
Despite sharing the visual makeup of newspaper comic strips, the comic
magazine — or “comic book,” as it became known in the United States — was
an altogether new type of illustrated periodical which chiefly used images,
rather than words, to tell new kinds of dynamic, exciting stories. But whereas
imported American comic strips had been successfully incorporated into for-
eign newspapers during the 1920s and 1930s, selling American comic books
abroad proved more difficult. Physically “dumping” American comic mag-
azines onto foreign shores was often not practically feasible, commercially
desirable — or even legal. Once again, American publishers and newspaper
feature syndicates would align themselves with foreign intermediaries that
would tailor their product to best meet the needs of overseas markets. These
business alliances became ever more vital to ensure the continued syndication
and publication of American comics abroad during World War II. Nor did
their importance lessen with peacetime, as American publishers continued
to rely on their overseas affiliates to help them exploit the resurgent postwar
demand for comics in Australia, Sweden, and India. Thanks to its continued
exposure in newspapers and magazines throughout the war, The Phantom
now became a successful comic book series in each of these countries, eas-
98 Chapter Four
ily matching the popularity of other imported rivals like Superman in ways
that it was never able to achieve in the United States. The Phantom proved
capable of withstanding the public outcry against American comics through-
out the 1950s, but new challenges would await “The Ghost Who Walks,” as
comics soon faced an even greater threat from the advent of television. The
consequences for The Phantom comics franchise would be far-reaching and
unexpected.
ff
Chapter Five
Becoming “Fantomen”
F
licking through the July 1963 edition of Fantomen reveals much about
the tastes and preoccupations of Sweden’s youth at the dawn of that
turbulent decade. Three of the magazine’s comic-book features were
westerns, which both attested to European audiences’ perennial fas-
cination with the American West and reflected the popularity of American
television shows like Gunsmoke and Bonanza being broadcast in Sweden
at the time (Björk, 2001: 309 – 21).1 These westerns’ inclusion in Fantomen
further highlighted the globalization of postwar comics publishing: Svarta
Bågen was a translated version of Blackbow the Cheyenne, a British comic
strip; Baronens Revolvermän was originally published by the American firm
Atlas Comics (the forerunner of Marvel Comics); and Texas Jim was a Swed-
ish series illustrated by Göte Göransson. But growing up at the height of
the space race, Swedish readers also delighted in the latest episode of Dan
Dare, the British science fiction hero renamed Dan Drake for his appearance
in Fantomen. Keeping with the futuristic theme, the comic included a cut-
away diagram of Telstar, the world’s first communications satellite, launched
in 1962.
The magazine, of course, opened with the latest Fantomen adventure,
which saw the Phantom thwart a criminal gang’s plans to rob the Skull Cave’s
treasure room. But keen-eyed readers, accustomed to the style of the Amer-
ican cartoonist Wilson McCoy, may have noticed something unusual about
this particular story. What set this story apart from previous installments
had less to do with the plot than the artwork, which, although unsigned, was
drawn by the Swedish illustrator Bertil Wilhelmsson. When viewed in isola-
tion, this story is an editorial curiosity that is of interest to no one except per-
haps devoted Fantomen readers. When seen in its historical context, however,
99
100 Chapter Five
this story takes on far greater significance. It appeared at the end of a tumul-
tuous period for Sweden’s comic-book industry, which had been buffeted by
public outcries over the allegedly harmful effects of comic books on Swedish
children’s intellectual and moral well-being. Adding to the industry’s woes
was the commencement of television broadcasting in 1956, which threatened
to lure young readers away from comic books altogether.
This same narrative, whereby comic-book publishers found themselves
subject to both intense public scrutiny and competition from television, was
also being played out in Australia and India throughout the 1950s and 1960s.
What distinguished publisher Åhlén & Åkerlund’s response to these events
was the company’s commitment to reinvent Fantomen as a comic book palat-
able to Swedish tastes, and thus counteract claims that comic books embod-
ied an alien American culture seemingly at odds with Scandinavian values.
Åhlén & Åkerlund’s decision to produce Swedish-drawn Fantomen stories
showed that it was far more adept in responding to these challenges than its
Australian and, to a lesser extent, Indian counterparts. More importantly,
this Swedish publisher would become a key production node that would fun-
damentally alter the commercial and creative dynamics of the international
Phantom media franchise.
Comic Books in the Television Era, 1955 – 1970
Television’s growth as a mass medium throughout the 1950s compounded the

difficulties facing the comic-book industry in the United States, and the early
indications of television’s impact on comic-book sales were, frankly, chilling.
By the early 1960s, it was estimated that the annual total circulation of comic
books in the United States had slumped to 350,000,000, from their wartime
peak of 800,000,000. The number of publishers had declined by 75 percent,
and most of the industry’s advertising revenue, like many of its readers, had
crossed over to television (Wolseley, 1969: 275).
The debut of television in Australia, inaugurated with the launch of
TCN-9 (Sydney) on September 16, 1956, proved no less catastrophic for the
local comic-book industry. John Dixon (1929 – 2015), who created a new series
of Catman comics for Frew Publications in the late 1950s, recalled that the
average circulations for many Australian comics fell from 80,000 to 10,000
soon after the arrival of television (O’Brien, 2011: 29). In Sydney alone, it
was estimated that 52 percent of households owned a television set by 1959
(Campbell and Keogh, 1962: 14). Australia boasted twelve separate television
stations serving over 500,000 households in most mainland capital cities by
1960 (Elliot, 1960: 268, n.280). Television’s effect on Australians’ reading hab-
its was as undeniable as it was detrimental. A survey of Sydney households
throughout 1956 – 59 found that recreational reading among adolescents from
households that owned television sets declined by 20 percent (Campbell and
Keogh, 1962: 111 – 12).2
The Department of Customs and Excise estimated that annual sales of
locally published comics totaled 14,000,000 copies in 1959 (National Archives
of Australia [Adelaide], 1959), indicating a massive slump from the industry’s
postwar peak of 60,000,000 copies in 1954 (Connell, Francis, and Skilbeck,
1957: 155). This dire situation was compounded by the abolition of import
licensing restrictions in February 1960, which allowed for the direct importa-
tion of American comic books into Australia for the first time in twenty years.
Many small publishers, whose cheaply printed comics compared unfavorably
with glossy, full-color American comic books, quit the industry, leaving the
Australian market to a handful of larger publishers such as K.G. Murray,
which relaunched many of its titles as 100-page “supacomics” (The Observer,
1960: 5 – 6).
Swedish television broadcasting commenced in 1956, but was subject to
regulatory controls which ensured that its growth was far slower than in
Australia. The reigning Socialdemokraterna (Social Democrat) government
granted a monopoly broadcasting license to the private company Sveriges
Radio (SR). The service, confined to a single channel, was expected to em-
phasize education ahead of entertainment and would not carry advertising;
revenues would instead be raised through government subsidies and license
fees levied on television sets.3 The number of television set licenses purchased
by Swedish households leapt from 8,900 in 1956 to 599,000 in 1959, while
broadcast transmissions gradually expanded from just 9 hours per week in
1956 – 57 to 28 hours per week by 1961 – 62 (Björk, 1999: 151 – 52). SR launched
a second television channel in 1970, by which time broadcasts reached 90 per-
cent of Sweden’s population (Rosengren, 1994a: 27). The tightly controlled
expansion of Swedish television services arguably spared local comic-book
102 Chapter Five
publishers from the degree of upheaval experienced by their Australian coun-

terparts immediately following the launch of television. Media scarcity fur-
ther shielded comics from the competitive threat of television, as this Swed-
ish reader points out:
There was no other media when I started to read [Fantomen], besides
the radio. We didn’t [buy] a TV before the [mid-1970s]. (Male respon-
dent, 36 – 49 years old, Sweden, November 23, 2012)
Nor did the increased output of television broadcasts diminish children’s
interest in comic books. A survey of Swedish households found that although
the volume of children’s television programming tripled throughout 1964 – 72,
children’s rate of television viewing only doubled during this same period
(Filipson, 1976: 23). This same study also found that 95 percent of Swedish
children surveyed either bought or read comics, with parents buying comics
for their children in most instances (Filipson, 1976: 39).
While reading comic books remained a popular pastime among Swedish
children, the same could not be said for Australian youth. A 1970 survey of
Sydney adolescents’ leisure activities revealed a marked decline in comic-
book reading among high-school students. Whereas over 60 percent of boys
and girls aged 13 – 14 years regularly read comics in 1952 (Connell, Francis,
and Skilbeck, 1957: 158), these figures had dropped to 45 percent for boys and
30 percent for girls in the same age group by 1970. These figures fell even
further as adolescents grew older; by 1970, the portion of 17 – 18-year-old boys
and girls who read comic books on a regular basis stood at just 5 percent and
10 percent respectively (Connell et al., 1975: 175 – 76). For the generation of
Australian children growing up in the glare of the television screen, comic
books had largely ceased to be part of their “everyday consciousness” (Pos-
samai, 2003: 110).
Television came to India in 1959, when it was launched as an experimental
service, but regular daily broadcasts only began in 1965 (Singhal et al., 1988:
224). The expansion of domestic television services was hampered through-
out the 1960s and 1970s by the comparatively high cost of television sets and
the lack of electricity supply to rural areas (Dhawan, 1973: 525 – 26). Even
if these obstacles had been removed, the reportedly dull quality of India’s
state-owned television broadcaster did little to entice viewers. As one critic
remarked:
It is not surprising that those viewers who live on India’s edges often
tune in to more enjoyable programs, including western films, broadcast
from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka . . . There is little encourage-
ment for [Indian] writers and artists, the financial rewards are poor and
production facilities old-fashioned and bad. (Fishlock, 1987: 122 – 23)
India’s burgeoning comic-book industry would, in fact, have little to fear from
television until the 1990s, when technological advances and regulatory re-
forms would transform the broadcasting sector beyond all recognition.
Creating a Swedish Phantom
During the early 1950s, Åhlén & Åkerlund made changes to its Serieförlaget
(The Comics Publisher) division which it hoped would appease public con-
cerns about children’s taste for comic books, and help cement the company’s
dominance of the Swedish comics market. Serieförlaget published the first
entirely Swedish-drawn comic book, Tuff och Tuss (1953), a decidedly “whole-
some” magazine featuring whimsical characters and stories intended for
young children. Lukas Bonnier, keen to produce a uniquely Swedish humor
comic, oversaw the successful relaunch of the 1930s comic strip 91:an as a
comic magazine in 1956 (Engblom, 2002: 63; Gustafsson and Rydén, 2010:
262 – 63). Each of these publications was designed to provide parents and chil-
dren alike with an acceptable Swedish alternative to “American” comic books.
More importantly, their success demonstrated the commercial viability of
Swedish-drawn comic magazines, and enabled Serieförlaget to develop the
editorial infrastructure required to reinvent “The Ghost Who Walks” for
Swedish audiences.
Fantomen underwent numerous changes throughout this period. The mag-
azine changed from color printing to a black-and-white format in 1955 and
switched from a fortnightly to a monthly schedule in 1960, with the reduced
frequency offset by its expanded 68-page format. But whereas Fantomen pre-
viously had to serialize Lee Falk’s stories over several issues, the magazine
could now feature complete episodes in a single issue. This proved popu-
lar with readers, but it created new difficulties for Åhlén & Åkerlund Youth
Magazines, as the company was now known. Fantomen required 12 complete
episodes to fill its revised publishing schedule, yet Åhlén & Åkerlund could
104 Chapter Five
only anticipate receiving 2 – 3 new Lee Falk Phantom stories per year. This
shortfall was exacerbated by the company’s policy of reserving Falk’s Sunday
episodes of The Phantom for the annual Fantomen julalbum.
This difficult situation was only made worse by the death in 1961 of Wilson
McCoy, the American cartoonist who had illustrated The Phantom news-
paper strip since the early 1940s. McCoy’s successor, Seymour “Sy” Barry,
brought a dynamic, realistic style to the series, which gave The Phantom a
fresher, “modern” appearance. But even King Features expressed some res-
ervations about their newly chosen artist, as Sy Barry later recalled:
I delivered my first week of work, they [King Features] called me and
said, “Sy, this looks like Flash Gordon. It doesn’t look like The Phantom.
It’s beautifully done, but it’s not at all like McCoy’s style.” They wanted
me to try to duplicate his style . . . They were worried that the editors
would see such an extreme change that they could lose papers as a re-
sult. (Quoted in Stroud, 2015)4
Åhlén & Åkerlund was reluctant to use Barry’s work at first, fearing that it,
too, would alienate Swedish readers accustomed to McCoy’s simpler — and
undeniably popular — interpretation of the character. Åhlén & Åkerlund
opted instead to negotiate a licensing agreement with Bulls Press, which
allowed the company to commission new Fantomen stories using Swedish
writers and artists. The first Swedish episode, “Skatten i dödskallegrottan”
(“The Treasure in the Skull Cave”), was illustrated by Bertil Wilhelmsson
(1926 – 1992) and was published in Fantomen no. 8 (July 1963). These all-new
episodes were supplemented by updated versions of earlier Lee Falk stories
(originally illustrated by Ray Moore and Wilson McCoy) redrawn by Swedish
illustrators, which appeared in Fantomen from 1965 onwards. This editorial
transition helped prepare Swedish audiences for Sy Barry’s modern inter-
pretation of the Phantom. More importantly, it gave Åhlén & Åkerlund the
opportunity to give the series an incremental Swedish makeover, as American
episodes redrawn by local artists were now peppered with visual references to
Swedish newspapers and automobiles. With these small steps, the transition
from the (American) Phantom to the (Swedish) Fantomen had begun.
Twilight of the Adventure Heroes
Sy Barry’s appointment as artist on The Phantom came at a turbulent time in

the history of adventure-serial comic strips. Even though America’s newspa-
per industry faced intense competition from television, few newspaper editors
seemed willing to actively “sell” their daily and weekly comic-strip sections,
despite their reputation for being one of the most widely read features in any
newspaper. Compared with television networks, which constantly promoted
their forthcoming shows, Philip Porter (feature editor for the Cleveland Plain
Dealer) claimed that editors rarely promoted their most popular comic strips
in “high-traffic” areas of the newspaper, such as the front page or the sports
section. This approach, Porter argued, could be particularly suitable for pro-
moting comic-strip serials:
Why not make a virtue out of our own soap operas and hint at what’s
going to happen next to Dondi or Rex Morgan, or The Phantom or Steve
Canyon? The readers are looking for them — why make them work so
hard? (Quoted in Erwin, 1962: 10).
Yet there were signs that adventure-serial comic strips were already falling
out of favor with the public. A 1959 survey of 1,360 adult American newspa-
per readers found that “adventure” and “soap opera” features (such as Dick
Tracy and Mary Worth) accounted for 50 percent of the 15 most popular
Sunday newspaper comic strips (Robinson and White, 1962: 39 – 40). How-
ever, the survey also noted that “satiric sophisticated humor” comic strips
(such as Peanuts) were more popular among college graduates (Robinson
and White, 1962: 39, 41). The generational and demographic distinctions
between the rival newspaper audiences for adventure-serial and sophisti-
cated humor comic strips grew more pronounced with each passing decade.
A 1979 readership poll conducted by the Allentown (Pennsylvania) Evening
Chronicle found that although its three “adventure-continuity strips” (Dick
Tracy, Alley Oop, and Captain Easy) scored the most negative ratings from
the overall survey group, they were highly ranked as favorites among their
core readership of adult males aged fifty-five years and over (Subber and
Schweitzer, 1980: 42 – 43).
Throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, rising newsprint costs forced
106 Chapter Five
many newspapers to reduce the space allocated to comic strips from five col-
umns down to three or four columns. As Robert Gillespie (from the Chicago
Tribune-New York News Syndicate) explained, “with the space shortage,
publishers have been cutting down on features rather than on advertising and
news” (quoted in Culhane, 1974: 39). Joke-a-day comic strips, with their sim-
pler illustrations and punch-line dialogue, could adapt to these constraints.
Adventure-continuity strips, which relied on detailed scripts and intricate
artwork to convey drama, suffered by comparison.
Television, too, had an inadvertent but no less decisive impact on the dra-
matic appeal of adventure-continuity comic strips. George Wunder, who had
illustrated the Terry and the Pirates comic strip since 1947, reflected on the
series’ cancellation in 1973:
[People] get an average of three or four complete stories a night off the
boob tube. There’s no reason why they should hang around anywhere
from 8 to 12 weeks to find out just how one [comic-strip] story came out.
(Quoted in Van Gelder, 1975: 403)
The demise of many of the pioneering adventure-serial comic strips from

the 1930s was hastened by the death and retirement of their creators during
the 1970s, for whom no suitable replacements were found, nor, in some cases,
were such successors actively sought by the feature syndicates that once
championed the strips.
The Phantom was spared from this dismal fate thanks to its global pop-
ularity; in 1966, King Features stated that The Phantom appeared in 583
newspapers, “including 261 foreign newspapers,” and claimed that only Chic
Young’s Blondie comic strip had a greater worldwide readership (Mullaney,
ed., 2015: 185). Nevertheless, Lee Falk was compelled to readjust his approach
to the series in light of the reduced space now allocated to comic strips. When
asked about the sparse dialogue he now employed, Falk replied:
A strip used to have six columns [across a newspaper page] . . . Through

the years, they were cut to four, which makes [the strip] smaller. So
I tried to cut the amount of words to make room for the art . . . The
reason is mechanical . . . to make room for the drawing. (Quoted in
Rhoades, 2011: 259 – 60)
The variable quality of Falk’s scripts, which became more evident throughout
the 1970s, also owed much to his reliance on “fantastic” story lines, which
were far removed from the series’ original premise. These changes were not
universally welcomed by longtime readers, who drew unfavorable compari-
sons between Falk’s later work and his earliest Phantom stories:
I am a big fan of the earliest Falk/Moore stories . . . [which were] fast-
paced and exciting, blending action with romance . . . As much as I
loved Falk’s earlier work, I could not stand his later stories. When he
started writing about aliens, witches, dinosaurs, [and] robots . . . I lost
interest. (Male respondent, 18 – 35 years old, Australia, May 31, 2012)
The economic pressures confronting feature syndicates and newspaper pub-
lishers now threatened to undermine the appeal of even the most popular
comic strips. The Newspaper Features Council argued that not only were
older readers were “turned off” by the reduced size of comic strips that were
difficult to read, but that cartoonists now “lost the chance to draw attrac-
tively,” thus jeopardizing the medium’s very survival (quoted in Astor, 1986:
33). Conversely, international demand for syndicated American news stories
and features outstripped the sluggish U.S. market during this same period.
According to Sid Goldberg, vice president of United Media, “the American
comic strip sets the standard for comics in the world, just like Hollywood does
for movies.” American feature syndicates that had proven strengths in text
features and comics would, he added, “sell more comics abroad.” The Editors
Press Service, which represented several American feature syndicates in for-
eign markets, reported that its annual sales had increased by over 20 percent,
with comic strips accounting for 75 percent of its overall business (Astor, 1991:
38). Reports such as these only underscored American feature syndicates’
growing reliance on international markets, which would prove crucial for the
future longevity of adventure-serial comic strips, such as The Phantom, which
were now falling from favor with American newspaper readers.
The Phantom Prevails
Sy Barry took over the artistic reins of The Phantom newspaper strip shortly
before the character made a belated return to the American comic-book field.
108 Chapter Five
The Phantom received his first self-titled magazine, published by Gold Key
Comics, in November 1962. The Phantom showcased new stories (adapted
from Lee Falk’s newspaper story lines) illustrated by Bill Lignante (b. 1925)
and prepared exclusively for the comic book.5 Gold Key was best known
for its licensed television comic-book franchises (such as Bonanza and The
Twilight Zone), but The Phantom was one of the company’s newer titles, such
as Doctor Solar – Man of the Atom (1962) and Magnus, Robot Fighter (1963),
which blended superhero and science fiction themes. Gold Key no doubt
hoped that the Phantom would benefit from the revival of costumed super-
heroes, heralded by DC Comics’ modernized version of its 1940s-era heroes,
the Flash (1956) and the Green Lantern (1959), and further invigorated by
Marvel Comics’ new generation of emotionally charged superheroes, such
as the Fantastic Four (1961), the Incredible Hulk (1962) and the Amazing
Spider-Man (1963). Despite the company’s best efforts to capitalize on re-
newed public interest in superhero comics, Gold Key’s licensed film and
television properties — such as Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories — remained
their top-selling titles. Even among the company’s modest suite of action-
adventure titles, The Phantom remained a comparatively poor seller and was
canceled in 1966.
In Australia, Frew Publications reprinted two Gold Key stories in The
Phantom (no. 236, 1962), but the shorter American episodes could not ade-
quately fill the Australian comic’s longer 32-page format (which contained far
fewer advertisements), and were not used again until 1991.6 Frew Publications
was one of the handful of Australian comic-book publishers left standing
by the early 1960s, thanks largely to The Phantom, which, according to The
Observer, continued to exert a “phenomenal grip on the juvenile market”
(1960: 6). The company’s remaining Australian-drawn comics — The Phan-
tom Ranger, The Shadow, and Sir Falcon — had by now lapsed into reprinting
previously published stories.7 Frew Publications switched The Phantom from
a monthly to a fortnightly publication in 1960, but unlike their Swedish coun-
terparts, the company did not commission Australian-drawn stories to meet
its expanded publishing roster. Instead, Frew Publications published the lat-
est Lee Falk/Sy Barry Phantom stories soon after they concluded their ap-
pearance in American newspapers. The character’s new look under Sy Barry
helped give The Phantom comic a modest visual facelift, but Frew could only
count on receiving 2 – 3 new Falk/Barry stories annually from the Yaffa Syn-
dicate. The company therefore adhered to its practice of recycling previously

published Phantom stories every 5 – 7 years, believing that the magazine’s
casual readership turned over regularly within this time frame, and the rep-
etition would thus go unnoticed by newer readers (Patrick, 2012b: 143).
As Frew Publications’ business steadily contracted throughout the 1960s,
Åhlén & Åkerlund Youth Magazines’ operations underwent significant ex-
pansion. The company was renamed Semic Press after acquiring 60 percent
of its largest competitor, Press & Publicity, in 1969 (Gustafsson and Rydén,
2010: 263).8 The purchase included assets from the company’s Centerförlag
comics division, most notably Seriemagasinet. Ebbe Zetterstad (1924 – 2012), a
former editor of Fantomen, was appointed managing director of Semic Press.
Zetterstad now allocated two editors to Fantomen; one editor was responsible
for overseeing each issue’s “Fantomen” story, while the other editor assem-
bled the rest of the magazine. Taking the former role was Janne Lundström
(b. 1941), an ex-journalist and cofounder of Seriefrämjandet (The Swedish
Comics Association, est. 1968). By 1968, Semic Press had begun using Phan-
tom stories produced by the Italian publisher Edizioni Fratelli Spada, which
Lundström was required to edit, rewrite, and, where necessary, commis-
sion new artwork to adapt them for use in Fantomen.9 Dissatisfied with the
quality of the Italian material, Lundström invited members of the Serie
främjandet fan organization to submit synopses for new Fantomen episodes
which, if suitable, he would assign to Semic’s freelance writers to develop
into full-length scripts. This was an unprecedented collaboration between
a comic-book publisher and Swedish comics fandom, as yet unheard of in
either Australia or India.10
Shortly after Lundström began writing his own original Fantomen sto-
ries,11 he was joined by Magnus Knutsson (b. 1944), who had previously
worked as an editor on the magazine. Dismayed by the excessive violence
of the Italian stories, Knutsson proposed writing a new story that involved
the Phantom liberating slaves being held in the neighboring African state of
Rodia (later “Rhodia”), a fictional amalgam of Southern Rhodesia and South
Africa (Knutsson and Vallvé, 1972: 3 – 24). “It was a good way to make The
Phantom a better hero by fighting for the oppressed,” explained Knutsson,
“which helped make this ‘Swedish’ version of The Phantom a positive rein-
terpretation of American culture.”12 Lundström, who regarded Knutsson as
a “kindred spirit,” said that the story’s progressive political themes demon-
110 Chapter Five
strated that it was possible to make “good Swedish comics,” which challenged
the prevailing view that American comics were violent, sexist, racist, and
offensive to Swedish sensibilities — a view that Lundström himself partly
shared.13
The injection of “real-world” politics into Fantomen reflected many of the
then-current preoccupations of Sweden’s broadsheet press, where, according
to Richard F. Tomasson, “the plight of the world’s unfortunate peoples is
given special attention” (1970: 281 – 82). The political rehabilitation of Fan-
tomen received favorable press coverage in the mainstream press, in Sweden
and elsewhere (Mosey, 1981: 54; Hockney, 1984: 11). But others were not so
readily impressed; the author and critic Lars Peterson argued that the series’
basic premise — wherein African natives required the protection of a white
ruler — remained essentially racist (1976: 132). Furthermore, Peterson argued
that Swedish writers’ determination to “reform” the comic’s colonial-era pol-
itics was undermined by the magazine’s inclusion of earlier American-and
Italian-drawn episodes, which only reinforced negative perceptions of Africa
and Africans (1976: 137). Undeterred by such criticisms, both Lundström
and Knutsson continued writing stories that championed progressive social
causes. Lundström pitted the Phantom against the rapacious (white) owners
of a jungle trading post, while helping a Bengali tribe establish their own
cooperative store (Lundström and Wilhelmsson, 1973: 3 – 27). Knutsson had
Diana Palmer challenge the Jungle Patrol’s discriminatory men-only recruit-
ment policy by becoming the first woman to successfully pass their combat
training test, achieve the rank of sergeant, and help the Phantom apprehend
a gang of criminals (Knutsson and Vallvé, 1973: 3 – 27).
By the late 1960s Fantomen remained one of Sweden’s best-selling comic
books, with an estimated circulation of 140,000, second only to Kalle Anka &
C:o (200,000) (Blomberg, 1967: 15). Semic Press capitalized on the character’s
surging popularity in a series of special-edition gift books, such as Stora Fan-
tomenboken (Great Fantomen Book, 1973), as well as the Serie-Pocket paper-
back library (1972 – 86). Further changes were undertaken by Ulf Granberg
(b. 1945), who was appointed editor of Fantomen in 1972. “There was no
expectation [upon me] to change the title,” he explained, “but back in those
days, you could dive into a sea of [comic strips] and come up with many good-
ies.”14 Granberg diversified the magazine’s supporting comic-strip features in
order to broaden its appeal. His inclusion of Stan Lynde’s western-comedy
drama, Rick O’Shay (U.S.), along with Dan Barry’s then-current version of
Flash Gordon (Blixt Gordon), proved especially popular and lifted the maga-
zine’s circulation even higher.15 According to Granberg, the anthology format
was key to ensuring the magazine’s ongoing success:
Swedish audiences have become used to the more varied type of comic-
strip “diet” in Fantomen, which is more of a magazine, and not just a
comic book with a single character.16
Granberg’s approach, according to Peter Grännby (marketing manager, Bulls
Press), reflected the pivotal role that editors play in the Scandinavian comics
industry, who “build up the [self-contained] ‘universe’ of the magazine.”17
As a consequence, the diverse anthology format championed by Granberg
created different groupings among Fantomen readers:
The Swedish Fantomen . . . is dedicated roughly to 50% to The Phan-
tom and 50% to other comics. The “other comics” are what attracted
me at first (Mandrake and Flash Gordon, for example), and that applies
for many Swedish readers. While all readers have different favorites, it
is not unusual for Fantomen readers to NOT have “The Phantom” as
their #1 favorite comic from the [magazine]. (Male respondent, 18 – 35
years old, Sweden, March 21, 2012)
For one Swedish reader, Fantomen became a “marvelous way to find new com-
ics” from Belgium and France, “which I would never have found otherwise”
(female respondent, 18 – 35 years old, Sweden, December 18, 2012). Another
Swedish reader maintained that the inclusion of translated foreign comics,
such as Lt. Blueberry (France) and The Spirit (U.S.), was “essential to keep
the [Fantomen] comic book vital for so many years” (male respondent, 36 – 49
years old, Sweden, April 1, 2012).
Janne Lundström, who relinquished his editorial role on Fantomen after
eighteen months, remained a contributing writer to the magazine. His work
took a new creative direction with “I Piraternas Våld” (“The Pirates’ Pris-
oner”), the first of seven historical adventures he would write about the Phan-
tom’s ancestors throughout 1973 – 75 (Lundström and Vallvé, 1973: 3 – 33). Lee
Falk had recently rewritten the origins of the Phantom’s ancestral dynasty
in the 1969 story line “Walker’s Table,” which overturned the series’ original
British colonial milieu in order to give his hero a stronger American affiliation
112 Chapter Five
(Falk and Barry, 1992b [1969]: 4 – 20). But Lundström’s historical sagas recast
the Phantom as a costumed swashbuckler embroiled in European political
intrigues spanning the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and thus be-
came the template for many Swedish writers who subsequently worked on
the series.
Ulf Granberg used Lundström’s historical adventures as the springboard
for drafting a new chronology of the Phantom dynasty which blended ele-
ments from Lee Falk’s original American stories with new characters and
scenarios taken from the Swedish stories created expressly for Fantomen
(Granberg [attrib.], 1975: 5 – 16). “It was easier to write a historical [Phantom]
story,” according to Granberg, “because the settings and costumes made it
easier for the supporting characters to accept [him] as a contemporary hero.”18
But Lundström, who disliked the character’s propensity for violence to solve
problems (“It doesn’t set a good example”), also tried to reform the present-
day Phantom in such stories as “Mjölkdrickaren” (“The Milk Drinker”) by
making him “more like a detective” who used his intellect to solve crimes
instead (Lundström and Vallvé, 1974: 3 – 26).19
The cumulative effect of these incremental changes and editorial strategies
transformed the Fantomen magazine in commercial and artistic terms. By
the early 1980s, the magazine’s average circulation had climbed to 170,000
per issue after recording an extraordinary sales spike of 204,000 copies for
its publication of “The Wedding of The Phantom” in 1978.20 These changes
were largely welcomed by readers, who felt that the Swedish-drawn Fan-
tomen stories frequently surpassed the quality of Lee Falk’s work:
When I first started reading the Swedish Fantomen magazine in the
early 1970s, it was mainly Italian-produced stories which were [being]
published, but when the Swedish team . . . led by Ulf Granberg really
began to restructure the whole Fantomen world, things got better and
better! To be honest, with all due respect, Lee Falk’s ideas during the
1980s felt quite outdated in comparison. (Male respondent, 36 – 49 years
old, Sweden, April 11, 2012)
The shortage of new American stories available for the Swedish market cre-
ated an opportunity whereby the magazine’s creative personnel transformed
the Phantom into an adventure hero more in the spirit of an Alexandre Dumas
novel, rather than a “traditional” American comic-book superhero. In doing
so, they created a distinctively Swedish interpretation of the Phantom that

was, by turns, both “classic” and “modern,” and which would eventually rival
the American version of the character, at home and abroad.
The Further Voyages of Fantomen
The success of Fantomen in Sweden coincided with Semic Press’s expan-

sion into neighboring markets throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Scandinavian
editions of Fantomen were launched in Norway (Fantomet, 1964), Finland
(Mustanaamio, 1966), and Denmark (Fantomet, 1971), either in partnership
with local publishers or through Semic Press’s subsidiary companies.21 Semic
Press made its first foray beyond Scandinavia when it launched Phantom in
West Germany, where it was published from 1966 to 1969.22 The company
subsequently bought out its largest domestic rival, Williams Förlags AB (a
subsidiary of Warner Communications [U.S.]), in 1975.23 Just as the Bonnier
group came to dominate the periodical press after purchasing Åhlén & Åker-
lund decades earlier, Semic Press’s acquisition of Williams Förlags AB made
it Sweden’s largest comic-book publisher.24
The Phantom’s Scandinavian success was offset by the character’s lack-
luster performance in the United States, where it continued to lose ground
against more popular superhero comics. Determined to keep their best-
known adventure heroes on magazine newsstands, King Features Syndicate
briefly acted as a comic-book publisher, releasing new series of The Phan-
tom, Flash Gordon, and Mandrake the Magician under its own King Com-
ics imprint throughout 1966 – 67. The short-lived venture ended once King
Features Syndicate sold the publishing rights to Charlton Press, which re-
launched The Phantom comic book in 1969, together with new titles starring
various King Features characters, including Popeye and Beetle Bailey.
Charlton Press began publishing song lyric sheets in the 1930s and es-
tablished the Charlton Comic Group division in 1945, which eventually
accounted for 50 percent of the company’s total publishing output (Slezak,
1980: 184, 187). The company was unique in that it operated its own print-
ing plant and a magazine distribution business, the Capital Distributing
Company (Slezak, 1980: 184). Yet despite having these resources at its dis-
posal, the Charlton Comic Group remained among the American comic-
book industry’s worst performers, accounting for just 10 percent of total
114 Chapter Five
market share in 1959 (Miller, 2008). Charlton’s relaunch of The Phantom

came towards the end of the company’s brief foray into the superhero field
during the mid-to late 1960s (Irving, 2000: 25 – 28). However, the new com-
ic’s inconsistent quality not only angered American audiences (Griffin and
Griffin, ca. 2002) but also led to complaints from Lee Falk himself, which
prompted Charlton to hire better illustrators and use translated Phantom
stories from the Italian publisher, Edizioni Fratelli Spada (Brancatelli, 1999:
612). None of these efforts could reverse the title’s declining circulation,
which had dipped below 100,000 by the time Charlton canceled The Phantom
in 1977 (Shedden, ca. 2002). Nevertheless, the Charlton Comic Group’s
version of The Phantom is fondly recalled by readers outside the United
States. One reader remarked that the Charlton series featured “some of the
best [Phantom] cover art” they’d seen (male respondent, 36 – 49 years old,
Australia, July 16, 2012) — an opinion shared by another fan, who felt that
Charlton artist Jim Aparo’s Phantom covers “were excellent,” while adding
that Don Newton — a future Batman artist — also “did a good job” on the
series (male respondent, 50 – 65 years old, Scotland, November 30, 2012).
The proliferation of new Phantom stories from the United States proved
beneficial for Bennett, Coleman & Co., which by this time stood poised to
dominate India’s surging comic-book market as sales leaped from Rs.1 crore
(Rs.10m) in 1978 to nearly Rs.5.5 crore (Rs. 55m) by 1982 (Singh, 1982: 84).25
The surge in comic-book sales, according to Trevor Fishlock, reflected “a
new demand for Indian heroes and stories to take their place alongside James
Bond and Superman” (1987: 125). This demand was initially fueled by the
founding editor of Indrajal Comics, Anant Pai, who left Bennett, Coleman
& Co. in order to launch India’s first locally drawn comic magazine, Amar
Chitra Katha (Immortal Picture Stories), which retold stories taken from
Hindu legends, along with dramatic episodes from Indian history, in picto-
rial form (Pritchett, 1997: 76 – 106; McLain, 2009b). Indrajal Comics, however,
remained the market leader, although its initial sales were solid rather than
spectacular. In 1978, after nearly 15 years of publication, Indrajal Comics was
still selling fewer than 200,000 copies per month; but by 1982 its sales had
surged to 580,000 copies per month (Singh, 1982: 84). The Phantom remained
the magazine’s headline feature, thanks largely to the series’ atmospheric set-
ting, which struck a chord with Indian readers (as elsewhere), if this comment
is any indication:
[I loved] his mysterious outfit, the [mystical] Skull Cave in Deep Woods,
and, of course, the 400-year old lineage of crime fighters! In India, he was
known to us as “Betal”— [which] means ghost — in the Indrajal Comics.
(Male respondent, 18 – 35 years old, India, March 22, 2012)
The magazine’s editors drew on a selection of stories from King Features

Syndicate, Gold Key Comics, and the Charlton Comic Group to satisfy pub-
lic demand once Indrajal Comics moved from a fortnightly to a weekly release
schedule in 1981. The visual diversity of these stories appealed to Indian
readers, even if their enjoyment of The Phantom was not universally shared
by their immediate family:
I enjoyed all the Phantom stories that I read in Indrajal Comics . . . I did
collect all the Indrajals and I had a 3-feet high stack of comics — but
one day when I was not home, my mom sold everything to a raddiwalla
[scrap-paper dealer]. It is [my] single biggest misfortune as far as comics
are concerned. (Male respondent, 36 – 49 years old, India, July 1, 2012)
The commercial success of Indrajal Comics proved beyond doubt that there
existed a large enough audience capable of sustaining domestic comic-book
production. The popularity of American heroes, such as the Phantom and
Flash Gordon, gave Bennett, Coleman & Co. the opportunity to use Indra-
jal Comics as a vehicle to promote indigenous comic-book characters. They
struck immediate success with Bahadur (Brave), starring a reformed dacoit
(robber) who, together with his girlfriend Bela, led a Citizens’ Security Force
to defend their village from the notorious Chambal Valley bandits. The series,
created by Aabid Sutri and Govind Brahmania, was inspired by the crime
wave then sweeping central India and met with immediate acclaim upon its
debut in Indrajal Comics in 1976 (Khanduri, 2010: 178 – 79). The success of
The Phantom provided Bennett, Coleman & Co. with the commercial means
to support locally drawn comics, just as it had done so for Frew Publications
in Australia in the 1940s.
By this time, however, Bennett, Coleman & Co. no longer retained ex-
clusive comic-book rights to The Phantom, which was now being licensed
to Indian newspapers and magazines by Advertising Films India (later AFI
Features) on behalf of King Features Syndicate. The sheer size and linguis-
tic diversity of India’s media marketplace meant that different versions of
116 Chapter Five
The Phantom were published for specific regions, and frequently appeared
alongside Indrajal Comics throughout the 1970s.26 Vidyarthi Mithram Comics,
a Tamil-language magazine published by the Vidyarthi Mithram Press (Ker-
ala), reprinted at least four episodes of The Phantom (renamed “Mayavi”) in
the mid-1970s. While Indrajal Comics had begun publishing Tamil-language
editions in the mid-to late 1960s, the Vidyarthi Mithram Comics series was
printed in black and white and, at just 24 pages, was considerably shorter than
the 32-page, full-color Indrajal Comics editions. The Phantom episodes re-
printed in this Tamil-language magazine were heavily edited to fit this trun-
cated format, but such cost-cutting measures were often necessary to ensure
that Indian comics remained within the financial reach of everyday readers
(“Muthufan,” 2007).
Muthu Comics, launched in 1971, is historically credited with establishing
the popular, widespread demand for Tamil-language comics in India. Pub-
lished by Muthu Fine Arts (Sivakasi, Tamil Nadu), and edited by Mullai
Thangarasan, Muthu Comics initially featured translated versions of British
comic-book serials, such as The Steel Claw, The Spider, and Robot Archie,
originally published by Fleetway Publications (U.K.). Muthu Comics sub-
sequently published The Phantom (renamed Mugamoodi Veethalar, or The
Masked Phantom) over fifteen issues published between 1977 and 1980. How-
ever, the series’ appeal may have been hampered by the comic’s erratic pub-
lishing schedule (Comicology, 2009).
Rani Comics subsequently emerged as India’s most successful Tamil-
language comics publisher. Launched in 1984, Rani Comics, like its chief
rival, Muthu Comics, relied on using translated versions of British comic-
book serials and newspaper strips, the most popular of these being the James
Bond comic strip, which was originally created for the Daily Express (U.K.)
in 1958 (Comicology, 2009). Rani Comics’ success arguably owed much to
the wide public exposure it gained from being sold through the extensive
distribution channels operated by its owner, the Tamil-language newspaper
Dina Thanati (Daily Thanati). India’s newspaper and magazine publishers
have historically relied on a complex network of wholesale distributors, re-
gional agents, retail outlets (such as bookstalls and lending libraries), and
street hawkers to service vast regional sales territories (Joshi, 1986: 216). The
Phantom made its debut in Rani Comics in 1990 and appeared in every second
issue until 1998, but only sporadically thereafter. However, it has been sug-
gested that Rani Comics’ sales suffered following the departure of its founding
editor, S. Ramajayan, which heralded a period of poor-quality translations
and an overall decline in production values (Comicology, 2009).27 Full-color
episodes of The Phantom appearing in Rani Comics from 2003 onwards were
apparently scanned directly from old copies of Indrajal Comics (Shedden,
2004). Despite switching to full-color printing, and an expanded 84-page
format, Rani Comics could not stave off declining sales and it ceased publi-
cation in 2005.
India’s comic-book industry may have been on the cusp of explosive
growth by the early 1980s, but the same could not be said for Australia, where
comics lost further ground to rival media formats. The Phantom was now
Frew Publications’ sole remaining title, which still posted average sales of
60,000 – 70,000 copies per issue throughout Australia, New Zealand, and the
South Pacific in the mid-1970s. But local publishers now had to contend
with color television broadcasting (launched in 1975), which was soon fol-
lowed by newer forms of audiovisual entertainment, such as videocassette
recorders and compact discs. As one Sydney newsagent remarked, “children
don’t need comics as much as they used to” (quoted in Porter, 1981: 30). Yet
children’s interaction with comics was changing and was no longer confined
solely to magazines. A 1984 survey of junior high-school students’ reading
habits across three Sydney schools found that they overwhelmingly preferred
humorous newspaper comic strips (e.g., Garfield), magazines (e.g., Australian
Mad) and European comic “albums” (e.g., Asterix) to other genres. More
worryingly for Frew Publications, the survey concluded that “adventure
comics” such as The Phantom “were not particularly popular” among stu-
dents (Hunt, 1986: 42 – 43).
Semic Press’s entry into the Australian market at this time occurred al-
most by chance, but would ultimately prove fortuitous for Frew Publications
— although it would not be without controversy. David Yaffa Jr. was repre-
senting the Yaffa Syndicate at the Frankfurt Book Fair in Germany in 1980
when he saw a Semic Press display featuring the Fantomen magazine. He
brought back sample copies to show Ron Forsyth, co-owner of Frew Publi-
cations. Impressed by the artwork, Forsyth authorized Yaffa Jr. to purchase
the Australasian publishing rights for Fantomen stories on behalf of Frew
Publications. The first Swedish-drawn Fantomen story to appear in Aus-
tralia was “The Ghost” (Lundström and Vallvé, 1972: 3 – 30), published in
118 Chapter Five
The Phantom, no. 730 (1981) and translated by Ron’s daughter-in-law, Astri
Forsyth. Frew Publications promoted it as a “new — different — story fresh
from The Phantom’s diaries,” never before published in Australia, but made
no mention of its Swedish origins. The change did not, however, go unno-
ticed by John Henderson, president of the Phantom Club (Australia) — a fan
organization — who made the following comments in the club’s Jungle Beat
newsletter:
Issue 730 is a new story which I believe originates from Sweden . . .
While I thought the story was basically a good one, with lots of fast-
moving action, I must admit to being a little disappointed with parts of
the script and some of the drawing. I think the inexperience of both the
writer and artist allowed The Phantom to get himself into situations, and
to make comments that he would normally avoid. (Henderson [attrib.],
ca. 1981: 6)
Nevertheless, Frew’s commitment to reprinting Swedish Fantomen stories in
Australia allowed the company to overcome its dependence on the slow trickle
of new Lee Falk–scripted stories from America and to infuse The Phantom
with “new” content without incurring the expense of commissioning locally
drawn stories. Frew Publications released two further Swedish-drawn stories
in 1981 (The Phantom, nos. 731 and 732), but waited until 1983 before repeat-
ing the experiment.
Australia would eventually become a significant export market for Semic
Press’s Fantomen series. Yet the Swedish company’s route to Australia does
not neatly conform to the center-to-periphery dynamic that has historically
characterized the cultural imperialism model of global media diffusion. This
commercial exchange was instigated, not by Semic Press, but through an
Australian intermediary (Yaffa Syndicate) acting on behalf of a client (Frew
Publications) which occupied a relatively dominant position within its own
“peripheral” market (Australia). This repeated the historical pattern of the
1920s and 1930s, whereby foreign media organizations initiated deals with
American feature syndicates and facilitated the acceptance of American
comic strips throughout international markets. The key difference here was
that, by the early 1980s, the center of comic-book production had — in the
case of The Phantom — shifted from the United States to Sweden.
Frew Publications faced further challenges following the appointment of

King Features Syndicate’s new Australian licensing representative. While the
Yaffa Syndicate still retained the newspaper comic-strip syndication rights
to The Phantom, its affiliated company — Yaffa Darlington Licensing — lost
the comic-book licensing rights to the series in 1987 (Intellectual Property
Reports, 1991), which were now held by Gaffney International Licensing. The
company’s founder, Fred Gaffney (b. 1946) — widely regarded as the “father”
of Australia’s media licensing industry (Jenkins, 2007; Schmidt, 2007) — was
reportedly keen to award The Phantom comic-book license to Robert Ungar,
whose company (Budget Books) had for years successfully repackaged British
and American comic strips in paperback editions for the Australian market.
Gaffney International Licensing allowed Budget Books to release four Phan-
tom comic-strip paperback collections throughout 1985 – 87. Not only was
this a commercially provocative act, but the Budget Books series’ superior
production values — and use of unedited Lee Falk stories — drew unwanted
comparisons with Frew Publications’ rather shopworn comic magazine.28
In 1987 Ron Forsyth and Lawford “Jim” Richardson approached Syd-
ney journalist and publisher Jim Shepherd (1933 – 2013) for advice on how
to revitalize The Phantom and thus defend their business from this wholly
unexpected competitor. “They were getting pretty old and, while they hadn’t
lost interest in The Phantom,” Shepherd recalled, “they needed someone who
could give them a few ideas about what could be done to kick it along a bit”
(quoted in Patrick, 2007b). Shepherd flew to New York and secured an ex-
tension of Frew’s publishing license for The Phantom comic book, after out-
lining his plans for rejuvenating the magazine to King Features Syndicate’s
international licensing representatives.
Returning to Australia, Shepherd learned that Richardson had died in his
absence, while Forsyth had been hospitalized after suffering a stroke. Shep-
herd bought out Richardson’s share of the company and became co-owner
of Frew Publications with Ron’s son, Peter Forsyth.29 Shepherd made cos-
metic changes to The Phantom, such as printing the covers on glossy paper,
and introduced his regular “Message from the Publisher” column, along
with the “Phantom Forum” letters page, in 1988. Following the retirement
of Frew’s long-serving cover artist Thomas (“Tommy”) Hughes that same
year, Shepherd hired Australian artists to design covers that reflected each
120 Chapter Five
issue’s story — something that Frew Publications had not consistently done

for decades.
Shepherd commissioned market research which revealed that the aver-
age age of readers (twenty years and upwards) was considerably older than
previously thought, and that many fans could remember pivotal scenes from
decades-old Phantom stories (Power and Pietrzykowski, 1995: 19; Shepherd,
1998: 11). Keen to capitalize on this overlooked audience, Shepherd enlisted
the help of Australian fans and collectors to reassemble Lee Falk’s earliest
stories from the 1930s and 1940s, many of which had never been reprinted
in their entirety by Frew Publications. The first of these restored episodes,
“The Phantom Goes to War” (Falk, Moore and McCoy, 1988 [1942 – 43]:
12 – 111) was, according to Shepherd, a “blockbuster sell-out” (1998: 11). The
story’s wartime setting resonated with Australian audiences, who, together
with Americans, shared the historical experience of battling Japanese forces
in the Pacific theater during World War II. Some readers considered it to be
a fascinating historical document in its own right, which challenged their
perceptions of the Phantom:
The Phantom Goes to War [was another favorite story] because by the
time I read that, I was old enough to understand propaganda, which
was fascinating. [The Phantom says] “This is war, Diana,” after he’s
just killed (!) a Japanese General. (Male respondent, 18 – 35 years old,
Australia, June 9, 2012)
By now, The Phantom was selling nearly 70 percent of each issue’s print run
(Power and Pietrzykowski, 1995: 21). Shepherd decided to package the forth-
coming 1,000th issue of The Phantom (no. 972, 1991) as a 290-page “block-
buster” edition, selling for the unheard-of price of A$10.00.30 Despite reser-
vations from the distributor, Gordon & Gotch — which believed Frew would
be lucky to sell 30,000 copies at most — Shepherd gambled on a 45,000-copy
print run, which sold out within a fortnight (Patrick, 2007b). Shepherd’s
success eventually allowed him to bypass dealing with Gaffney Licensing
International and negotiate a publishing deal with King Features Syndicate
directly — an apparently unprecedented arrangement.31
Frew Publications developed an eclectic publishing schedule that com-
bined “classic” Lee Falk stories and new Swedish Fantomen stories. But the
company remained dependent on Semic Press for most of its editorial con-
tent; by 1994, translated Fantomen stories accounted for nearly 70 percent of

the company’s annual output (Frew Publications, 1995: 314). Nevertheless,
Shepherd maintained that he was “ultra-selective” when choosing Fantomen
stories for the Australian market. Swedish stories that focused too heavily on
Scandinavian history, or which featured strong fantasy elements, were, he
claimed, not popular with Australian readers, and could cost Frew Publica-
tions between 5,000 – 8,000 “casual [reader] sales” for those issues.32
Frew Publications’ commitment to restoring early Lee Falk stories was
therefore a defensive strategy designed to counter frequent criticism of the
Swedish Fantomen episodes. Shepherd felt compelled to address the issue in
the magazine’s Phantom Forum letters page:
We continue to receive . . . letters from readers who are not enchanted
with the European stories . . . I have no intention of running letters
which are centered exclusively on an anti-European story theme. The
point has been raised, all at Frew have noted same, and there the matter
will rest. (Shepherd, 1989: 3)
However, the enthusiastic reception that met the rerelease of uncensored,
“classic” Lee Falk episodes suggests that Australian audiences had a greater
affinity with the politically conservative ethos of Phantom narratives from the
1930s and 1940s, which were frequently at odds with the more “progressive”
ideals that underscored many Swedish Fantomen stories. Therefore, while
Frew Publications remained economically dependent on the supply of new
Swedish stories, it had to take steps to ensure that it did not alienate its core
readership’s preferred (American) interpretation of the character.
Why was The Phantom allowed to undergo such a radical transformation
at the hands of his Swedish publisher during the 1960s? The answer arises,
in part, from the commercial decision taken by Åhlén & Åkerlund to cre-
ate its own content for the Fantomen magazine — a decision precipitated by
the death of longtime American artist Wilson McCoy, which threatened to
disrupt the flow of stories from the United States deemed acceptable to the
Swedish market. Thus, a commercial crisis gave rise to new creative opportu-
nities for the series’ Swedish publisher. Swedish authors and illustrators were
able to refashion the Phantom as a uniquely “Scandinavian” hero in ways they
simply could not achieve with other comic-book heroes (such as Batman or
Spider-Man), who were inextricably defined by their “American” outlook and
122 Chapter Five
origins. Thus began the process that would eventually see Sweden become an
international production node in The Phantom comics’ franchise. However,
the ongoing transformation of the Phantom would also take place far beyond
Sweden’s borders, nor would it be confined to the pages of comic books.
“The Ghost Who Walks” would come to take on many guises in Australia,
Sweden, and India in ways that would challenge the wildest imaginings of
his corporate gatekeepers.
ff
Chapter Six
One Hero, Many Masks
I
t did not take Diana Palmer long to realize that the “honeymoon” phase of
her marriage to the Phantom was well and truly over. Living in the Deep
Woods, and coping with the primitive living conditions of the Skull Cave,
Diana saw her husband for what he truly was — a costumed layabout who
spent his days chasing after nonexistent pirates. Diana reached her wits’ end
when the Phantom’s faithful wolf, Devil, attacked and killed a visiting Avon
Lady. Deprived of even these most basic feminine comforts, Diana killed
Devil and served up his remains to her unsuspecting husband for dinner.
This scene will not be found in any episode of The Phantom comic strip,
nor in the pages of The Phantom comic magazine. It was broadcast on Aus-
tralian television in 1978, when comedian Paul Hogan portrayed “The Ghost
Who Walks” on his top-rated sketch-comedy program, The Paul Hogan
Show, long before he became the world-famous star of Crocodile Dundee
(1986). The episode aired on the Nine Network soon after “The Wedding
of The Phantom” (Falk and Barry, 1993c [1977 – 78]: 70 – 91) was published
in Australia by Frew Publications. That very issue of The Phantom comic —
titled “Married at Last”— was being read by Hogan’s dim-witted housemate,
“Strop” (played by John Cornell), at the beginning of the segment.
This televised satire was a clear indicator of the Phantom’s entrenched
status in mainstream Australian culture. But it was also noteworthy for the
way in which it evoked the sexual interplay between the Phantom and Diana
Palmer portrayed in the comic strip, only to reduce it to the banal conven-
tions of a television sitcom, wherein the Phantom (Paul Hogan) becomes a
henpacked husband, while Diana Palmer (Delvene Delaney) is turned into a
nagging, frustrated housewife.
123
124 Chapter Six
This is but one example drawn from an eclectic array of unauthorized

media texts produced in Australia, Sweden, and India which have in turn
celebrated, mocked, and interrogated the world of the Phantom. Conveyed
through experimental films, television series, and subversive artworks, these
sometimes scandalous portrayals of the Phantom nevertheless exhibit a level
of fidelity to the original comic strip that has not always been evident in “au-
thorized” media adaptations of the Phantom.
Nor have these transgressive texts existed solely on the fringes of experi-
mental or underground media circuits. On occasion, King Features Syndi-
cate (and its international representatives) have formally sanctioned “alterna-
tive” versions of the Phantom which have been at odds with the character’s
official narrative, or which have even risked alienating loyal fans altogether.
Conversely, King Features Syndicate has not hesitated to seek legal recourse
against any unauthorized interpretations of the Phantom which threatened
its commercial interests. Their conflicting response suggests that there is a
tacit recognition, even at the corporate level, of the difficulties in sustaining
the stark official/unofficial binary that is frequently cited in order to justify
the legal measures used to deter the unauthorized use of trademarked media
properties. These subversive texts are nonetheless significant as reflections
of the Phantom’s popular standing in Australia, Sweden, and India and for
their capacity to address the racial, sexual, and political subtexts embedded
in the original comic strip, in ways that “official” adaptations seldom have.
The Celluloid Ghost
The resurgence of the “comic-book movie,” heralded by the blockbuster Bat-

man feature film (1989), might seem like a relatively recent phenomenon, but
superheroes flared across movie screens within a few short years of Super-
man’s debut in Action Comics in 1938. But whereas Superman’s initial fame
stemmed from his appearance in comic magazines, the same cannot be said
for most American comic-book characters, who today reach new audiences
via altogether different routes. As Elisaret Ioannidou observes:
Those outside the [comic-book] subculture [are] most likely to obtain
knowledge of the superhero . . . solely by means of their filmic adapta-
tions . . . [These] films introduce themselves to the public as the real
deal because ignorance of the comic books’ contents prevent direct com-
parison. (Ioannidou, 2013: 233)
The Phantom remains the exception which proves the rule, despite the fact
that he has been the subject of numerous film and television adaptations over
several decades. Print media have been chiefly responsible for exposing suc-
cessive generations of readers in Australia, Sweden, and India to “The Ghost
Who Walks,” and they still remain the key media outlet for the character. Ap-
proximately 80 percent of Australian, Swedish, and Indian fans surveyed for
this study first discovered The Phantom in a newspaper, magazine, or comic
book. Fewer than 5 percent of survey respondents first saw the character on
television or at the cinema — in fact, a greater number of fans (8.8 percent)
were introduced to The Phantom by a family member.
Nevertheless, Hollywood has long recognized the box-office potential of
comic-strip characters, whose exposure through newspapers nationwide had
already made them household names. In 1923 Universal Studios produced
the first of several comedies based on The Gumps (created by Sidney Smith),
making it the first live-action film adaptation of a comic strip. Their success
led to a spate of comedy “shorts” based on comic strips during the 1920s,
including Buster Brown (1925) and Bringing Up Father (1928) (Spears, 1956:
317 – 19). Adventure-serial comic strips, however, seemed ready-made for the
new trend of motion-picture serials, which were screened as “cliff-hanger”
episodes over several weeks, thus enticing viewers back to the cinema on a
regular basis to follow the drama to its conclusion. King Features Syndicate
moved swiftly into this market, enlisting Universal Studios to produce the
live-action Flash Gordon serial (1936), based on their science fiction comic-
strip drawn by Alex Raymond (1909 – 1956). The company subsequently part-
nered with Columbia Pictures, which produced a twelve-part serial based on
Lee Falk’s Mandrake the Magician (1939), starring Robert Hull in the lead
role. Falk, however, described it as “just terrible . . . Mandrake didn’t even
wear a moustache, which disappointed me” (quoted in Madison, 1996: 48).
When measured against the meagre production values common to many
motion-picture serials of its era, Columbia Pictures’ subsequent production
of The Phantom, released as a fifteen-part “chapter-play” in 1943, is a rel-
atively superior example of the genre. Tom Tyler (1903 – 1954), a physically
imposing actor described by some as “the Gary Cooper of B-films” (Harmon
126 Chapter Six
and Glut, 1973: 268), was cast as the Phantom, following his starring perfor-
mance in The Adventures of Captain Marvel (Republic Pictures, 1941), the
first live-action screen adaptation of a comic-book superhero. The Phantom
was directed by veteran filmmaker B. Reeves Eason (1886 – 1956), whose cred-
its dated back to the silent film era. The screenplay, written in part by Victor
McLeod (1903 – 1972) and Leslie Swabacker (1885 – 1955), adhered closely to
Lee Falk and Ray Moore’s original conception of the character.1 While only
13 percent of survey participants had seen the Columbia Pictures serial, the
majority of fans seemed to enjoy it as the distinctive product of a bygone era:
The serial is great for what it is, quite dated, but still a lot of fun. Tom
Tyler was a good Phantom in every way, and it is quite faithful to the
source material. (Male respondent, 18 – 35 years old, Norway, March 23,
2012)
The Phantom serial enjoyed a long afterlife following its original cinematic
release, judging by this reader’s account:2
I have a vague recollection of the serial which was re-screened in my
hometown cinema in the fifties. Lots of running around in the woods!
The character looked right, and must have made an impression, because
I remember dressing up and playing the part in my backyard! (Male
respondent, 50 – 65 years old, New Zealand, June 19, 2012)
The Phantom, however, endured a checkered screen career for several de-
cades thereafter. In 1961 Tele-Screen Productions, together with King Fea-
tures Television, produced a pilot episode of The Phantom starring Roger
Creed (1915 – 1997), but the series was never picked up by American television
networks. The Phantom later appeared in Popeye Meets the Man Who Hated
Laughter (1972), a bizarre and crudely produced animated telemovie screened
on the ABC network. The show, produced by King Features Entertainment,
was designed to showcase the company’s best-known comic strip characters,
including Flash Gordon and Mandrake the Magician, but as one critic later
remarked, “most of these characters were already well past their peak of
popularity by the time this film was made” (Hall, 2006).
“The Ghost Who Walks” would be reunited with his comic-strip compa-
triots in Defenders of the Earth (1986), an animated television series developed
by King Features Entertainment as a promotional vehicle for its “big three”
adventure-strip heroes: Flash Gordon, Mandrake the Magician, and The

Phantom. Set in the then-futuristic world of AD 2015, the series pitted its
stars against Flash Gordon’s arch-nemesis, Ming the Merciless, whose army
of Ice Robots threatened to plunder Earth’s vast natural resources. The Phan-
tom underwent an extreme makeover for the series. Taught the secrets of the
jungle by the Bandar natives of the Deep Woods, The Phantom now uttered
a single phrase — “I need the strength of ten tigers”— to temporarily acquire
super powers. However, The Phantom was stripped of his Colt .45 pistols,
and his Skull Ring now emitted a laser beam which left a “skull mark” on
their skin instead.
In a radical departure from their established comic strip scenarios, Flash
Gordon, Mandrake the Magician, and Lothar (Mandrake’s crime-fighting
companion) were accompanied by their on-screen children: Rick Gordon (an
athletic computer genius); Kshin (an Asian orphan adopted by Mandrake,
and proficient in martial arts); and L. J. (Lothar Jr., a “streetwise” high-
school student). The Phantom now had a teenage daughter, Jedda, who could
communicate telepathically with animals and possessed telekinetic powers.
Their inclusion, however improbable, was considered crucial to the show’s
success. Bruce Paiser, the president of King Features Entertainment, ac-
knowledged that comic strips like Mandrake the Magician and The Phantom
“were dropping out of newspapers at a fearful clip” and were dismissed by
many as “yesterday’s mashed potatoes” (quoted in Schwed, 1986: 6). Setting
Defenders of the Earth in the space-age future, and making the main heroes’
children central to the story line, was deemed essential in order to attract a
“younger audience” (Schwed, 1986: 6).
Defenders of the Earth was seen by nearly 15 percent of survey respondents,
but its portrayal of the Phantom was roundly criticized by most fans, who
otherwise enjoyed the series:
[It] was nothing special to remember, but I enjoyed watching it nonethe-
less. [I] did not like the “strength of ten tigers” bit about The Phantom,
as it contradicts [the] comic book character [who has no super powers].
(Male respondent, 18 – 35 years old, India, March 21, 2012)
Yet some fans acknowledged that, whatever its faults, Defenders of the Earth
arguably helped make the “television generation” aware of the Phantom in
ways that King Features Entertainment no doubt hoped it would:
128 Chapter Six
[It] would have been great when I was eight years old, but is hard to
watch for adults. Though some of the Phantom-centered episodes are
good fun, and it’s a nice way of introducing the character to kids who
don’t read comics. (Male respondent, 18 – 35 years old, Norway, March
23, 2012)
Comments such as these only reinforce how central electronic media had
become in the everyday lives of children, who had once been considered the
primary audience for comic books. This trend was now becoming evident in
Sweden, where, according to the editor Ulf Granberg, sales of the Fantomen
comic magazine began plummeting by 5,000 – 10,000 copies per issue during
the early 1980s. This was, he believes, a reflection of the rapidly changing
media environment:3
Comics were once a staple of Swedish children’s entertainment diet . . .

[but] in the 1980s, the picture of entertainment started to change . . .
children could rent a video for the cost of a comic book . . . and music
became more and more popular among [Swedish] children, who spent
more money on music [than on comics].4
Similar changes in the leisure habits of children and adolescents were already
apparent in Australia, and would gradually take hold in India throughout the
1990s. Making the Phantom relevant and appealing to the “video generation”
would continue to test the ingenuity of film and television producers for years
to come.
If Columbia Pictures’ production of The Phantom was made at the com-
mercial peak of Hollywood’s studio system, the feature-film version of The
Phantom (1996) was the product of an altogether different moviemaking era.
The story behind its development not only highlights the globalization of
American film production, but the project’s Australian genesis also under-
scores the character’s entrenched popularity “Down Under.” The Austra-
lian businessman Bruce Sherlock — a self-confessed Phantom fan — and
Peter Sjoquist (production manager on the Australian film Crocodile Dundee)
purchased film rights to The Phantom from King Features Syndicate after
meeting Lee Falk in 1987. Village Roadshow Pictures, an Australian firm
with extensive interests in hardtop cinemas and film and video distribution,
came on board as a production partner with Paramount Pictures (U.S.). The
film would be partly shot at the former company’s Warner Roadshow Movie
Studios based in Queensland, Australia, which — thanks to then-favorable
currency exchange rates between the U.S. and Australian dollars — became a
cost-effective, offshore production site for American film studios throughout
the 1990s (Patrick, 2015: 19 – 35).
Despite the film’s multimillion-dollar budget, The Phantom was in many
ways a throwback to the spirit of the Columbia Pictures “cliff-hanger” serial.
The film’s screenwriter, Jeffrey Boam (1946 – 2000), whose credits included
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), explained why he chose to set the
story in the comic strip’s original 1930s milieu:
The Phantom . . . holds to old-fashioned values like honor and integrity,
loyalty and courage . . . [The film] had to be in that period, because I
don’t think a lot of those ideas translate well into the present. (Quoted
in Scapperotti, 1995: 8)
The film’s star, Billy Zane, who first read the comic while filming Dead Calm
(1989) in Australia, publicly embraced the Phantom as a positive role model
(Paramount Pictures, 1996, n.p.). Simon Wincer, a veteran Australian film-
maker and lifelong Phantom reader, was chosen to direct the film. Despite
the cast and crew’s enthusiasm for the project, The Phantom was a box-office
failure, earning just $16,000,000 in ticket sales from its American theatrical
release against its $45,000,000 production budget (Hindes, 1996: 10).5
Nevertheless, The Phantom feature film arguably remains the best-known
screen adaptation of the character produced to date. Nearly 42 percent of
survey respondents had seen the film, but their opinions were often starkly
divided. Some Swedish fans, for example, felt it was at odds with the overall
tone of the Fantomen comic, which was increasingly pitched towards an older
audience by the mid-1990s:
The movie is very much a matinee adventure, and as such, I like it.
In Sweden, The Phantom [comic] then tried a darker, more grown-up
attitude, which this movie didn’t really fit, but I think it connected well
with the feel of the eighties’ [Swedish comic]. (Male respondent, 36 – 49
years old, Sweden, April 23, 2012)
Boam’s screenplay drew heavily on Lee Falk’s earliest comic-strip episodes,
“The Singh Brotherhood” (1936) and “The Sky Band” (1936 – 37), but some
130 Chapter Six
fans still felt the film took too many liberties with Falk’s original conception
of the character:
[The film was] pretty lousy. Five minutes into the movie, The Phantom
had injured or killed people (not just shoot any guns out of their hands),
ordered beer in a bar (instead of just milk), and showed his eyes without
the mask. These have been important characteristics in the magazine,
and the movie just made The Phantom into any other superhero in a
silly suit. (Female respondent, 36 – 49 years old, Sweden, July 12, 2012)
It is doubtful that King Features Syndicate would have been unduly con-
cerned with the objections raised by a vocal and articulate minority of die-
hard fans. It is far more likely that the company would have been vitally
interested in the film’s potential to generate wider public interest in the char-
acter’s moribund “brand,” which — if successful — would have generated
further revenues from the sale of licensed Phantom merchandise produced
to coincide with the film’s release. That the film clearly failed to do so would
have mattered far more to the company than the passionate critique of comic-
book fans.
Policing the Screen
The Phantom feature film may have strayed from fans’ collective vision of the
character, but it was nevertheless an official adaptation of the comic strip, for-
mally sanctioned by its trademark owner, King Features Syndicate. The same
could not be said, on legal or aesthetic grounds, for the Phantom’s controver-
sial reincarnation on Indian television. Betaal Pachisi was a Hindi-language
television serial directed by Sunil Agnihorti, which aired on the Doordar-
shan 2 (DD2) television network during 1997 – 98. Betaal Pachisi (played by
Shabaaz Khan) was a mysterious masked hero who rose from the grave every
100 years to reclaim his secret “bat cave,” deep in the fictitious Indian jun-
gles of Dongralu. Donning his red body costume, cowl, and black eye-mask,
Betaal Pachisi, accompanied by his white stallion and loyal Alsatian hound,
confronts his arch-nemesis, Heeralal, the “devil king.” Romantic complica-
tions arise when the beautiful Sonu (Sonu Walia) falls in love with Betaal,
to the annoyance of her archaeologist companion, Harry (Tom Alter), who
secretly yearns for her.
Sunil Agnihorti willingly conceded that his television series owed a con-
siderable debt to Lee Falk’s original creation:
I was inspired by The Phantom, I admit. When I first read these com-
ics, I used to wonder why no one was making a film about them, because
they had all the elements of a good film — love, action, adventure, and
an exotic atmosphere. (Quoted in Pinto, 1996: A7)
But as the series’ premiere drew closer, Agnihorti chose his words more care-
fully. While admitting that he originally hoped to produce an adaptation of
The Phantom, this did not eventuate due to protracted “legal wrangling”
(Sharma, 1997). With Doordashan now committed to broadcasting the series,
Agnihorti said he decided to “completely [forget] about the original Phantom
and [create] my own character” (quoted in Sharma, 1997).
While few television critics were swayed by Agnihorti’s claims about the
originality of Betaal Pachisi (Pinto, 1996: A7; Sharma, 1997), the series, in
a roundabout way, evoked the Phantom’s prewar Indian setting. It did so
through more than just boasting an Indian cast and crew, or by virtue of its
distinctive “Bollywood” aesthetic. (A dance sequence featuring Sonu Walia,
surrounded by pygmies, was seen in the first episode [Pinto, 1996: A7].) Ag-
nihorti had his hero forsake the Phantom’s “skull” emblem for the swastika,
a symbol common to Indian Buddhist worship. Betaal Pachisi can be viewed
as a parallel interpretation of The Phantom which amplified the Afro-Asian
setting and quasi-mythical aspects of the original text.
King Features Syndicate, however, took a less charitable view and filed
a lawsuit against Sunil Agnihorti with the Delhi High Court in April 1997.
King Features sought a permanent injunction preventing Agnihorti from
either making or releasing any television serial or cinematographic film enti-
tled either The Phantom and/or Betaal, and sought damages to the value of
Rs.5,00,500 ($91,000), with legal costs to be awarded in their favor (King Fea-
tures Syndicate vs. Sunil Agnihorti & Ors, 1997: 1 – 2). This lawsuit needs to
be understood in the context of the dramatic changes sweeping India’s comic-
book industry at that time. Throughout the 1990s, Bennett, Coleman & Co.
began implementing severe cost-cutting measures, which led to the closure of
Indrajal Comics in 1990 and the subsequent demise of The Illustrated Weekly
of India in 1993. Competition from television no doubt drove such changes;
not only had the number of household television sets increased eightfold to
132 Chapter Six
30,800,000 by 1991 (Bhatt, 1997: 154), but there was now greater diversity
of programming. Local cable television operators transmitted foreign satel-
lite telecasts (such as Hong Kong-based Star TV) directly to Indian house-
holds for a small fee, thus bypassing the monopoly, state-owned broadcaster
Doordarshan (Manchanda, 1998: 138). Indeed, Doordashan 2 was launched
as an entertainment channel in response to competition from rival Hindi-
language satellite broadcasters, such as Zee TV (Ninan, 1995: 154 – 175). Rina
Puri, editor of the Amar Chitra Katha comic book, recalled that when “the
Cartoon Network [TV] channel came to India [it] pretty much halved our
sales” (quoted in The National, 2011).
Despite this challenging environment, the New Delhi-based publisher
Diamond Comics purchased the comic-book rights to The Phantom from
AFI Features, which was now King Features Syndicate’s Indian representa-
tive. While Diamond Comics was best known for violent, nationalistic action
heroes like Dynamite (Rao, 1996: 41 – 42), the company’s managing direc-
tor, Gulshan Rai, maintained that The Phantom nevertheless appealed to its
working-class, Hindi-speaking audience: “The stories were simple, [offered]
interesting adventures and [were set in a] jungle environment.”6 The com-
pany repackaged The Phantom for its popular Diamond Comics Digest series,
which was published in Hindi, English, and Bengali editions. In an affidavit
filed with the Delhi High Court as part of King Features’ legal proceedings,
Gulshan Rai stated that annual sales of The Phantom comic magazine ex-
ceeded 4,000,000 copies by 1996, which underscored this emerging market’s
economic value to King Features Syndicate. Because the Hindi-language
edition of The Phantom was titled Betaal (meaning “ghost” or “specter”), Rai
argued that any planned broadcast of Betaal Pachisi would confuse television
viewers, who might think that the series was based on the comic magazine
(King Features Syndicate vs. Sunil Agnihorti & Ors, 1997: 6).
King Features’ lawsuit enumerated many points of similarity between the
two works, even claiming that the swastika symbol shown on Betaal’s belt
buckle in the television series strongly resembled “the peace sign” (i.e., the
“Good Mark”) ring worn on the Phantom’s left hand (King Features Syndi-
cate vs. Sunil Agnihorti & Ors, 1997: 6). King Features also expressed con-
cern that Betaal Pachisi would further infringe their copyright and trademark
ownership of The Phantom feature film, which was scheduled for staggered
release in international cinema markets throughout 1996 – 97 (King Features
Syndicate vs. Sunil Agnihorti & Ors, 1997: 2). The Delhi High Court, how-
ever, ruled in favor of the defendant, Sunil Agnihorti. While acknowledging
that the defendant had used ideas and “materials” contained in the plaintiff’s
comic magazines, the court found that defendant had “[used] them for a
different purpose” as a television serial, rather than a comic magazine. The
key difference in the opinion of the court was not so much the originality of
the idea itself, but the form in which that idea was expressed. Therefore, the
presentation of Betaal Pachisi as a television serial did not represent an in-
stance of copyright infringement (King Features Syndicate vs. Sunil Agnihorti
& Ors, 1997: 17).
King Features Syndicate could only have been dissatisfied with this out-
come. The company’s decision to seek an injunction against any broadcast
of Betaal Pachisi suggested a renewed corporate awareness of the character’s
economic potential as a multimedia licensing franchise, spearheaded by the
release of The Phantom motion picture. King Features’ financial commitment
to The Phantom was arguably now greater than ever before, and necessitated
legal measures designed to prevent others from “passing off” imitations of
The Phantom as original works. The controversy surrounding Betaal Pachisi
suggests that King Features Syndicate clearly felt that this television serial,
produced for a state-owned broadcaster capable of reaching millions of view-
ers, warranted a forceful legal challenge.
Ersatz Visions
The distinctions between authorized and unlawful interpretations of the

Phantom have not always been so starkly delineated — at least not within the
context of Indian cinema. Such ambiguities are evident in Bundal Baaz (1976),
a Hindi-language romantic comedy directed by Shammi Kapoor (1931 – 2011).
The story concerns a young daydreamer, Rajaram (played by Rajesh Khanna),
who longs to escape his poor village and pretends to be wealthy so that he
can marry his sweetheart, Nisha (Sulakshana Pandit), whose father wants her
to marry a famous boxer, Ranjit (Gopal Bedi). The film’s remarkable open-
ing scenes reveal Rajesh Khanna dressed as the Phantom, pursuing a gang
of bank robbers (led by Gopal Bedi) and chasing their getaway car along a
tree-lined boulevard before apprehending them in some nearby backstreets.
This “dream sequence” ends with Rajaram suddenly awakening in a student
134 Chapter Six
cafeteria, poring over copies of Indrajal Comics, and awkwardly explaining

to his sweetheart Nisha why he admires the Phantom. Whether Bennett,
Coleman & Co. knew of this “adaptation” is unclear, as they are not listed in
the film’s production credits — but it is difficult to imagine they would have
disapproved of such generous publicity for Indrajal Comics.
This same affectionate spirit was evident in Fanta (1973), an experimental
film directed by the Australian painter and “underground” filmmaker Garry
Shead (b. 1942). The film opens with a young man, played by artist Peter
Kingston (b. 1943), purchasing a copy of The Phantom from a newspaper
kiosk as he boards a Sydney Harbor ferry. As he furtively reads the comic,
he fantasizes about becoming the Phantom and dreams of rescuing a beau-
tiful female passenger, recast as the gangster’s moll, “Baby Jane” (played by
Wendy Whiteley, b. 1941), from the clutches of another passenger, trans-
formed into the evil crime boss “Alva Blowfoot” (Michael Hobbs). Briefly
overpowered by Blowfoot’s henchmen, the Phantom is tied to the tracks of a
railway overpass but is rescued by Baby Jane, and he eventually apprehends
Blowfoot and his gang. His mission accomplished, the film closes with the
Phantom, now dressed in his civilian guise of “Kit Walker,” disembarking
from the ferry.
If the television series Betaal Pachisi tried to conceal (however poorly) its
similarities to the Phantom, Garry Shead’s Fanta constantly drew attention
to its source material. The film is interspersed with close-ups of Frew Pub-
lications’ Phantom comic magazine, as the voice-over narration recites the
legend of “The Ghost Who Walks.” Peter Kingston, as the Phantom, knocks
out his opponents with a single punch, leaving a distinctive skull mark on
their jaw. But Fanta was as much a tongue-in-cheek protest as it was a fond
tribute to the original comic strip, as Peter Kingston explained:
We’re rebelling against emotionalism in the character. We like our [Phan-
tom] to be in the old, sterile mold. Today’s masked man interests me less
than the character he was years ago. (Quoted in Symons, 1973: 90)
Fanta was thus a nostalgic evocation of its creators’ preferred interpretation
of the Phantom, as recalled from the comic books of their childhood. Yet the
film never once discarded its “underground” patina, and was first screened
by the Sydney Filmmakers’ Co-op at the New Theater (Sydney) in 1973 (Sy-
mons, 1973: 90). Even though Fanta and Bundal Baaz were made within
a few years of each other, they were the products of two entirely different
filmmaking aesthetics. Nevertheless, both films celebrate the idea of an “ev-
eryman” figure who dreams of becoming the Phantom. Perhaps these creators
each sensed that their audiences identified — on some level — with The Phan-
tom, who stood in opposition to implausibly “fantastic” superheroes endowed
with powers from extraterrestrial forces (Superman), or via freak accidents
(Spider-Man).
Guerrilla Image-Makers
During the 1960s, American painters such as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein,
and Mel Ramos were among the key exponents of the Pop Art movement who
appropriated comic-book imagery in ways that drew attention to both the
banalities of mass media and the pretensions of “high art.” This practice was
adopted by alternative newspapers and magazines, which — together with
agitprop image-makers — freely plundered “official” Phantom narratives to
mount radical critiques of contemporary political and social issues.
Puss Magazine (1968 – 74) was a Swedish “underground” newspaper which
reveled in notions of political and sexual liberation, but which rarely shrank
from criticizing Sweden’s left-wing political groups. It published a full-page
collage of comic-book images, which depicted Superman (Stålmannen) and
The Phantom (Fantomen) being pursued by reactionary forces for inciting
proletarian rebellion. The sequence ends with the Phantom behind bars, de-
claring “Long live Marxism. Long live the people” (Davidson, 1982: 94 – 95).
Puss Magazine’s portrayal of the Phantom as a revolutionary Marxist hero
did, in a bizarre way, anticipate subsequent efforts made by Swedish writers to
infuse Fantomen with progressive, social democratic values during the 1970s.
However, it was unthinkable that Semic Press (as a subsidiary of the Bonnier
media conglomerate) would have ever allowed its flagship comic magazine to
denounce “Yankee imperialists” as “dangerous animals [who] have dug their
own grave,” as Puss Magazine freely did so (Davidson, 1982: 94 – 95).
Frew Publications’ promotional campaign for The Phantom took on an
altogether different meaning when it, too, was reimagined through the prism
of radical politics. In the late 1970s, the company designed a new poster to
promote The Phantom in newsagents, comic-book shops, and other retail-
ers. The poster’s image of a benign, smiling Phantom posing against a lush
136 Chapter Six
jungle backdrop was quickly adopted by an Australian activist group calling

itself Without Authority. Under their hands, the Phantom swapped his skull
emblem for an anti-uranium symbol and recited a radicalized version of the
“oath of the skull”:
I swear on the skull of my anti-uranium badge to devote myself to the
overthrow of Fraser, and to spend my life in the destruction of capital-
ism and the state.
Without Authority resituated the Phantom at the forefront of environmentalist
and left-wing political groups’ opposition to the decision made by Australia’s
reigning Liberal-National Party coalition government (led by Prime Minister
Malcolm Fraser) to permit uranium mining in northern Australia in 1979.
This group’s actions superficially conform to Henry Jenkins’s conceptual-
ization of media fans as “textual poachers” who “appropriate texts and reread
them in a fashion that serves different interests” (Jenkins, 2013: 23). Through
borrowing and reinterpreting images taken from “mass culture,” Jenkins ar-
gues that these fans are attempting “to articulate to themselves and others
unrealized possibilities within the original works,” and addressing concerns
“which often go unvoiced within the dominant media” (Jenkins, 2013: 23).
Fans’ creative endeavors, whether it be publishing newsletters or writing fan
fiction (fanfic), typically reflect their shared enjoyment and appreciation of a
popular media text, such as Star Trek or Beauty and the Beast, to use Jen-
kins’s own examples. Where groups like Without Authority differed from
self-styled “textual poachers” is that their appropriation of the Phantom had
less to do with any sentimental affinity with the character, and arose out of
political urgency instead.
Such conflicting impulses were on abundant display in Ghost Who Walks
Can Never Die, a visual survey of comic-book superheroes in contemporary
Australian art held at the Newcastle Region Art Gallery in 1977. Peter Kings-
ton’s array of wooden cutouts portraying various comic-book characters was
a centerpiece of the exhibition. The Phantom, too, remained a central focus
of Kingston’s work, as he later explained:
[These cut-outs] followed the love of comic books I shared with Garry
Shead — and when you look at it, The Phantom is a very 2-D character.
When you try to make them 3-D, I don’t think it works. I thought The
Phantom and all those crooks were extremely 2-D, so it was a perfect
cross-over to cut-out sculpture. (Quoted in Wilson, 2004: 62, 64)
Kingston’s cut-out diorama, The Wedding (1977) — like Paul Hogan’s televised
comedy sketch — paid tribute to the Phantom and Diana Palmer’s wedding,
with the happy couple flanked by Hero, Devil, and the Bandar pygmies’ chief-
tain, Guran. The work’s deliberately naive quality evoked the “primitive”
wood carvings of the Afro-Asian tribal cultures that lurked at the periphery
of the Deep Woods (Newcastle Region Art Gallery, 1977: 9).
While Kingston’s work is steeped in his abiding affection for the Phantom,
the work of the French-born artist and printmaker Franck Gohier (b. 1968)
is deliberately provocative and subversive. Gohier incorporates images from
British and American comic books to comment on his experience of life in
the “far north” of Australia, where he has lived since the mid-1970s (Angel,
2005: 72, 74). He frequently refers to the Phantom in his work to comment
on the historical tensions between European settlers and Aboriginal Austra-
lians. It’s For Your Own Good (ca. 2009) conveys a menacing ambiguity, as
The Phantom — with guns blazing — looms over a huddled group of “native”
children. But Gohier’s work also frequently undercuts the Phantom’s status
as the unelected ruler of the jungle. Big Boss (ca. 2012), for example, portrays
the Phantom slumped on the ground, impaled by a large hunting boomerang
— presumably hurled by an unseen Aboriginal warrior — and becoming the
victim of his own brutal brand of “jungle justice.”
The visual appeal of comic-book imagery, along with the public recognition
of the Phantom in particular, percolated down to community organizations
and government agencies throughout Australia. In 1988, the Department of
Community Services and Health commissioned Redback Graphix (Sydney)
to design an AIDS-awareness poster for Torres Strait Islander communities
in northeastern Australia. Collaborating with indigenous health care workers,
Redback Graphix produced a poster design based on The Phantom comic,
which was “popular with the locals” (Zagala, 2008: 80). The poster depicted
a black superhero, Condoman (wearing a costume closely modeled on the
Phantom’s uniform), who brandished a packet of condoms, and urged peo-
ple to practice safe sex using the motto: “Don’t be shame, be game — use
condoms!”7
This provocative reimagining of the Phantom as a virile, sexually active
138 Chapter Six
superhero is perhaps no less surprising than the character’s portrayal as a

radical political activist. Yet the simple act of foregrounding a black man in
the role of a “superhero” also draws attention to just how infrequently Afri-
can characters have appeared on the covers of the Australian edition of The
Phantom comic book, except as hostile “savages,” or as urban lawbreakers
— a trend which has also been observable in both Fantomen (Sweden) and
Indrajal Comics (India) for several decades.
The visual representation of Condoman, clad in his skin-tight costume,
highlights a further sexual dimension of the superhero genre. Gillian Free-
man’s sardonic review of mass-market erotic literature acknowledged that,
for most children, comic-book heroes like Batman “merely wear curious and
exciting clothes” (1967: 178). But when juxtaposed against adult sadomaso
chistic literature, they convey an altogether different image:
In almost every comic there now appears to be an equivalent male [to Bat-
man], masked or goggled, booted, dressed in rubber, studded with brass
or steel, sometimes the enemy, often the hero. Analogous with every form
of fetishism, the comic-strip characters could appear unchanged in devi-
ationist literature. (Freeman, 1967: 179)
Scenes of sadomasochism were a regular occurrence in Lee Falk’s earliest
Phantom stories. In “The Sky Band” (Falk and Moore, 1996 [1936 – 37]), the
Phantom found himself caught in a sexual tug-of-war between the Sky Band’s
icy blonde leader, the Baroness, and her seductive lieutenant, Sala. However,
when the Phantom rejects the Baroness’s sexual overtures, he soon feels the
lash of her whip.
The Phantom dynasty relies on the eldest male of each generation fathering
an heir to carry on the eternal crusade against piracy, greed, and cruelty. “The
Ghost Who Walks” therefore refutes the notion of sexual renunciation com-
mon to many comic-book superheroes, who, according to John Shelton Law-
rence and Robert Jewett, typically devise strategies for “segmenting the ele-
ment of sexual need out of their personalities”— most notably in Clark Kent’s
refusal to disclose his true identity to Lois Lane, who remains infatuated with
Superman (2002: 42 – 43). However, some texts have speculated about the level
of sexual frustration that lurks beneath the Phantom’s stony demeanor. The
Australian humorist Robert M. McGuinness, in his comic-book satire “The
Bantam,” shows him overcome with lust when Guran tells him of a white
woman, lost in the jungle, who seeks his help: “Hmm . . . ! I haven’t seen a
white woman in a long time now” (McGuinness, 1965). McGuinness tapped
into the subterranean sexual themes which, according to Gerald Early, were
key to the popularity of the “jungle comics” genre:
Jungle comics were . . . constantly teasing the reader with his own ado-
lescent fantasy about the jungle as a lawless place where interracial sex or,
more accurately, interracial rape, may break out at any moment. (Early,
2006: 66)
The Phantom newspaper comic strip was never allowed to match the sexual
suggestiveness common to many American “jungle comics” of the postwar
era, but Lee Falk nevertheless relied on plots which employed the threat
— sexual or otherwise — that dark-skinned “savages” posed to defenseless
white women who strayed too far into the jungle. The Phantom was also fre-
quently shown “taming” rebellious women by placing them across his knees
and spanking them. Carl Johan de Geer (b. 1938), the avant-garde Swedish art-
ist, filmmaker, and former contributor to Puss magazine, produced the litho-
graphic print “Fantomen i Skanör” (1978), a sado-erotic collage of “spanking”
images taken from the Fantomen comic strip, which also played on the city of
Skanör’s popular reputation as “the St. Tropez of Sweden.”
Sanctioned “Poachers”
The erotic aspects of The Phantom comic strip, which had been progressively
watered down by Lee Falk over the years, were brought to the fore in an ex-
hibition held at the DC Art Gallery (Sydney) in February 1991. It was there-
fore doubtful that many of the people visiting this exhibition had ever seen
the Phantom portrayed in such a provocative manner. The Australasian Post
magazine, best known for its bawdy humor and pinup girls, filed this report:
Although the comics portray The Ghost Who Walks as a clean-living
chap who never indulges in sexual high-jinks, many artists were eager
to explore The Phantom’s sexuality. (Australasian Post, 1991)
David Nelson’s painting, Take That . . . Phantom, showed the purple-clad
hero, hands bound tightly behind his back, being flayed with a riding crop
by a buxom blonde — a scene that would not have looked out of place in the
140 Chapter Six
comic strip’s earliest installments. Ron Waugh’s untitled painting, however,

was even more provocative, as it showed the Phantom cupping another man’s
face, leaning in to kiss him, while his wolf, Devil, looked on in bewilderment.
Although such works openly reveled in sexual transgression, they gave no
clue about the corporate imperative behind the Phantom Art Show being held
at the DC Art Gallery. This exhibition was mounted as part of an extensive
public relations exercise branded “The Year of The Phantom,” launched to
commemorate the fifty-fifth anniversary of The Phantom comic strip. The
campaign, orchestrated by Holt Public Relations, was designed to boost pub-
lic awareness of The Phantom franchise, which was held by Gaffney Inter-
national Licensing.8 These transgressive images of the Phantom were de-
liberately exploited in order to generate media coverage, and to further the
commercial ambitions of the character’s Australian franchise owners (Holt
Public Relations, ca. 1990). These nominally “subversive” artists had, in ef-
fect, become officially sanctioned “poachers.”
Gaffney International Licensing had previously authorized the use of the
Phantom in ways that were far removed from the original comic strip. The
Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) obtained permission to use the Phan-
tom in a series of educational comics intended for Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander communities. Their decision to use the Phantom, ahead of other
comic-book superheroes, acknowledged the character’s popularity among in-
digenous communities throughout Australia. As the Aboriginal lawyer and
land rights advocate Noel Pearson (b. 1965) recalled:
When I was a kid, the old and . . . young read comic books, cowboy stories
and magazines . . . [which] would make their way around the village . . .
The Phantom was, of course, premium. (2009: 37 – 38)
The AEC published two comics, The Phantom Enrols & Votes (1988) and
Vote 1 Phantom (1990), which were designed to help readers understand how
they could enroll to vote and cast ballots in Australian elections. The scripts
were written by Alistair Legge (AEC) and the stories illustrated by members
of Garage Graphix, a community arts organization based in western Sydney,
which trained and employed Aboriginal women as arts workers and screen
printers (Hall, ca. 1988: 12 – 13). The comics were crudely drawn and the
images of the Phantom himself appear to have been copied directly from the
comic magazine. What is remarkable about these comics is how they deliber-
ately relocated the Phantom (along with his Skull Cave) to outback Australia,
where he is portrayed as a respected participant in the affairs of indigenous
Australians.
The comics occasionally poke fun at “The Ghost Who Walks”; when he
admits to Dot, an Aboriginal woman, that he doesn’t know how to complete
his ballot paper, Dot muses: “Phantoms are all the same, big on muscle, small
on brains” (Legge [attrib.] and Garage Graphix, 1988: 5). But the comics
do, however, address the vital political concerns of indigenous voters that
seldom trouble the “mainstream” (white) electorate. Disillusioned by local
councilors’ willingness to let “outsiders” destroy their land, the community
urges the Phantom to stand as their candidate. Hitting the campaign trail,
the Phantom addresses a public gathering:
Are you sick of people destroying your land? Are you tired of outsiders
ripping you off? Then do something about it! Vote for me, and I’ll do my
best to put it right. (Legge and Garage Graphix, 1990: 5)
The Phantom wins the election and warns his fellow councilors that the days
of “business as usual” are over, and that he would ensure that the council
would “look after” people and give them what they want (Legge and Garage
Graphix, 1990: 14).
The Family Court of Australia commissioned a similar educational comic
book, The Wisdom of The Phantom (1997), to provide Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander communities with information about the court’s counseling
services. The Phantom returns “home”— now situated somewhere in north-
ern Australia — and learns from his wife, Diana, that their friends Pug and
Ruby have separated and are in dispute over custody rights to their children.
The Phantom urges Pug and Ruby to seek advice from the Family Court’s
counselors, reassuring them that the court employs people “who know us and
our ways” and who will “respect our traditions” (Abbott et al., 1997: 6 – 7).
Not only has the Phantom been transplanted to outback Australia, but he
now identifies with his adoptive community and also regards its indigenous
culture and customs as his own.
The original version of The Phantom comic magazine has also been
adapted to serve the educational needs of Australia’s Aboriginal communities.
In the early 1990s, the Wangka Maya Pilbara Aboriginal Language Centre
(Western Australia) translated a Phantom adventure into the Manyjilyjarra
142 Chapter Six
language as a learning aid for younger readers, to supplement its indigenous

language preservation scheme (Wangka Maya PLC, 2007: 14). Their chosen
text was a Swedish Fantomen episode, taken from the Phantom Chronicles,
which told of the Phantom’s battle against slave traders in Bengali during the
1850s (Guaraz and Bess, 1985) — a story which the organization arguably felt
might resonate with its intended audience.
These educational comics raise an intriguing issue. The basic premise of
The Phantom —“that a white man in the jungle protects the simple savages
by spreading law and order” (Strömberg, 2003: 81) — in many ways echoes
Aboriginal Australians’ historical experience of European colonization. Why,
then, should such a “paternalistic” hero as the Phantom remain so popular
with indigenous Australians? Garry Kinnane, an Australian author and lit-
erary biographer, may have touched upon one possible explanation when he
recalled his encounters with Aboriginal musicians in northern Queensland
during the early 1960s:
A number of the Aboriginal guys play guitar, sing cowboy songs. I wish
they would learn some Australian folk songs, but . . . it doesn’t speak
to them as much as . . . Country and Western music does, which is not
so culturally specific, or being American, has nothing to do with the
white Australian culture that they feel excluded from. With this non-
Australian material, they feel free to make the sentiments in them their
own. (2012: 186)
The Phantom, being of American origin (although not always identifiably
“American” in appearance or outlook), is perhaps sufficiently removed from
mainstream Australian popular culture that it allowed Aboriginal readers to
similarly interpret the character according to their own schema.
Frew Publications was by now also taking steps to make The Phantom,
if not more “Australian,” then at least to steer it away from the Eurocentric
focus of the Fantomen series, and closer to the spirit of Lee Falk’s stories.
In 1990 the company published the first Phantom episode to be conceived
entirely in Australia, “Rumble in the Jungle,” which pitted the Phantom
against the world heavyweight boxing champion, Mike “Typhoon” Turner
(Shepherd and Chatto, 1990a). The story, written by Jim Shepherd, reflected
his former background as a television sports broadcaster and was illustrated
by Keith Chatto (1924 – 1992), a veteran Australian comic-book author and

illustrator of the 1940s and 1950s, who had since worked as a television cam-
eraman. “Rumble in the Jungle” was, according to Frew’s cofounder, Ron
Forsyth, “a traditional Phantom story in which good triumphs over evil,”
which did not rely on “fantasy [and] special effects” (Forsyth, 1990: 2).
Shepherd and Chatto collaborated on two further stories, “Return of the
Singh Brotherhood” (1990b) and “The Kings Cross Connection,” which
brought the present-day Phantom to Australia for the first time — and fea-
tured a cameo appearance by Australia’s then-serving prime minister, Rob-
ert Hawke (1992: 275 – 302). Despite being among Frew’s top-selling issues
in their year of release, Shepherd later maintained that the stories’ prohibi-
tive production costs made it financially impractical to commission further
Australian-drawn episodes.9 Whereas Semic Press could offset the cost of
producing new Fantomen stories through foreign syndication sales, no such
avenues were apparently available to Frew Publications. Thus, the econom-
ics of global comics publishing continued to favor American and European
companies with international exposure over their Australian counterparts.
There have been other formally sanctioned portrayals of the Phantom
which have taken the character far from seriously. In 1984, Semic Press pub-
lished a satirical “sealed section” in the Fantomen comic magazine, titled “A
Secret Life” (Leppänen, 1984). This piece gleefully ridiculed the Phantom as
a muscle-bound buffoon who turns the simple errand of greeting his mother-
in-law’s ship at the Morristown docks into a disastrous farce, giving President
Luaga of Bangalla the perfect opportunity to secretly meet Diana Palmer for
a romantic tryst.
The Australian comedian “Austen Tayshus” (Jacob “Sandy” Gutman, b.
1954) released a hit record, “The Phantom Shuffle” (1984), which was accom-
panied by a suitably irreverent music video clip (Fitzgerald and Murphy, 2011:
156). Bored with life in the Deep Woods, the Phantom (as portrayed by Aus-
ten Tayshus) heads off to Sydney, where he dreams of becoming a superstar
rapper, only to be dismissed as a costumed freak. “The Phantom Shuffle” was
duly advertised in The Phantom comic magazine, but Austen Tayshus’s status
as a chart-topping performer was of greater commercial value to The Phantom
media franchise. The runaway success of his first comedy record, Australiana
(1983), would ensure that his new single (and accompanying music video)
144 Chapter Six
would gain high exposure on Australian radio and television stations, and
promote the character to the youth consumer market.
King Features Syndicate has, as with the case of Betaal Pachisi, tried to
prohibit or otherwise “control” unauthorized portrayals of the Phantom. But
the company has also taken steps to manage the international circulation of
competing versions of the Phantom which have been licensed for different
territorial markets. In the early 1990s, Marvel Comics (U.S.) commissioned
two Australian comic-book illustrators, Glenn Lumsden (b. 1964) and Dave
De Vries (b. 1961), to produce a new miniseries, The Phantom: The Ghost
Who Walks (1995), to be sold via specialty comic-book stores in the United
States. Lumsden and De Vries were allowed to reimagine the Phantom as a
hi-tech, urban warrior, but Marvel Comics stipulated that they must play
down the original comic strip’s colonial outlook. According to De Vries,
“having The Phantom sitting on his throne in the bush ruling superstitious
natives . . . just won’t wash anymore” (quoted in Abbott, 1993: 47).
But King Features Syndicate stipulated that Marvel Comics’ miniseries
could only be sold in Australia via comic-book stores, where it would not
directly compete with Frew Publications’ edition of The Phantom, which
was distributed nationally via newsagents and convenience stores. While De
Vries was disappointed with the decision (“We’d like to see [it] in areas where
there aren’t any comic shops” [quoted in Harvey, 1995: 7]), Jim Shepherd,
managing director of Frew Publications, was understandably happy with the
outcome:
[De Vries and Lumsden’s version] doesn’t make any sense, he’s an en-
tirely different Phantom, he’s carrying all these weapons, and he’s a real
tough guy, which has nothing to do with the Phantom tradition. I’m
delighted King Features took the stand they did. (Quoted in Harvey,
1995: 7)
The legend of the Phantom is based on a lie. For centuries, the Walker
family dynasty has fabricated the myth that the Phantom is immortal. But
readers worldwide know all too well that the role of the Phantom has been
played by twenty-one men for over 400 years. These men, the eldest male of
each generation of the Walker clan, have surrendered their own identities to
ensure that the world believes that there is only one true Phantom —“The
Ghost Who Walks, Man Who Cannot Die.” Similarly, countless writers and
artists from the United States, Australia, Sweden, and India have sustained
The Phantom franchise through their own interpretations of the character,
which have challenged, extended, and sometimes rewritten the series’ “offi-
cial” narrative history. Under their creative guidance, there has been not one,
but many “Phantoms.”
So, which version of the Phantom, if any, is the real one? For decades now,
filmmakers and visual artists of all stripes have created their own versions of
the Phantom — sometimes with the approval of the character’s legally recog-
nized owners, but more often than not without their formal blessing. But the
absence of any legal imprimatur does not make these works any less valid,
nor do they necessarily diminish the character’s popular appeal. Even at their
most critical or subversive, these works are testimony to audiences’ affection
for the Phantom, especially in Australia, Sweden, and India. The character’s
corporate handlers have come to recognize the unintended benefits such ex-
posure might bring to their trademarked property, and have only selectively
challenged “unofficial” versions of the Phantom that were deemed a direct
threat to their commercial interests. The Phantom truly is, to borrow Joseph
Campbell’s phrase, “the hero with a thousand faces” (1975). But which of
those faces can ever be said to be his true countenance depends entirely on those
who create it, and those who look upon it, and the unspoken exchanges that
take place between them.
ff
Chapter Seven
Fans of the Phantom
S
ometimes, reading The Phantom comes with a heavy burden of
responsibility — as Lee “T. J” Hooker of Sydney, Australia, found out.
Walking along a busy city street, Hooker saw a man pin his girlfriend
by the throat against a shop wall. Armed with only an umbrella and
some barely remembered martial arts lessons, Hooker intervened and helped
the woman escape, but not before receiving some well-aimed punches for his
trouble. Hooker initially berated himself for not “[breaking] the guy’s face,”
but he later shared the following thoughts with his fellow Phantom fans:
Okay, so I didn’t have “fists of steel” . . . but when it came to the crunch,
The Phantom in me jumped out and took over . . . You may come face-
to-face with the forces of evil, and you won’t know what to do, but if you
are a fair-dinkum Phantom person, that little spark of Phantom inside
will decide for you. (Hooker, 1986: 11)
This is, perhaps, an extreme example of fan loyalty to a comic-book hero.
But it nonetheless illustrates both the heroic qualities that readers find most
admirable about the Phantom himself and the extent to which fans — or some
of them, at least — personally identify with the character.
This book has, until now, been preoccupied with examining the politi-
cal economy of global comics production by documenting the roles that in-
stitutional actors (e.g., newspaper feature syndicates and publishers), along
with media industry professionals (e.g., editors, writers, and illustrators) have
played in sustaining The Phantom media franchise in the United States, Aus-
tralia, Sweden, and India. While this approach helps us better understand the
mechanics and economics of media production, it cannot explain why readers
like Lee “T. J.” Hooker sometimes act the way they do. Nor can it articulate
147
148 Chapter Seven
individuals’ often intense level of personal identification with media texts. In

order to understand the actions of Hooker and others like him, we must now
ask who, in fact, reads The Phantom — and why?
This chapter will begin to address these and other questions by drawing
on the findings of the Phantom Comic Book Survey, which gathered demo-
graphic data from hundreds of readers from Australia, Sweden, and India.
One of this survey’s key aims was to determine whether the popularity of The
Phantom in these three countries was attributable to the intrinsic appeal of
the character himself, or if it owed as much to the comic strip’s shared pub-
lishing history in Australia, Sweden, and India. Such a complex question can,
as it turns out, only be answered by canvassing readers’ opinions, along with
insights from the comics’ creators themselves, and placing them against the
backdrop of the international comics industry which was beset by challenges
and changes throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
Studying Comic-Book Audiences
These survey findings take on greater significance after considering the de-
velopment of audience studies research, along with the discipline’s engage-
ment with comic books and their readers. The formal study of audiences
— particularly media audiences — evolved alongside the proliferation of mass
communication media throughout the twentieth century. The direction of
audience studies has frequently veered between competing (Anglo-American)
theoretical and methodological approaches that are used to understand how
audiences interact with mass media. The roving intellectual focus of audience
studies has been influenced by cultural and political shifts within academia
itself, the advent of new media technologies (cinema, radio, social media), and
the “discovery” of active audience formations (e.g., media fandom).
These factors have also directed the study of comic-book and comic-strip
audiences since the 1940s. The first great outpouring of academic studies of
comic-book readers coincided with the medium’s explosive growth during
the 1940s and 1950s, particularly in the United States.1 The dwindling num-
ber of comic-book audience studies published since the 1950s is a telling
indicator of the medium’s diminished cultural status, which has seen comics
supplanted by television and successive forms of household audiovisual en-
tertainment. The relative dearth of American studies of comic-book readers
published in the last 15 – 20 years attests to comic books’ relegation from a
mass medium to what is merely a fan-centered subculture.2
Audience studies can nevertheless draw attention to issues of audience
agency and oppositional behavior that might otherwise be overlooked in
sociopolitical analyses of mass media and communications. Revisiting Mar-
tin Barker’s case study of the controversial 1970s-era British comic Action
demonstrates how audience members can be discerning, self-aware cultural
consumers. In 1986 – 87, ten years after the magazine’s cancellation, Barker
sought out former Action readers to discover what “they thought about [the]
comic” and compare their views with Action’s critics (1989: 51), and he re-
ceived 137 responses to his three-page questionnaire (1989: 314 – 17; 2002: 68).
Barker found that, while the comic’s “casual/regular” readers chiefly enjoyed
Action as “mindless” entertainment, the magazine’s “committed” readers val-
ued Action because it was “punkish,” anti-authority, and thought-provoking
(1989: 60). Barker concluded that when discussing Action as a comic book,
its readers were in agreement; but when asked to consider Action as a social
document, they evaluated it quite differently (1989: 60).
The following discussion of survey findings will demonstrate that Austra-
lian, Swedish, and Indian respondents were equally capable of making artic-
ulate, reflective (and frequently humorous) observations about The Phantom
and their own role as fans. It will reveal how people from three distinct na-
tional cultures can embrace and interpret a shared media text — which itself
is the product of another “foreign” culture — in surprising and frequently
unexpected ways.
Who Reads the Phantom?
The findings presented in this chapter — and featured elsewhere throughout

this book — are taken from an international, online survey of Phantom fans
which obtained both demographic and qualitative data from a targeted sample
of comic-book readers (aged eighteen years and over) in Australia, Sweden,
and India. The goal was to invite readers from these three countries to share
their opinions about The Phantom, their exposure to the character in different
media, and (where relevant) their participation in comic-book fandom. The
survey was conducted online from March 18, 2012, to March 16, 2013, and
received 595 completed questionnaires during this twelve-month period.3
150 Chapter Seven
The majority of respondents came from Australia (50 percent), followed by

Sweden (39 percent) and India (6 percent). A further 5 percent of survey par-
ticipants came from outside these three countries, the most numerous being
from — in descending order — Finland, the United States, and Norway. The
comparatively small number of Indian respondents seems at odds with the
character’s longevity in that country. This author posted messages on Phan-
tom fan websites and message boards, inviting Indian readers to share their
thoughts about this apparent statistical anomaly. One Indian participant of
the Phantom Phorum website based one possible explanation on their own
family’s engagement with The Phantom:
While there are many comics readers in India, there are very few “fa-
natic fans” of a particular character . . . For example, if buying or read-
ing Phantom comics, or following his strip in [the] newspaper, are crite-
ria for calling a person a “Phantom fan,” then there are four such “fans”
in my family. Still, I am the only one who knows about [this] survey,
and has participated. Then there’s the problem of how many Phantom
readers are netizens, too? . . . Kids who spend a lot of time on the Net
are not into [The Phantom], while those [“netizens”] who still read The
Phantom . . . may not be visiting any comics-related [websites]. (Phan-
tom Phorum, 2012)
On the surface, this seems an entirely reasonable explanation, but it does
not account for the proliferation of English-and Hindi-language websites
dedicated to The Phantom and/or Indrajal Comics, nor those broadly dedi-
cated to Indian comic books.4 This reader’s explanation does, however, raise
intriguing questions about how different levels of reader interest in a partic-
ular comic book might define their relative status as “passive” or “active”
comic-book fans.
The vast majority of survey participants were male (85 percent). The pro-
portion of female participants (15 percent) may seem low, but these figures
nevertheless indicate that The Phantom attracts a larger female readership
than most comparable American superhero comics, which, according to U.S.
industry sources, has hovered between 5 and 10 percent since the 1990s (Ny-
berg, 1995: 205; Healey, 2009: 145, 160). Readers aged 18 – 35 years accounted
for 38 percent of survey respondents, followed by those aged 36 – 49 years (34
percent). Yet this survey also attracted a relatively high number of respon-
dents aged 50 – 65 years (22 percent), who might not otherwise conform to
the popular image of comic-book “fans.” Indeed, as one 75-year-old survey
participant wryly noted:
My wife thinks I’m crazy buying this silly comic every fortnight [and] she
wants to know what to do with my collection when I pass away. SELL
them, my love. (Male respondent, Australia, August 2, 2012)
This high level of survey participation by older readers suggests that The
Phantom continues to captivate readers who might have otherwise stopped
reading comic books altogether.
Most survey participants could best be described as “rusted-on” readers,
with 82 percent of readers indicating they had been reading Phantom comic
magazines for ten years or more. Among those Phantom comics currently
published outside the United States, the Australian edition of The Phantom
was the most popular (31 percent), followed by the Swedish Fantomen maga-
zine (24 percent), and the Swedish Fantomen Christmas annual, or julalbum
(14 percent).
Readers’ interest in The Phantom was not confined to those comics cur-
rently published in Australia, Sweden, and India. Nearly 13 percent of re-
spondents indicated that they also read “foreign” editions of The Phantom
comic, particularly those previously issued by Gold Key Comics, the Charl-
ton Comic Group, and other American publishers. This might help explain a
statistical discrepancy, wherein the number of survey participants who claim
to have read Indian editions of The Phantom (128 [21 percent]) clearly exceeds
the number of respondents who nominated India as their country of residence
(35 [6 percent]). Thus we have comic-book fans living outside India who ac-
tively acquire “foreign” examples of Phantom comics for their collections.
Readers’ interest in foreign-language comics has undoubtedly been fueled
by the proliferation of Phantom-related websites, blogs, and message boards
since the mid-1990s. The most popular of these among survey participants
were Fantomen.org (Sweden, 28 percent), The Deep Woods (Australia, 27
percent), and ChronicleChamber.com (Australia, 17 percent). Internet auc-
tion sites such as eBay have also made it easier for Phantom fans worldwide to
purchase international editions directly from fellow collectors. Although fans
152 Chapter Seven
frequently upload and share scanned images taken from Phantom comic mag-
azines and newspaper strips via websites, blogs, and social media platforms,
only 17 percent of survey participants stated they had downloaded digitally
scanned copies of old Phantom comics. The demand for “pirated” digital
editions may not be so great in countries such as Australia and Sweden, where
back-issue Phantom comics remain relatively plentiful, even if they are not
always affordable.5 Yet this still seems at odds with the widespread percep-
tion of younger media consumers’ avowed preference for digital technologies.
However, just as fans regard The Phantom newspaper comic strip and comic-
book narratives as the “definitive” version of the character (against which all
others are measured), their enjoyment of these same narratives appears inex-
tricably linked to the tactile experience of reading them in printed formats.
To “read” The Phantom in any other way is, perhaps, unthinkable.
The Phantom’s Former Fans
“The Ghost Who Walks” can exert a vise-like grip on his most loyal follow-
ers, many of whom have spent much of their adult life in his company. But
not everyone who grew up reading The Phantom remained loyal to the series.
Of the 595 readers from Australia, Sweden, and India who participated in
the survey, approximately 167 respondents (28 percent) were identified as
former Phantom comic-book readers. Many of them could also be described
as “rusted-on” fans, with 62 percent of this group claiming they had read The
Phantom for ten years or more. So why did they stop reading after all this
time? Fifty-four respondents (41 percent) stated they had either “outgrown”
or became “bored with” the comic, while a further 46 respondents (27 per-
cent) said they had stopped reading comics altogether.
Some fans grew disenchanted with the series after publishers made unwel-
come changes to the comic itself. In its attempt to revive sales, Semic Press
repackaged Fantomen as a full-color magazine to coincide with the comic’s
fortieth anniversary issue, which was distributed with a facsimile copy of the
first issue from 1950. But the move was not universally welcomed; one Swed-
ish reader said they “really hated [it] when the comic started to be in color”
and stopped reading Fantomen altogether (male respondent, 18 – 35 years old,
May 2, 2012). Even loyal readers who kept buying the comic in the wake of
these changes still had their reservations:
The transition to color was painful, but necessary. The people who [are
responsible for the] coloring [have] to shape up and look at the old black-
and-white issues to bring back the magic [of] The Phantom. (Male re-
spondent, 36 – 49 years old, Sweden, November 23, 2012)
Similar complaints were made about the Australian edition of The Phantom
comic magazine. One reader’s decision to cease buying the comic was also
bound up in the growing distaste for the dramatic premise of the comic strip.
“The poor production quality of Frew’s comics was a factor. [They had] hor-
rible covers,” the reader said. “I also think that the premise of The Phantom is
dated and racist” (male respondent, 18 – 35 years old, Australia, May 31, 2012).
Most former readers, however, gave more prosaic reasons for no longer
reading The Phantom. These included undertaking college-level studies, the
pressures of raising a family, or no longer being able to afford purchasing
Phantom comics on a regular basis. One reader in particular found more com-
pelling distractions in life than reading The Phantom: “[I] got my motorcycle
license and discovered women with loose morals” (male respondent, 18 – 35
years old, Australia, August 31, 2012).
Why Do They Like the Phantom?
The story of the Phantom has unfolded over several decades and has been
crafted by many hands across several nations. It has therefore evolved into a
rich, complex narrative which can appeal to readers on entirely different lev-
els. Some readers enjoyed the character’s visual makeup, while others felt the
Phantom’s appeal was strongly tied to his fantastic Afro-Asian world. Many
survey participants also cited his mythic status as “The Ghost Who Walks”
as a key reason for his enduring popularity. These disparate responses are
best summarized in the following reader’s comments:
It’s hard to say what I like best about The Phantom . . . I like the orig-
inality of The Phantom and his world . . . The theme of the man who
cannot die, yet is mortal . . . I like the idea of a hero who is a stern and
deadly foe of evildoers, a mysterious masked avenger whose symbol is
the skull, while being a true hero and protector of the innocent . . . Most
of all, I like his exotic & mysterious home in the Deep Woods, where
civilization has not yet reached . . . I love the jungle stories, and the
154 Chapter Seven
stories of the mountain princes next to the jungle. (Female respondent,

50 – 65 years old, Australia, July 27, 2012)
Even when readers singled out a specific aspect of the Phantom’s persona or
remarked on a particular aspect of his fictional world, it was only to highlight
the singularity of Lee Falk’s creative vision.
Fans frequently took the opportunity to prove that the Phantom was the
first comic-strip superhero, whose influence on the genre has — in their eyes
at least — never been sufficiently acknowledged. “He is the original superhero
— [he has] no powers, just wit and strength,” according to one reader. “He
is noble, but with a harder edge, kind of like a Batman of the jungle” (male
respondent, 18 – 35 years old, Australia, May 31, 2012). Others drew on their
detailed knowledge of the strip’s history to prove that the “Caped Crusader”
was modeled after the Phantom:
It should be noted that the idea of a secret identity was pioneered by
[Lee] Falk with The Phantom, and that Bruce Wayne could have been
modeled on Falk’s original candidate for The Phantom’s secret identity,
Jimmy Wells. (Male respondent, 50 – 65 years old, Australia, January
25, 2013)
In many respects, the Phantom is a “fantastic” comic-book hero possessing
physical strength and agility developed to an almost extraordinary level, but
one who remains essentially plausible:
He was essentially a “normal” man who was highly trained, with lots
of cool resources. “If the same thing happened to me,” I thought, “I
could be The Phantom.” I mean, there was no way I was going to let a
[radioactive spider] bite me [like Spider-Man], and I wasn’t going to zap
myself with radiation [like the Hulk]. (Male respondent, 36 – 49 years
old, Australia, May 31, 2012)
The Phantom was a superhero without super powers, a mortal being who was
destined to be killed in the line of duty. It was this sense of “normality” which
allowed readers to identify with the Phantom in ways they simply could not
do with other comic-book superheroes.
Other readers, of course, simply like the Phantom because he was an un-
complicated, two-fisted action hero. For one Indian reader, who complained
of being overfed with “Gandhian morality” during his childhood, seeing “the
Phantom kicking ass was a welcome release” (male respondent, 36 – 49 years
old, November 19, 2012). Others were drawn to the Phantom’s embodiment
of “old-fashioned” notions of masculinity — he was, as one Australian reader
put it, “strong, fast, agile and knowledgeable in ‘manly’ pursuits, [such as]
hunting, gathering, tracking [and] fisticuffs” (male respondent, 18 – 35 years
old, March 24, 2012). Readers also admired the Phantom’s adherence to his
firm moral code; as one survey participant observed, the Phantom, unlike
other comic-book heroes, “never treaded the grey line between right and
wrong . . . he knows what’s right and lawful, and does his best to uphold it”
(female respondent, 18 – 35 years old, Australia, May 31, 2012). It was for these
reasons that another reader suggested “The Phantom is a great role model to
any young person who reads the comics” (male respondent, 18 – 35 years old,
Brazil, March 7, 2013).
The Phantom no doubt shared many of the superficial traits common to
most American comic-book superheroes which, according to Amy Kiste Ny-
berg, catered almost exclusively to “adolescent male power fantasies that nat-
urally hold little appeal for women” (1995: 208). Yet some female survey par-
ticipants confessed that they identified with the Phantom instead of his wife,
Diana Palmer, as seen in the following account from one Swedish reader:
When I was very young, I identified myself with The Phantom, and
wanted his life . . . [Diana Palmer] was a cool, UN-employed girl that
could look after herself . . . but I always identified with The Phantom . . .
I never really thought that I couldn’t be him because I was a girl. (Fe-
male respondent, 36 – 49 years old, April 25, 2012)
The series’ exotic jungle setting, teeming with wild animals and exotic flora,
was a major drawing card for readers. But for one Australian reader, growing
up in Papua New Guinea —“very much like the jungle of Bengalla [sic]”—
provided her with the perfect backdrop that allowed her to imagine herself
as the Phantom: “Even though I am a female, I could see myself being a do-
gooder like The Phantom, and [fighting] crime, pirates, and baddies” (female
respondent, 36 – 49 years old, Australia, August 15, 2012).
The historic sweep of the Phantom Chronicles allowed both Lee Falk and
his Swedish counterparts at Semic Press to create stories which gave female
readers the opportunity to truly imagine themselves as “The Ghost Who
156 Chapter Seven
Walks.” One Swedish reader said she enjoyed the stories appearing in Fan-
tomen featuring Julie Walker, the twin sister of the seventeenth Phantom, who
briefly took her injured brother’s place to become the first female Phantom.6
“I am a woman,” she said, “so maybe I liked the ‘feminism’ [of those] stories”
(female respondent, 18 – 35 years old, January 21, 2013).
Yet other readers admired the Phantom’s dual role as husband and father,
and his embodiment of “traditional” family values:
He’s a good bloke. [That he is] a devoted father and loving husband who
is now carrying the torch of the family business is probably one of the
reasons why I liked him. If one has great respect for their father, grand-
father and so on, wouldn’t it be reasonable that they are drawn to a hero
with the same respect? (Male respondent, 18 – 35 years old, Australia,
August 11, 2012)
Female fans also enjoyed following the turbulent romance between the Phan-
tom and Diana Palmer. One Australian reader said “The Wedding of The
Phantom” was among her favorite stories: “After all those years of The Phantom
courting Diana, it was a lovely resolution to his old-fashioned wooing” (female
respondent, 50 – 65 years old, April 25, 2012). Stories about the marital interplay
between the Phantom and Diana were also popular with another Australian
reader, who felt they showed a “softer side” of the Phantom, which “enhances
his character and makes it more interesting for the girls” (female respondent,
50 – 65 years old, August 28, 2012).
The “Adopted” Superhero
The notion that the Phantom somehow stood apart from the costumed super-
heroes who followed in his wake further enhances his reputation as a “non-
American” superhero among survey participants. This made the Phantom
culturally palatable to international audiences in ways that Superman or Bat-
man simply were not. Some readers went so far as to endorse the Phantom’s
personal values as a reflection of their own country’s self-image, despite the
character’s American provenance:
Ironically, [The Phantom is] part of the Australian cultural image, [even
though it isn’t] written by an Aussie. I think it’s his understated way of
doing things, championing [the] weak and looking after a mate, that has
appealed so much to Australians. (Male respondent, 36 – 49 years old,

Australia, June 3, 2012)
Such views were echoed by one Swedish reader who said that in addition
to protecting the innocent and being a kind, loyal friend to those who knew
him, the Phantom also kept a low profile —“not unlike Swedes in general, I
suppose” (male respondent, 18 – 35 years old, June 15, 2012).
Readers’ ability to identify the Phantom as a “home-grown” comic-strip
hero was sometimes made easier when it was read alongside American comic
strips. One Swedish reader drew comparisons between The Phantom and
Johnny Hazard, an American thriller/espionage strip which appeared in the
Fantomen magazine for many years, to illustrate this difference:
[The Phantom] is tastefully understated — if such a thing is possible in
comic strips — and lacked the ugly American jingoism of [secret agent]
comics [like Johnny Hazard]. It would not surprise me if the reason why
The Phantom has been such an international success is that it is, [even] in
the Lee Falk stories, in no way US-centric, and appeals equally to people
all over the world. (Male respondent, 36 – 49 years old, October 6, 2012)
The character’s tenuous links to American culture might go some way to-
wards explaining how Semic Press was able to infuse its Fantomen stories
with a distinctively Scandinavian outlook. The gradual transformation of the
Phantom into a “Swedish” hero was, according to one reader, a reflection of
Sweden’s political consensus throughout the 1970s and 1980s which cham-
pioned “social justice, [the] social democratic state, anti-racism [and] family
values” (female respondent, 18 – 35 years old, Australia, May 31, 2012).
The very ubiquity of Phantom comic books in a foreign market also helped
convey the impression that it was somehow a domestic, rather than imported,
cultural product. As one Indian reader recalled, “The Phantom was so pop-
ular in India that many readers used to believe The Phantom was created by
an Indian — I know several artists who wanted to ‘draw’ The Phantom for
Indrajal Comics” (male respondent, 18 – 35 years old, November 22, 2012). On
a more prosaic level, even the material quality of foreign-edition Phantom
comics convinced readers that they were purchasing a “local” product:
For some reason, when I was in my teens, I had always assumed that it
was an Aussie comic, not flash and glossy and perfect like [the] US prod-
ucts, but rather rough around the edges — particularly the old newspa-
158 Chapter Seven
per strips and [the] Frew Publications [comics] before they [used] glossy
covers. So to me, even now, it seems very Australian. (Male respondent,
36 – 49 years old, Japan, June 2, 2012)
Whereas Semic Press (Sweden) and Bennett, Coleman & Co. (India) initially
published the Phantom comic magazine in color, Frew Publications opted to
print their version in black and white, using cheaper paper covers, for the Aus-
tralian market. Although this practice was adhered to for decades, largely as a
cost-saving measure, it lent The Phantom a frugal, down-market image which
further signified the magazine’s — and the character’s — essential difference
from glossy, full-color American superhero comics.
The Pleasures of Reading
While some readers occasionally dreamed of being next in line to occupy the
Skull Throne, for others, just reading The Phantom was a simple pleasure that
offered them a temporary respite from their daily cares: “I still read them after
30 years — a great way to unwind at [the] end of the day” (male respondent,
50 – 65 years old, Australia, July 21, 2012); “A good 10 – 15 minute read to turn
the brain off from everyday life” (female respondent, 36 – 49 years old, Aus-
tralia, August 8, 2012); “The comic is a way to escape from reality for an hour
or so” (male respondent, 18 – 35 years old, Sweden, June 15, 2012). Yet some
survey participants forged an emotional connection with the character that
went well beyond simply reveling in his adventures:
The father/son continuity was a big emotional grab for me, as I had lost
my father at 14, and The Phantom spoke to this loss I was experiencing
(I also liked stories that showed the transition from one Phantom to
another). (Male respondent, 36 – 49 years old, Australia, March 23, 2012)
Just as the mantle of the Phantom was handed down from father to the eldest
son in the Walker dynasty, so too was the “family tradition” of reading The
Phantom frequently passed on from one generation to the next:
My uncle brought [Fantomen] comic books home as a kid during the
’70s. His father, my grandfather, disliked this, since he shared a nega-
tive attitude towards comics with many others of his generation — but
when he started to read the comic himself, he got hooked! . . . Whenever
we visited my grandparents, I knew we could find a bunch of Fan-

tomen [comics] between the pillows in the living room sofa . . . It was
something that three generations could share an interest [in], and enjoy.
(Male respondent, 18 – 35 years old, Sweden, April 6, 2012)
The joys of reading The Phantom were not always uniformly shared within
some families. One Australian reader admitted that he only ever read the comic
at the insistence of his uncles, “who had all read The Phantom, and who took
it as a given that I should, too” (male respondent, 18 – 35 years old, September
4, 2012).
Nostalgia can also be the spur for many forms of fan activity, such as
collecting artifacts associated with a media text or a popular pastime. John
Bloom’s study of adult baseball card collectors in the United States found
that, for many collectors, this activity “reflected an effort to find and re-
establish a stable sense of order from the cultural symbols of their past” (2002:
70). For these collectors, baseball cards were reminders of their childhood,
and thus connoted “a memory that is uncomplicated and straightforward”
(Bloom, 2002: 71). Reading The Phantom also provided some survey partic-
ipants with a nostalgic conduit to their own childhood. A 63-year-old sur-
vey participant, reflecting on why he still occasionally bought The Phantom
(“My wife thinks it very odd”), said the magazine allowed him to reconnect
with his “very happy childhood growing up in Australia in the 1950s” (male
respondent, Australia, September 13, 2012). Nor was this nostalgic impulse
confined to readers from the postwar “baby boom” generation, as the follow-
ing account demonstrates:
Every Thursday after school, we would go with mum and do the food
shopping and [visit] McDonalds and I’d buy my [Phantom] comic book . . .
We’d get home, unpack [the groceries] and I’d run upstairs and put it . . .
in order with my other Phantom comics . . . and my brother would do the
same with his Conan comics . . . [Then] we’d eat Maccas [McDonalds]
and watch Friends on TV as a family . . . I loved the ’90s. (Male respon-
dent, 18 – 35 years old, Australia, May 31, 2012)
But such nostalgic yearning can, over time, be displaced by a sense of obliga-
tion. One Australian respondent admitted that he’d read most of the stories
many times over, and didn’t need to buy any further Frew Publications edi-
160 Chapter Seven
tions, but he still thought that “not purchasing Frew issues would just seem
wrong.” Concerned about the company’s future prospects, he felt obliged
to “keep supporting” the comic book which he declared had made a “big
impact” on his childhood (male respondent, 18 – 35 years old, April 27, 2012).
The Phantom could also prove to be informative and an educational read-
ing experience for some, especially when it came to the Swedish episodes
based on historical events. “Fantomen [contained] a lot of stories based on
true historical material,” said one reader, “[and] this made me interested in
history as a subject” (male respondent, 36 – 49 years old, Sweden, June 28,
2012). Teachers also acknowledged the comic’s educational benefits:
Another thing I like is . . . the fact that, as readers, we get to delve into
[The Phantom Chronicles]. I’m a history teacher . . . and [I] love this idea
of a legacy hero, who can essentially travel through time. (Male respon-
dent, 18 – 35 years old, Australia, July 25, 2012)
The Phantom’s historical exploits even inspired some readers to take up un-
usual athletic pursuits. One Swedish fan, recalling how much the Fantomen
comic meant to him as a child, revealed that he took up fencing after reading
many of the episodes set in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries which
featured dramatic sword-fighting scenes (male respondent, 36 – 49 years old,
June 11, 2012).
Favorite Stories and Storytellers
During the last eighty years, few writers and artists have dared to radically
alter Lee Falk’s original conception of The Phantom. Yet the series has unde-
niably changed over this long period, sometimes at the behest of Falk himself,
and at other times under the direction of those who followed in his wake.
But these changes have also been influenced by the commercial directives of
feature syndicates and magazine publishers, as well as by changing audience
tastes and attitudes. This complex mix of economic and creative pressures
therefore has a direct bearing on the different types of comic strips and comic
books that are made available to reading publics throughout the world. This
became all too clear when Australian, Swedish, and Indian readers were
asked to choose their favorite Phantom stories. Their choices reveal as much
about the prevailing publishing practices in each of these countries as they

do about their devotion to “The Ghost Who Walks.”
When asked to select their favorite Phantom adventures, few readers strug-
gled to come up with a list of their preferred stories, of which the following
is but one example:
All the earlier stuff illustrated by Ray Moore was terrific . . . it was
moody, atmospheric, and unique. Plus, that era allowed the scripts to
be more adventurous and fleshed out . . . instead of the stilted stuff we
got in the mid ’90s. “Little Toma” and “The Phantom Goes to War” are
prime examples. Wilson McCoy’s art, although minimalist, was perfect
for the character . . . Lee Falk’s storytelling really came into its own
[with] “The Childhood of The Phantom.” (Male respondent, 18 – 35
years old, Australia, March 24, 2012)
This response, from an Australian reader, is interesting because it refers to
both stories and artists taken from the first two decades of The Phantom comic
strip, a time when many fans felt that Lee Falk was at the peak of his creative
powers. It also reminds us how Australian audiences were privy to the earliest
Phantom stories (drawn by Ray Moore), soon after the series’ American debut,
and that were continually reprinted by Frew Publications for decades thereaf-
ter. This was not the case in either Sweden or India, where local comic-book
publishers initially gave preference to later stories drawn by Wilson McCoy or
Sy Barry. (In fact, Lee Falk and Ray Moore’s first-ever Phantom story, “The
Singh Brotherhood,” was not reprinted in the Swedish Fantomen magazine
until December 1965.)
While some fans preferred the older, “classic” Phantom narratives of the
1930s – 1940s era, others chose more recent stories as their favorites, on the
basis that these were their first exposure to the Phantom:
The first one [I read] was about Queen Samaris [Falk and Lignante,
1988 (1961 – 62)], [who] remained young as long as she never fell in love.
Eventually she was reduced to ashes when she said she loved The Phan-
tom. A boyfriend (not exactly a boyfriend, I was 10 at the time) had a
picture of the ashes in his wallet. (Female respondent, 50 – 65 years old,
Sweden, May 12, 2012)
162 Chapter Seven
Swedish readers were more likely to nominate Swedish-drawn stories, since

these appeared more frequently in the Fantomen magazine than the latest
American episodes, which were usually published in the annual Fantomen
julalbum. But again, Swedish fans’ choices were often based on the first sto-
ries they had read:
It is hard to just choose some of the adventures, but I will try to list
SOME of my favorites: “Zombiemakaren” [“The Zombie Maker,” no. 19,
2000]; “Häxdoktorns Hemlighet” [“The Witch Doctor’s Secret,” no. 20,
2000]; [and] “Ett dödligat val” [“A Deadly Choice,” no. 22, 2000]. I chose
these three stories because they were the first Phantom comics that I read,
and I have bought every number since then. (Male respondent, 18 – 35 years
old, April 22, 2012)
Readers sometimes chose their favorite Phantom/Fantomen stories on the
basis of their preferred artist. The work of the Spanish-born illustrator Jaime
Vallvé (1928 – 2000) was frequently singled out for praise; one reader described
his work from the 1970s as “sublime,” and compared him favorably to the
American comic-book artist Will Eisner (male respondent, 36 – 49 years old,
Denmark, December 6, 2012).
Vallvé was the first — and, in the eyes of some readers, the best — artist to
work on the “historical” Swedish stories that focused exclusively on the Phan-
tom’s ancestors, which were presented as untold episodes from The Phantom
Chronicles. The factual basis for these stories was especially appealing to
some readers:
I enjoy the stories . . . that are combined with historical themes . . .
when [The Phantom] interacts with historically important people and
makes a fictive mark in history. It makes an exciting twist. (Female re-
spondent, 18 – 35 years old, Sweden, November 7, 2012)
Several readers elected “Duel in Venice” (Worker and Leppänen, 2015a [1986];
2015b [1986]) as their favorite historical adventure, which focused on the tran-
sition from the first Phantom to his son, as they fought to defend the island
of Malta against the Turks in 1536. As one reader said, “[It had] fantastic
[artwork] and a heroic story that really gets your blood pumping” (male re-
spondent, 18 – 35 years old, Sweden, June 4, 2012).
These historical episodes gave writers the opportunity to “kill off” the
Phantom’s ancestors, which, as one survey participant pointed out, gave these
stories “a deeper sense of danger.” As a result, they were “a little darker in
tone,” which felt as though they were “more aimed at an adult audience” (fe-
male respondent, 18 – 35 years old, Sweden, June 17, 2012).
Whereas Australian and Swedish readers enjoyed a plentiful supply of new
and “classic” Phantom stories in local comic magazines, Indian audiences
were not so fortunate. Several Indian readers lamented the dearth of Phantom
comics available to them. “The Phantom [comic] is no longer published in
India, other than the random reprint,” one reader declared. “It is quite tragic”
(male respondent, 36 – 49 years old, June 28, 2012). Such claims — to be dis-
cussed in the next chapter — were not entirely correct, but The Phantom was
no longer as widely available to Indian readers as it once was through Indrajal
Comics or Diamond Comics during the 1980s and 1990s, thanks, in part, to
increased competition from television.
The Phantom, Rebooted
Similar pressures were also being felt by Semic Press in Sweden at this time,
which compelled the company to make dramatic changes to Fantomen which
both excited and alienated readers. These changes were most evident in
“Election in Bengali” (Reimerthi and Lindahl, 1994a; 1994b), which several
survey participants chose as one of their favorite Swedish episodes featuring
the present-day Phantom. This controversial story line came about during a
turbulent period for the Swedish Fantomen magazine. When Jonas Bonnier
(b. 1963) was appointed publisher of Semic Press in 1991, he urged then-
editor Ulf Granberg to develop a long-term strategy to improve the comic’s
sales figures. In December 1992, Granberg convened a two-day summit of
writers, artists, and editorial staff to debate the future direction of Fantomen.
This was the first of the “Team Fantomen” story conferences, where it was
decided to make the Phantom more realistic — or, as Granberg put it, to
“turn another screw” in order to heighten the drama.7
Claes Reimerthi (b. 1955), who had written for Fantomen since 1984, pro-
posed an epic story line which would do just that. “Election in Bengali” saw
the Phantom’s longtime friend, President Lamanda Luaga (who had gov-
erned Bangalla for decades), lose the presidential election to a malevolent
outsider, Kigali Lubanga, whom Granberg described as a “black Napoleon.”8
164 Chapter Seven
Reimerthi’s goal was to overturn readers’ familiar conception of the Phantom

and his world:
[My] view back than was that The Phantom’s life was too sheltered, that
he was too safe . . . I had these seven pillars that The Phantom used as
crutches, like the Jungle Patrol [and] President Luaga . . . these made
things easy for him, and I wanted [to] make things tough for him . . .
We wanted someone who was a bad guy as President, who opposed The
Phantom.9
“Election in Bengali” cast dark shadows across the Phantom’s world, which
was being torn asunder by the ruthless President Lubanga. One Swedish
reader remarked that “The Phantom [has] never [seemed] so dark and hope-
less” and praised the story for its realism (male respondent, 18 – 35 years old,
April 6, 2012). Another Swedish reader enjoyed this long-running story’s
focus on the “[political] turmoil and conspiracies” which wracked Bangalla
following Lubanga’s victory (male respondent, 36 – 49 years old, July 3, 2012).
The story, when first published in Sweden, was supported by a costly
and unprecedented marketing campaign which generated enthusiastic media
coverage throughout 1994 – 95. However, “Election in Bangalla” only briefly
reversed the magazine’s declining sales, which continued unabated once the
publicity ceased.10 Ulf Granberg recalled that readers quickly tired of the
story’s political intrigue: “They’d complain by saying ‘If I want to read poli-
tics, I’ll watch the [TV] news — please don’t put it in Fantomen.’ ”11 Swedish
audiences, it seemed, no longer cared for the intrusion of “real-world” politics
that was once the hallmark of Fantomen during the 1970s. But even greater
changes awaited Fantomen in 1997, after the Bonnier family sold Semic Press
to Egmont International Holdings, the Danish publisher which owned the
rights to Sweden’s biggest-selling comic book, Kalle Anka & C:o (Donald
Duck). In keeping with the company’s preference for “juvenile” comic-book
brands (such as Walt Disney), Egmont gradually tilted Fantomen towards
a younger age group, which helped stabilize sales at around 35,000 – 40,000
copies per issue by the late 1990s (Pilcher and Brooks, 2005: 248).
For some readers, these newer Swedish episodes still remained preferable
to Lee Falk’s work on The Phantom comic strip throughout the 1980s and
1990s. One Australian fan stated that he preferred Phantom Chronicle ad-
ventures produced by Swedish creators because they were made specifically
for comic books:
The older [newspaper] strips are good, but tend to be a little monoto-
nous, and the artwork isn’t as interesting, due to the original format in
which they were published. (Male respondent, 18 – 35 years old, July 25,
2012)
Such comments suggest that readers could make clear distinctions between
episodic newspaper comic strips and self-contained comic-book narratives,
and how the spatial boundaries of each format required different approaches
to visual storytelling. Every episode of an adventure-serial comic strip must
partly recount the previous day’s installment, while advancing the plot fur-
ther, and foreshadowing what is to come in the following day’s newspaper.
Such techniques are, according to Kathleen J. Turner, entirely necessary to
“aid the recall of readers who have engaged in twenty-four hours of other
activity since they last read the funnies” (1977: 27). But as the space allocated
to newspaper comic strips gradually shrank, it became ever more difficult
for adventure-serial comic strips to sustain dramatic tension in such a com-
pressed format.
These constraints became all too obvious whenever Lee Falk’s later ep-
isodes of The Phantom were collated into comic-book format, which only
emphasized their repetitious tempo and truncated scripts. One survey par-
ticipant said she almost gave up reading The Phantom comic strip during the
1980s due to Lee Falk’s “monosyllabic” dialogue and “ridiculously simple”
stories (female respondent, 50 – 65 years old, Australia, July 27, 2012). Nor
were some fans impressed by Sy Barry’s replacements, after the series’ long-
time artist retired in 1994. “I must say that [the] comics where the artwork is
by George Olesen and Fred Fredericks are woeful to the point of painful,”
confessed one Australian reader. “[Wherever] I see their names, I really strug-
gle to overcome the dreadful artwork to enjoy the story” (male respondent,
36 – 49 years old, May 2, 2012).
The death of Lee Falk on March 13, 1999, however, posed considerable
difficulties for King Features Syndicate. Falk had worked on The Phantom
until his death, and his wife, Elizabeth Falk, continued writing the comic
strip under his byline until July 1999. Falk’s eventual successors would be
drawn from the ranks of Sweden’s “Team Fantomen.” Claes Reimerthi was
appointed writer for the weekday and Sunday episodes of The Phantom comic
strip, a position he held throughout 1999 – 2003.12 But it proved to be a chal-
lenging assignment for Reimerthi:
166 Chapter Seven
There were lots and lots of rules, some I couldn’t live with, such as The
Phantom had to be in every episode, and you weren’t allowed to do
flashbacks . . . The “Swedenized” Phantom is easier to write [as] you
can swap between jungle, historical, and city adventures.13
“Team Fantomen” would, ironically, furnish King Features Syndicate with

the American team that would eventually take over the full-time production
of The Phantom newspaper strip. Tony De Paul (b. 1954), a former journalist
who first wrote for Fantomen in 1993 (De Paul, Felmang, and Ferri, 1993),
occasionally alternated with Reimerthi as writer on The Phantom through-
out 1999 – 2003 and eventually became the strip’s full-time writer. Paul Ryan
(1949 – 2016), who jointly illustrated The Amazing Spider-Man comic strip
during 1992 – 1995, drew his first story for Fantomen magazine in 2001 (Raab
and Ryan, 2001) and was subsequently hired to replace George Olesen on The
Phantom comic strip in 2005 — a role he held until his death in 2016.
“Team Fantomen” not only provided a talent pool for King Features Syn-
dicate, but it also infused The Phantom newspaper comic strip with elements
taken from the Fantomen comic magazine. Claes Reimerthi initially adapted
his comic-book scripts originally written for Fantomen and used them as
story lines for the newspaper comic strip. In other instances, writers have
“borrowed” aspects of the Fantomen continuity and incorporated them into
the American newspaper strip. Tony De Paul also made frequent use of the
apartheid nation state of Rhodia (originally conceived by Magnus Knutsson
for Fantomen in 1972) in the daily narratives of The Phantom comic strip. He
did so to good effect in “The Python Strikes Back,” which saw an African
terrorist cell fake Diana Palmer’s death and have her secretly imprisoned by
Rhodian authorities as part of an elaborate revenge plot against the Phan-
tom (De Paul and Ryan, 2011). This epic story line, which originally ran in
newspapers worldwide from August 24, 2009, to May 7, 2011, was cited by
several readers as one of their favorite recent episodes of The Phantom. One
Australian reader enjoyed it because “[It took the comic] out of its usual
format and challenged The Phantom as a person” (male respondent, 18 – 35
years old, March 25, 2012).
“The Python Strikes Back” foregrounds the creative and economic links
between the Swedish comic magazine and the American newspaper strip. Tony
De Paul and Paul Ryan, both former contributors to Fantomen, produced this
American newspaper sequence of The Phantom, which was then sold by King
Features Syndicate (via its international representatives) to Sweden, Australia,
and India, where it was serialized in local newspapers and was subsequently
compiled and reissued in local editions of The Phantom comic magazine.
“Team Fantomen” thus made a vital contribution towards sustaining The
Phantom comics franchise at a critical moment in its long publishing history.
For some people, reading The Phantom remains nothing more than a sim-
ple form of escapist entertainment. Yet as we have seen here, a good many
people did more than just passively “read” The Phantom. For some fans, the
comic served as a diverting form of moral instruction, offering valuable life
lessons drawn from the words and deeds of “The Ghost Who Walks.” For
others, the comic became a nostalgic gateway to their childhood memories.
And more than a few readers from Australia, Sweden, and India felt that the
Phantom, in some ways, embodied aspects of their national character in ways
that other (American) comic-book heroes simply could not.
These survey findings demonstrate how audience studies can enrich our
understanding of how different audience formations engage with media texts.
Yet no matter how vital or engaging such insights might be, they cannot be
allowed to overshadow the commercial and industrial dimensions of media
production and consumption. Ingunn Hagen and Janet Wasko rightly caution
that an excessive focus on audiences’ active interpretation of mass media risks
overlooking a key point — that “media texts are not produced according to
the choice of audiences” (2000: 16).
Australian, Swedish, and Indian audiences’ engagement with The Phantom
media franchise has, of course, been influenced by a range of decisions made
by newspaper feature syndicates, magazine publishers, and editorial decision-
makers, each of which dictate how The Phantom has been packaged to meet
the demands of international media markets. Sometimes this may become a
negotiated process, whereby producers open up channels of communication
with their audiences — to hear their opinions and complaints, or to explain
their own actions, but always with the ultimate goal of cementing readers’
ties to The Phantom franchise. In other instances, no such channels are made
available to audiences, who must then create their own platforms to voice
their opinions and concerns. And it is this complex relationship between
comic-book producers and consumers — a relationship that can by turns be
symbiotic and antagonistic — that will be the focus of the next chapter.
ff
Chapter Eight
Who Owns the Phantom?
A
larger than usual crowd had gathered at the Parken Zoo in the Swed-
ish city of Eskilstuna on Wednesday, August 27, 1986. The throng of
children and teenagers had come not to see the animals, but to witness
Lee Falk, creator of The Phantom, officially open the zoo’s newest at-
traction, Fantomen-land. Visitors could have their photo taken on the Skull
Throne, inspect the Phantom’s secret treasure vault, and visit a scaled-down
replica of a jungle village. After being given a guided tour of the theme park
by the Phantom himself, Falk was invited to sign the Skull Cave’s guest book,
before he was mobbed by fans clamoring for his autograph (Swärd, 2011:
206 – 11).
This scene is significant for several reasons. On one level, it demonstrates
how the commercial value of the Phantom could be realized in new forms
and physical settings that were far removed from the original comic strip, but
which nonetheless drew inspiration from the source texts themselves. The
launch of Fantomen-land also signified the character’s high public standing
among Swedish audiences. The management of the Parken Zoo no doubt
believed that the addition of its new Fantomen-land installation could attract
a new audience segment that might not otherwise have visited their zoo. Nor,
it would seem, was Fantomen-land intended entirely for young children. As
one Swedish reader recalled:
In the town where I live, there used to be a theme park about The Phan-
tom at the local zoo when I was younger . . . [I] loved that place, even
if I was a little grown-up for it. (Female respondent, 36 – 49 years old,
April 25, 2012)
169
170 Chapter Eight
On another level, the opening of Fantomen-land provided a rare opportunity

for Swedish Fantomen readers to meet their hero’s creator and thus claim a
fleeting intimacy with the author of their hero’s canonical (American) adven-
tures. Long after Lee Falk’s visit, Fantomen-land continued to be a site of pil-
grimage for Fantomen fans, who took the opportunity to immerse themselves
in a physical, “real-world” representation of the Phantom’s fictional universe.
However, Fantomen-land was only allowed to function in this capacity as long
as it successfully met the economic demands of its owners — a fact under
scored by the Parken Zoo’s decision to close down Fantomen-land in 2009.
The establishment of Fantomen-land demonstrates how media-franchise
owners, in partnership with authorized licensees, have actively cultivated
“fan consumers” by providing them with new opportunities to engage with
a unique media property — in this case, a comic-book character — through
retail products or prepackaged “experiences” that are often far removed from
its original medium. Yet the closure of Fantomen-land also illustrates how
fans’ emotional — not to mention financial — investment in fictional char-
acters like the Phantom (Fantomen) ultimately remains subordinate to the
commercial interests of media-franchise owners. These tensions are rarely
far from the surface in the following examination of the relationship between
the Phantom’s franchise-holders and Phantom fan communities in Australia,
India, and Sweden.
To understand why these tensions have occurred, it is first necessary to
understand how the historical construction of fan identity has frequently
demonized organized media fan movements and their participants. Specific
attention will be paid to how Phantom “phans” (as they frequently refer to
themselves) articulate their own sense of allegiance to the character, and the
extent to which the expression of “phan” identity is tied to the consumption
of licensed Phantom merchandise. A particularly intriguing aspect of this fan
community is the extent to which “phans” have borrowed and adapted many
of the practices pioneered by earlier iterations of science fiction and media
fandom, in ways that maintain both The Phantom’s — and their own —
“outlier” status within mainstream comics fandom. Finally, this chapter will
examine how “phan” communities have sometimes coalesced out of frustra-
tion with the perceived indifference of franchise-holders to their particular
needs and demands. However, the extent to which these fan groups have been
willing to enter into a symbiotic — and occasionally adversarial — relationship
with the Phantom’s corporate gatekeepers only emphasizes the often lop-
sided, and fundamentally unequal, relationship between media producers
and media consumers.
Comic-Book Fans and “Deviant” Identity
“The literature of fandom,” according to Joli Jensen, “is haunted by images

of deviance,” and frequently invokes the term’s derivation from the word “fa-
natic” (Jensen, 2001: 301). The term “fan,” as it is understood today, first en-
tered common usage in the late nineteenth century and was originally used
to describe “keen spectators” of professional sports (such as baseball) before it
was gradually applied to organized fan clubs dedicated to popular mass media,
such as the cinema and motion-picture performers, that emerged during the
1920s (McKee, 2002: 67). Nonetheless, the specter of the intellectually stunted
or emotionally unstable “fan” was already being invoked in some of the earliest
academic studies of children’s consumption of comic books.
Katherine M. Wolf and Marjorie Fiske’s survey of 104 American school
children (aged 7 – 17 years) identified three types of comic-book reader: “comic-
book fans” (37 percent); “moderate readers” (48 percent); and children who
were indifferent to, or hostile towards reading comics (15 percent) (1949: 22). Of
greatest concern — and scholarly interest — to Wolf and Fiske were
comic fans . . . whose interest in comics is patently violent and excessive.
They prefer comic reading to all other activities and if left to their own
devices would apparently do nothing else. (Wolf and Fiske, 1949: 22)
Wolf and Fiske estimated that 50 percent of surveyed children whom they
classified as “neurotic”— children “whose [psychological] problems had af-
fected their entire behavior pattern”— could be further labeled “comic fans”
(1949: 29). They referred to a twelve-year-old boy who filled his bedroom’s
bookcase with Superman and Batman comics as an example of the “neurotic
fan” for whom these comics became a “treasured possession” (1949: 22 – 23).
Similar observations were recorded by Dr. Elwyn Morey, a psychology
lecturer at the University of Western Australia, who surveyed comic-book
reading patterns among 455 schoolchildren in the early 1950s. Morey re-
ported that, by the time they reached 13 years of age, “one child in every
three in the group studied could be classified as a comic ‘fan’ ” who typically
172 Chapter Eight
read more than 10 comics per week (West Australian, 1952: 6). Furthermore,
children who “daydreamed excessively,” or who came from “insecure” family
environments, tended to continue reading comics longer than most “normal”
children (West Australian, 1952: 6). In both of these studies, the “excessive”
consumption of, and desire for hoarding (rather than simply “collecting”)
comic books evident among “neurotic” children apparently stemmed from
some greater psychological disorder. The very act of reading and amassing
comic books had thus become a symptom of “deviant” behavior.
Such concerns fueled the international outcry against violent and lurid
comic books during the 1950s in the United States (Nyberg, 1998) and else-
where, including Australia (Finnane, 1989: 220 – 40) and Scandinavia (Jensen,
2010b: 47 – 70). Yet decades later, long after the perceived societal “threat” of
comic books had subsided, the idea that anyone — let alone adults — would
publicly declare their enthusiasm for a comic-book hero by joining a fan club
devoted to such a character could still invite derision and ridicule. Media
coverage of the launch of the Phantom Club of Australia in 1981 provides
some telling examples of these entrenched views. The tireless publicity cam-
paign undertaken by the club’s president, John Henderson (who made fre-
quent public appearances dressed in his tailor-made Phantom costume), was
rewarded with tongue-in-cheek, but otherwise largely positive press coverage
(Daily Sun, 1982: 13; Walsh, 1984: 4 – 5). Yet residual suspicion of comic-book
“fans” remained evident in some press reportage; Henderson was occasion-
ally portrayed as the president of a “bizarre” organization catering to “Phan-
tom phreaks” (Robson, 1982: n.p.), who were deemed to be otherwise “sane
human beings” who had not yet outgrown reading comic books (Kershler,
1987: 3).
But were such characterizations of Phantom “phans” entirely inaccurate,
either then or now? Some of the responses submitted to the survey would only
confirm such pejorative opinions about “fans” generally — and comic-book
fans in particular:
I love the Ghost Who Walks so much that I named my second daughter
Heloise after the 21st Phantom’s daughter. My third daughter’s middle
name is Falk and my own last name was changed to Walker. And when
the time finally comes around, my partner and I plan on getting the
[Phantom’s] “Good Mark” tattooed onto our left arms. (Female respon-
dent, 18 – 35 years old, Australia, March 23, 2012)
This is, admittedly, an extreme example of one fan’s affinity for “The Ghost
Who Walks,” which, if it were reported in the mainstream media, would no
doubt see her condemned as a “Phantom phreak.” Yet such a critique might
have less to do with the behavior of this particular “phan” than with the
object of her adoration. Jonathan Gray, Cornel Sandvoss, and C. Lee Har-
rington draw a useful comparison in their analysis of the New York Post’s cov-
erage in 2005 of Harry Potter fans, who were dubbed “Potterheads” and were
likened to the earlier generation of Star Trek fans, or “Trekkies” (2007: 2).
The Post’s condescending account of obsessive, adult Harry Potter fans could,
the authors argue, be easily applied to sports fans (Gray, Sandvoss, and Har-
rington, 2007: 4) — for whom, after all, the term “fan” was originally coined
(McKee, 2002: 67). Yet as Gray, Sandvoss, and Harrington point out, the
New York Post would never equate “Potterheads” with their “loyal, pinstripe-
wearing readership of New York Yankees fans who are extensively catered to
in its back pages” (2007: 4). Therefore, what was under attack in this news
story was “not the state of being a fan as such but particular texts as objects of
fandom” (2007: 4). The distinctions between socially accepted sports fandom
and marginalized comics fandom were deliberately blurred by the Phantom
Club of Australia, which proudly announced that its membership list included
several Australian sports luminaries, including test cricketer Max Walker and
rugby player Wally Lewis (Walker, 1986: 20; Jones, 1986: 131). The de facto
endorsement of these (impeccably masculine) sporting celebrities was used
to legitimize the status of the Phantom Club of Australia and, by extension,
its members’ shared passion for the Phantom.
Fan Identity and Media Consumption
Some fans exhibit a degree of self-awareness which acknowledged the some-

times excessive behaviors commonly ascribed to fans of media texts. One
Australian fan looked back wryly on attending his first screening of The
Phantom feature film in 1996:
[The Phantom] movie will always have a special place in my heart, de-
spite its flaws. It came at a time when my passion for The Phantom had
reached its peak. I was 15 years old and went to see the movie 7 times.
The first time was at [the] Greater Union [cinema] in Melbourne, after
winning premiere tickets through the Herald-Sun [newspaper]. Pretty
174 Chapter Eight
sad thinking back to it, but I wore a Phantom shirt, hat, socks and my
skull ring to the screening. No wonder I didn’t get a girlfriend before I
was 18! (Male respondent, 18 – 35 years old, April 27, 2012)
This undeniably sweet anecdote does little to dispel the stereotypical image of
comic-book fans as obsessive adolescent male loners. Yet it is arguably more
significant for the way in which it demonstrates how the expression of fan al-
legiance is often inextricably linked to the acquisition and display of licensed
merchandise bearing images and motifs drawn from specific media texts.
The survey found that nearly 79 percent of respondents have owned some
form of licensed Phantom merchandise. The most popular Phantom product
categories were clothing (18 percent); stationery (16 percent); electronic media
(13 percent); toys (12 percent); and publications other than comic magazines
(10 percent).
Licensed merchandise differs from other categories of consumer goods
insofar as it displays a trademarked name, logo, or character/personality in
association with a specific product or service. The commercial benefits of
such licensing arrangements are, according to trademark consultant Weston
Anson, twofold:
Licensees hope that through the use of licensed properties they can
create consumer demand for their products and services. Licensors see
licensing as an opportunity to gain not only royalty income, but also
additional exposure for their properties. (1984: 4)
Anson maintains that it was not until the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries that licensing deals were struck for an ever-growing number of
mass media properties (1984: 4). Richard F. Outcault, creator of The Yellow
Kid (1895), demonstrated the licensing possibilities of comic-strip characters
with his naughty juvenile hero, Buster Brown, created for the New York Her-
ald in 1902. Outcault successfully licensed the character’s image across a wide
range of consumer products (such Buster Brown Shoes), a strategy which,
according to Ian Gordon, made Buster Brown the first comic-strip character
to become a brand name in his own right (1998a: 48 – 49).
Dan Fleming, author of Powerplay: Toys as Popular Culture (1996), sug-
gests that the successful launch of the GI Joe doll by Hasbro (U.S.) in 1964,
backed by an award-winning television commercial, signaled a fundamentally
new direction in toy manufacturing and marketing:
It was from 1964 onwards . . . that the number of media-related toys

seemed to explode exponentially, centered on film and television “char-
acter licensing” and TV advertising of toys. (1996: 40)
Until this time, the Phantom had only been intermittently licensed by King
Features Syndicate to American toy manufacturers, with little enduring suc-
cess or impact. However, the character’s profile was buoyed by the release of
The Phantom comic book published by Gold Key Comics in 1962. The comic
magazine presaged a relative surge in the production of licensed Phantom mer-
chandise in the United States throughout the 1960s — an attempt, perhaps, by
licensees to capitalize on the renewed consumer interest in comic-book super-
heroes sparked by the Batman television series (1966 – 68). The Phantom was
repackaged as a board game (Transogram), a plastic figure model kit (Revell),
rub-on transfers (Hasbro), and a paint-by-numbers set (Ideal, 1967) (Rhoades
and Smith, 1997: 111 – 14).
These products may have generated short-term financial gains for King
Features Syndicate, but they only emphasized the character’s problematic
status as a marketable licensing property. Some comic-strip characters are so
boldly defined that their visual appearance reflects their personalities in ways
that consumers can easily relate to them, without needing further reference to
the medium that spawned them — Buster Brown is simply “naughty,” while
Popeye is “strong.” The Phantom, with his epic backstory and richly detailed
fictional world, cannot be easily distilled into a simple “brand” icon.
When compared to the likes of Batman, the Phantom is a “lo-tech” hero
who offers little in the way of equipment or accessories that could be suc-
cessfully marketed as toys. With few exceptions, most licensed merchandise
featuring the Phantom divorced the character from his jungle setting alto-
gether, with not even his horse, Hero, or his wolf, Devil, by his side. The only
solution to this “problem,” it seemed, was to reinvent the Phantom as a mar-
ketable commodity. In 1994 Hearst Entertainment unveiled Phantom 2040, a
futuristic animated television series which showed how Kit Walker, a gifted
student at Metropia University, assumed the mantle of “The Ghost Who
Walks.” Counseled by Guran’s grandson, and aided by hi-tech weaponry and
equipment, Kit dons his father’s uniform to do battle with Rebecca Madison,
CEO of Maximum Inc., whose late husband murdered Kit’s father — the
twenty-third Phantom (Friedman, 1993: 8; Markstein, ca. 2008). The pub-
licity materials for Phantom 2040 scarcely made any reference to Lee Falk’s
176 Chapter Eight
original comic strip, emphasizing instead the series’ “dazzling graphics” and
“futuristic technology” designed to “fascinate and stimulate the imaginations
of today’s computer-age kids” (Hearst Entertainment, 1994: 82).
Hearst Entertainment vigorously pursued new licensing opportunities
for Phantom 2040, which spanned “staple” children’s product categories,
such as action figures, Halloween costumes, trading cards, stationery, and
clothing (Playthings, 1994: 90). However, in keeping with the show’s “hi-
tech” scenario, Hearst Entertainment licensed the production of Phantom
2040 video games to Viacom New Media (Brandweek, 1995: 14), and made
video clips from the series available to CompuServe’s and America Online’s
Internet access subscribers (Broadcasting & Cable, 1994: 50). Yet for all its
“cutting-edge” excitement, Phantom 2040 went into reruns after just one
season, which suggests it did not resonate with its intended (youth) audience.
Diehard Phantom “phans” were, perhaps unsurprisingly, divided in their
opinions of the series. One Australian survey participant felt that Phantom
2040 “had great style” (male respondent, 18 – 35 years old, March 21, 2012),
while a Norwegian fan argued that this “underrated” television show was
“well-written and surprisingly intelligent” (male respondent, 18 – 35 years old,
March 23, 2012). Yet some fans felt that it strayed too far from Lee Falk’s
original vision: “I did not like Phantom 2040, (because) it tried to move The
Phantom away from his jungle roots and made him more like Batman/Iron
Man” (male respondent, 36 – 49 years old, Australia, July 24, 2012).
The Phantom, it seems, provides insufficient opportunities for commercial
exploitation by King Features Syndicate and its licensees, especially when
compared to the galaxy of products generated by the likes of Superman or
Batman over the last eighty years (Daniels, 2003: 72 – 75, 142 – 43). Yet this
does not necessarily mean that “phans’ ” sense of collective identity is not
bound up with the consumption of licensed Phantom products. If anything,
the comparatively small pool of Phantom merchandise available to “phans”
is, as Vincent Mosco and Lewis Kaye point out, a reminder “that what is
available for consumption is often institutionally circumscribed” (2000: 43).
Textual Commodities and Fan Identity
“What ‘Makes’ a Phan?” This question was posed on ChronicleChamber

.com, a Phantom fan website, in April 2012. The subsequent online debate
suggested that, for some participants at least, The Phantom comic strip re-
mained central to both their appreciation of the character and their status as
bona fide “phans.” The site’s moderator, “JoeMD”— who was a fan of both
Doctor Who and The Phantom — made the following observation:
[For some] . . . to be a “true” phan, you need to have a knowledge of Lee
Falk’s stories. Thinking on this, I’ve come to realize that, for me — in
regards to both [The Phantom] and Doctor Who — you need to have, if
not a love for, then at least an appreciation of a thing’s origins, of “what
came before.” (ChronicleChamber Forums, 2012)
“Andreas,” a Swedish forum participant, challenged this idea by arguing that
most Scandinavian Phantom fans were probably greater fans of the Swedish
“Team Fantomen” stories than of Lee Falk’s original comic-strip version (“I
wouldn’t say that they are NOT fans just because of that, though!” he added).
But whatever their country of origin, the comic strip and comic books served
as the primary test of “phan” knowledge:
There are degrees of “fandom” and to be a fan, and not just a casual
reader, I don’t expect them to have read . . . all that has been produced
over the 75-year history of the strip. I would say an entry-level “fan”
simply needs to have read a handful of stories (including, but not limited
to, [Falk’s] stories) and liked the concept. (ChronicleChamber Forums,
2012)
King Features Syndicate and its international publishing partners have grad-
ually realized just how important these canonical texts remain to dedicated
“phans.” Repackaging these old comic strips and comic magazines has now
become a key output for The Phantom franchise, one which reflects the shift-
ing cultural and commercial status of the very medium itself.
Even though the Phantom failed to benefit from the comic-book superhero
“boom” of the 1940s, the character seemed ideally placed to capitalize on the
“pop culture nostalgia” craze that took hold in the United States through-
out the 1960s and 1970s (Stedman, 1977: 211 – 12). Jules Feiffer’s sardonic yet
affectionate tribute to the comics of his childhood, The Great Comic Book
Heroes (1965), excited mainstream press interest in the superheroes of yes-
teryear, culminating with the near-insane heights of “Batmania” which fol-
lowed the wildly successful debut of Batman on American television in 1966
178 Chapter Eight
(Spiegel and Jenkins, 1991: 117 – 48). King Features Syndicate, no doubt keen
to exploit the “superhero nostalgia” trend, granted Nostalgia Press (U.S.) the
rights to reprint Lee Falk’s 1938 story, “The Prisoner of the Himalayas,” in
a trade paperback edition. The story’s prewar, colonial-era politics drew fire
from one critic, who denounced the Phantom as a “mercenary running-dog
lackey” of British imperialists (Weatherperson [Latimer], 1972: 7) — a charge
that would have offended Falk, given his efforts to tone down the strip’s racial
premise (and derogatory portrayal of Africans) throughout the 1960s.
In 1972, Avon Books (a division of the Hearst Corporation) released The
Story of The Phantom, a series of paperback novels based on Lee Falk’s orig-
inal comic-strip story lines. The French critic Francis Lacassin wrote (erro-
neously) that because many early Phantom comic strips “have been lost and
live only in the memory of their readers,” these novels would introduce his
earliest exploits “to those who did not know him before” (1975: ix). It is more
likely, however, that Avon Books wanted to cash in on renewed public interest
in 1930s-era “pulp fiction” heroes, including The Shadow (Belmont Books,
1965) and The Phantom Detective (Corinth Books, 1965), whose exploits were
being successfully reformatted as mass-market paperback novels (Lovisi,
2008: 22 – 65). The Story of The Phantom series brought the character back to
its earliest print media roots, reconceived as the modern, adult equivalent of
the Big Little Books that introduced “The Ghost Who Walks” to an earlier
(and younger) generation of American readers.
There now exists a small cottage industry dedicated to reissuing Phantom
comic-strip and comic-book episodes in books designed to appeal to adult
collectors, rather than children (Johnson, 2006: 47 – 50). These have ranged
from paperback collections of complete, uncensored Lee Falk stories (Pa-
cific Comics Club, 1999 – 2000, U.S.) to facsimile reproductions of vintage
Swedish Fantomen comics (2002 – present, Egmont Kärnan, Sweden). More
recently, Hermes Press (U.S.) has reissued collections of The Phantom daily
and Sunday newspaper comic strip, in addition to reprinting the Gold Key
and Charlton Comics’ series of The Phantom comic magazines, in deluxe
hardcover volumes (2010 – present). Eileen R. Meehan argues that such con-
tinual recycling and repackaging of “old” content emphasizes the importance
that media conglomerates now place on the “cultivation of fans who will
purchase any item connected to the title that is sold across . . . secondary
markets” (2000: 83). This strategy remains commercially attractive to media
organizations, Meehan adds, especially when “the cost of recycling [old con-
tent] is less than the cost of new product” (2000: 84).
The Comic Book as Readers’ Forum
Comic magazines are today dismissively referred to as “floppies” by many

fans who instead now prize glossy paperback collections showcasing their fa-
vorite comic-book characters. Yet comic magazines remain a central plank in
The Phantom media franchise, particularly in Australia, Sweden, and India,
where they have also played a pivotal role in providing a forum for “phans.”
By encouraging readers’ participation in sponsored fan clubs, activity pages,
and letter columns, these comics have successfully cultivated fan communi-
ties centered on the Phantom across these three nations over several decades.
Many of these editorial practices were pioneered by Hugo Gernsback’s
science fiction magazine, Amazing Stories, which first printed a letters page,
titled “Discussions,” in 1927 (Ash, ed., 1977: 274). Unlike most American
pulp-fiction magazines of the Depression era, science fiction magazines like
Amazing Stories placed greater editorial importance on their readers’ letters,
which were often published over several pages within each issue (Cheng,
2012: 55). By printing correspondents’ addresses, Amazing Stories provided
readers with a platform that not only allowed them to communicate with
Gernsback himself, but with each other as well. It was from this pool of read-
ers that organized science-fiction fandom — fostered by fan magazines (“fan-
zines”), regional clubs, and national conventions — first emerged through-
out the 1930s (Coppa, 2006: 42 – 43). Comic-book fans would subsequently
adopt many of the trappings of science fiction fandom during the 1960s and
1970s, but for those who followed the Phantom, their first contact with fellow
“phans” would take place in the pages of the comic magazines themselves.
The Swedish publishers of Fantomen initially made greater efforts to
court its readers than their Australian or Indian counterparts. Fantomen
was something of a throwback to the earlier generation of illustrated chil-
dren’s magazines, as its comic-book serials were supplemented by illustrated
prose stories, feature articles (particularly about sports stars), and technical
profiles on motor cars and aircraft. Within months of its launch in October
1950, Fantomen magazine introduced “Fantomen-klubben” (“The Phantom
Club”), which offered readers a numbered membership certificate and pin,
180 Chapter Eight
along with a secret code with which they could read encrypted messages
printed in the magazine (Bejerot, 1954: 86 – 87). New members’ details, along
with their photographs, were published in each issue. By the mid-1950s, the
“Fantomen-klubben” boasted 50,000 members (Bejerot, 1954: 86 – 87). A new
column, “Fantomen Talar” (“The Phantom Speaks”), was added in 1969,
inviting readers to submit their questions about the character, which would
be “answered” by the Phantom himself.
Throughout the 1970s, the magazine’s new editor, Ulf Granberg, ex-
panded “Fantomen-klubben” to include readers’ letters and artwork, along
with puzzles and quizzes that could be solved for cash prizes. Granberg
further involved readers by providing historical information about rare or
previously unpublished Lee Falk Phantom stories appearing in Fantomen,
which predated by more than a decade a similar approach used in the Aus-
tralian edition of The Phantom. Granberg also included biographical profiles
of the creators responsible for the magazine’s supporting comic-book features
throughout the 1970s and 1980s, which proved popular with many readers:
Over the years, I have very much . . . [liked] the editorial comments about
the comics and how they [the editors] made . . . changes over time. The
Swedish grand old man Ulf [Granberg] has clearly made me more open-
minded to this part of the process, and if I feel more involved like this,
I’ll like [the magazine] as a whole, not only for the specific comic strip in
that [issue]. (Male respondent, 50 – 65 years old, Sweden, April 12, 2012)
These communicative strategies personalized readers’ engagement with the
magazine, and gave them a glimpse of the editorial process that went into
producing each new issue of Fantomen.
Granberg’s editorial legacy now poses challenges for Mikael Sol (b. 1981),
who succeeded him as editor-in-chief following Granberg’s retirement in
2011. Sol, a doyen of Sweden’s “alternative” comics scene, embodies a gen-
erational shift for the magazine.1 He is particularly conscious of the need to
woo a newer, younger audience — seen as vital for securing the magazine’s
long-term future — without unduly alienating its loyal, older readers:
I don’t have any sentimental feelings about Fantomen, [so] I can do
things that other people might not . . . [The] old-fashioned appeal of
the current Fantomen is important to retain . . . So more gradual, in-
cremental change is appropriate, so we can reassure readers, gain their

trust — then hopefully we can play around with the stories.2
Such changes clearly trouble older, long-term readers who feel they have a
privileged relationship with the magazine, fostered under Granberg’s long
editorial tenure. Their anxieties sometimes came to the fore in their survey
responses:
I’m worried about the future [of Fantomen]. The sales figures keep going
down and the [magazine] is badly [run]. They don’t respond to e-mails,
they don’t answer phone calls and the new editor is unattainable and
totally anonymous. It’s pathetic. (Male respondent, 36 – 49 years old,
Sweden, May 17, 2012)
Sol remains aware of the difficulty in reconciling the interests of new “casual”
readers and older “phans.” “Being an editor is like being God,” he explains,
“but you can only listen to fan critiques up to a point.”3
For decades, Frew Publications remained indifferent to its Australian audi-
ence; so long as they remained loyal, unquestioning “consumers” of the mag-
azine, Frew Publications clearly saw no reason to publicly recognize or ad-
dress them as enthusiastic “readers.” This policy was sustainable while sales
remained relatively healthy, but as circulation figures for The Phantom began
to steadily drop throughout the 1980s, new thinking was called for. Shortly
after assuming managerial control of the company in the late 1980s, publisher
Jim Shepherd wrote his first “Message from the Publisher” to accompany the
uncensored publication of “The Phantom Goes to War” (The Phantom, no.
910A, 1988). This column remained a staple feature of The Phantom right up
until Shepherd’s death in 2013. This first step made towards simply acknowl-
edging readers was warmly received by Australian “phans”:
It is always a pleasure to read Jim Shepherd’s editorial on the inside
cover and . . . any other editorial content, including the letters to the
editor. It is part of The Phantom experience to take on board Jim’s com-
ments. (Male respondent, 50 – 65 years old, July 31, 2012)
Frew Publications’ decision to introduce a letters page, “Phantom Forum”
(The Phantom, no. 917, 1988), was driven by a need to clearly establish who,
exactly, was buying The Phantom comic book. Shepherd also used the “Phan-
182 Chapter Eight
tom Forum” to manage readers’ debates about the style and contents of the
magazine, as well as to justify the company’s occasionally contradictory edi-
torial policies. One reader challenged Frew’s decision to censor scenes from
a Swedish Fantomen story depicting naked women, claiming it signaled a
return “to the bad old days of censorship” (Shedden, 1996: 96). Shepherd,
however, declared that some of the Swedish Fantomen stories indulged in
“unnecessary titillation” and maintained that Frew Publications would
continue to “tidy up any [Swedish] artwork considered [to be] over the top”
(Shepherd, 1996: 96). Shepherd further justified this stance by printing let-
ters from readers endorsing his “selective censorship” on the grounds that
such scenes were demeaning to women (Furlong, 1996: 34), and that Frew’s
policy was entirely in keeping with the Phantom’s “high moral character”
(Davis, 1996: 33). Vigorous debate was therefore permissible in the pages of
The Phantom magazine — but only in a forum made available at the discretion
of Frew Publications, and conducted largely on its terms.
Indian readers were, like their Australian counterparts, rarely granted the
opportunity to voice their opinions about The Phantom comic magazines
published in their country. Aside from staging the occasional essay-writing
contest, Bennett, Coleman & Co. seldom encouraged — or published — feed-
back from Indrajal Comics’ readers. The same held true for Diamond Comics
(New Delhi), which acquired the Indian comic-book rights to The Phantom
after Indrajal Comics ceased publication in 1990. So long as The Phantom
continued to post strong sales, Diamond Comics — like Frew Publications
in Australia — clearly saw little need to court its readers further.
A more inclusive approach was tried with the relaunch of The Phantom
comic book for the Indian market in 2000, jointly published by Egmont Inter-
national (Denmark) and the Indian Express Newspapers group (The Hindu,
2000). It was closely modeled on the Swedish edition, not least because Ulf
Granberg selected all the Swedish-drawn Fantomen stories to be translated
into English for the new comic (Shedden, 2003). The Indian edition of The
Phantom ran factual articles about topics raised in each issue’s story, such as
African wildlife, pirates, and fossils, just as Fantomen did during the 1950s.
The “Morristown Post” column printed letters from Indian children discov-
ering the character for the first time:
I am a student of class nine. I really like The Phantom comic and all its
characters. The stories are also interesting. Really! No other comic can
compete with you. (Shaikh, ca. 2000: 31)
The Phantom also evidently appealed to adult readers who recalled the char-
acter from their own childhood:
When I heard that The Phantom comics [were] back, my mind went
back 30 – 35 years when we used to believe that The Phantom [did] exist.
Every issue was a treasure for us and was read by everyone in the family.
(Gadre, ca. 2000: 31)
Egmont Imagination (India) prepared a specially priced Phantom Adventure

Kit (containing three comics and Phantom souvenirs) which was launched
with great fanfare during roadshows held throughout India in June 2000 (The
Hindu, 2000). However, the Rs.30 cover price put it beyond the reach of most
Indian children; one reader even wrote to the editor, suggesting they “make
the comic price a bit reasonable, so that you may increase the number of
readers” (Thakkar, 2000: 31). But Egmont’s decision to limit The Phantom to
English-language editions effectively cut it off from the vast majority of In-
dian comic-book readers, most of whom were not fluent in English.4 This new
series, which strongly resembled the Swedish julalbum format, compared
poorly with the riotous aesthetic of Indian comics, and also ignored Indian
readers’ historical preferences for Lee Falk’s original stories. The Phantom
was canceled in 2002, and Egmont International exited the Asia-Pacific re-
gion in 2004 to focus on the Scandinavian market (Amarnath, 2009).
Phantom “Phan” Clubs — Now, and Then
Despite their undoubted enthusiasm for the Phantom, the majority of Aus-
tralian, Swedish, and Indian readers surveyed for this study (62 percent) have
never joined any formally organized Phantom fan clubs. Despite being located
in different countries and taking on quite different forms, many of these fan
clubs were alike insofar as they were often created in response to opportuni-
ties and challenges unique to each of these countries, and were founded by
organizations and individuals for wildly divergent reasons.
184 Chapter Eight
The Phantom Club was, according to founder John Henderson, created to

give Australians “the opportunity to express their admiration of The Phan-
tom” (Henderson [attrib.], ca. 1981: 1) — an opportunity that Frew Publica-
tions had never extended to its readers. Launched in 1981, the Phantom Club
was owned and operated by fans. King Features Syndicate licensed Hendo
Industries Pty Ltd. (formed by the club president, John Henderson) to pro-
duce and sell Phantom merchandise as part of the club’s activities throughout
Australasia and the South Pacific region (Intellectual Property Reports, 1991:
590). The Phantom Club would pay King Features Syndicate either A$1,000
per year, or 7 percent of sales, depending on whichever figure was higher
(Robson, 1985: 3).
The Phantom Club was imbued with a distinct moral purpose. New mem-
bers were asked to sign the Phantom’s “Sacred Oath” on their application
form, in order to make “phollowers” aware of “the motivation behind every
Phantom adventure” and to remind them that “they also have a responsibility
to society” (Henderson [attrib.], ca. 1981: 2). Henderson, who had read The
Phantom comic since childhood, declared that “there are many disturbing
features of our society that demand attention, and like The Phantom, the
club believes it has a duty to help in whatever way it can” (Henderson [attrib.],
ca. 1981: 2).
The club’s Jungle Beat newsletter became a clearinghouse for members
to share their knowledge about The Phantom. Barry Stubbersfield became a
notable contributor by documenting the complex — and hitherto unknown
— publishing history of The Phantom in Australia (1986: 14 – 15; 1987a: 5 – 7;
1987b: 9 – 11), as well as uncovering Frew Publications’ censorship of Phantom
stories published during the 1950s (ca. 1989: 4 – 7; n.d. [a]: 4 – 7; n.d. [b]: 4 – 6).
The Jungle Beat newsletter thus became an important site of “fan scholar-
ship,” wherein “phans” could undertake academically inclined analysis of
their chosen medium or text (Hills, 2002: 11 – 21). Stubbersfield’s expertise
later became a valuable resource for publisher Jim Shepherd’s plans to revital-
ize The Phantom comic book, which underscored Frew Publications’ reliance
on the Australian “phan” community to further its commercial ambitions.
While the Phantom Club advertised heavily in The Phantom comic mag-
azine to promote its mail-order merchandise and to recruit new members,
Henderson frequently used the club’s Jungle Beat newsletter to criticize Frew
Publications’ increased reliance on translated Fantomen stories from Semic
Press. Dismissing the Swedish stories as “substandard and an insult to both

us and The Ghost Who Walks” (Henderson, 1985: 23), Henderson declared
that “the Swedes do pose a threat to the real Phantom that generations [of
Australians] have come to know and love” and urged “fair-dinkum Phantom
people” to act as a “united force” capable of reversing Frew’s editorial policy
“before it’s too late” (Henderson, 1986a: 12). It is not known whether Phan-
tom Club members took up Henderson’s challenge; if they did, Frew Publi-
cations remained unmoved by any such protests, as it continued publishing
translated Swedish stories throughout the 1980s.
Despite these objections, the club remained indefatigable in promoting
the Phantom to the wider community, with John Henderson (dressed in his
bespoke Phantom costume) doing press and television interviews throughout
Australia (Jungle Beat, 1987: 8). Bryan Shedden, creator of The Deep Woods
fan website, suggested that “much of the public awareness of The Phantom
that currently exists in Australia probably owes to the activities of The Phan-
tom Club during those years” (2007a). The club’s influence clearly exceeded
its modest size; by 1986, the club had 3,291 members worldwide, which was a
fraction of the estimated 50,000 readers then purchasing The Phantom comic
book every fortnight (Henderson [attrib.], 1986b: 14).
The club’s license, however, was withdrawn by King Features Syndicate
in 1988 due to alleged copyright infringements (Shedden, 2007a). Hender-
son maintained that the decision, made by “the businessmen in The Phan-
tom head office in New York,” boiled down to a philosophical difference. As
Henderson saw it, “they were more concerned with the profitability of the
character, and we were more concerned with the spirit” (Henderson [attrib.],
ca. 1989: 2). Henderson continued to run the organization as the Indepen-
dent Phantom Fan Club of Australia (ca. 1989 – 95), but all subsequent club
literature clearly emphasized that it was “an unofficial organization and in
no way associated with the owners of ‘The Phantom’ character” (Henderson
[attrib.], ca. 1989: 3). The club had grown to 4,788 members worldwide by
1990 ( Jungle Beat, ca. 1990: 3) and would, according to Henderson, exist as
a “secret society” (Kiefer, 1989: n.p.).
Remarkably, Henderson’s venture operated for several years as a parallel
“underground” organization existing in the shadow of its authorized succes-
sor, the Phantom Official Fan Club – Australia (POFCA). The launch of this
new fan organization indicated just how lucrative this property had become
186 Chapter Eight
for its Australian licensor, Gaffney International Licensing. The commercial

rejuvenation of The Phantom comic book no doubt played a key role in re-
storing the character’s public profile. This in turn enhanced the character’s
value as a licensing “property,” and led to unprecedented volumes of new
Phantom merchandise being released on to the Australian market. POFCA
would cultivate a lucrative secondary market for these products, sold directly
to enthusiastic “phans,” which meant licensees would not be entirely depen-
dent on the fickle and unpredictable tastes of “mainstream” consumers —
or, as Eileen R. Meehan put it, “the dreaded mundanes” (2000: 86).
Gaffney International Licensing awarded the license for this new fan
club to Neville Kent Promotions (Melbourne), which also operated licensed
Australian fan clubs for Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley, along with a
retail gift store, Famous Faces (Melbourne) (Shedden, 2007a). POFCA was
launched in 1991; advertisements placed in The Phantom comic book empha-
sized that POFCA was “fully endorsed by King Features Syndicate”— an
attempt, surely, to distinguish it from John Henderson’s unauthorized rival
fan club — and offered members an ID card, a quarterly newsletter, and “ex-
clusive PHANTOMANIA product offers” (Phantom Official Fan Club —
Australia, 1991a: 35).
Despite promising abundant “historical information” about The Phantom,
as well as “behind the scenes” profiles on the comic strip’s American cre-
ators (Shedden, 2007a), POFCA rarely made such content available. It relied
instead on subscribers to become “Phantom correspondents,” an unpaid fan
labor force that was encouraged to contribute letters, news stories, and artwork
to their new quarterly Member Newsletter (POFCA, 1991b: 4). What POFCA
did do was to relentlessly stoke consumer demand for licensed Phantom prod-
ucts. These were heavily promoted in the Member Newsletter, which became
a mail-order catalog for the club’s nominal retail outlet, Famous Faces. Yet
just prior to the release of The Phantom feature film, Lee Walsh Licensing
(Melbourne) replaced Gaffney Licensing International as King Features Syn-
dicate’s licensed Australian representative. This corporate handover coincided
with the lackluster box-office performance of The Phantom, which signaled
the end of “Phantomania” in Australia. POFCA scaled back its operations
throughout 1997 – 98 and ceased trading in 1999 (Shedden, 2007a). POFCA
was perhaps too dependent on an anticipated retail “boom” in Phantom mer-
chandise and thus ceased to be of value once sales revenues failed to meet
the commercial expectations of its operator, Neville Kent Promotions, or its

Australian licensor, Lee Walsh Licensing. Members’ concerns about the club’s
future ultimately remained subordinate to its corporate stakeholders’ financial
interests. Far from being a truly “grassroots” fan club, this was a commercial
venture which measured the worth of “phans” in financial terms alone.
The ultimate fate of POFCA was determined not by the “phans” them
selves, but by the contractual agreements struck between King Features Syn-
dicate and its foreign licensees. The enthusiastic participation of “phans”
alone could not save these organizations — at least, not in Australia. If licens-
ees could not extract maximum revenues from the largest possible number
of “phans” on behalf of the franchise owner, the commercial rights to op-
erate such a club could be withdrawn, or reassigned to another company.
Australian readers may have held strong opinions about the direction of The
Phantom comic book and, in the case of John Henderson, created an (officially
sanctioned) forum to express these views. Yet even relatively privileged fans
like Henderson could exercise little, if any, influence over the management of
The Phantom franchise. John Tulloch’s case study of British and Australian
fans of the Doctor Who television series, and their fractious relationship with
the program’s producers, provides a key insight about fan-producer relation-
ships which is equally applicable in this context. Australian “phans” were,
to borrow Tulloch’s phrase, a “powerless elite,” situated between “producers
they have little control over” and the “wider public” with whom the long-
term survival of most media franchises arguably rests (1995: 145).
“Phans” and Digital Fandom
Perhaps the greatest threat confronting commercially run Phantom fan clubs
was relevance. By the late 1990s, “phans” throughout the world were no longer
reliant on officially sanctioned fan organizations as outlets for expressing their
affinity with the character or as a forum for contacting fellow “phans.” Instead,
many of them borrowed the practices of “mainstream” comics fandom (his-
torically devoted to American superhero comics) to create their own parallel
“phan” community — a process made easier by the expansion of online media.
The majority of readers (63 percent) surveyed from Australia, Sweden,
and India state that they currently read (or have read) other comics in ad-
dition to The Phantom. However, a substantially smaller number of survey
188 Chapter Eight
participants (32 percent) indicated that they took part in comic-book fandom
activities that had no connection to The Phantom. The most popular of these
activities were attending comic-book conventions (34 percent); participating
in message boards and other online forums (26 percent); creating websites
and/or blogs (12 percent); and producing — or contributing to — fanzines (10
percent). Despite these low participation rates, it would not be unreasonable
to suggest that these readers’ (limited) engagement with “mainstream” com-
ics fandom has — even on a superficial level — influenced their own practices
and activities as Phantom “phans.”
The formation of media fandom communities, and the articulation of fan
identities, was irrevocably changed throughout the 1990s as the expansion of
Internet access services provided people with an unprecedented opportunity
to publish and disseminate information on a worldwide scale. The magnitude
of the Internet as a communicative platform was not lost on comic-book fans,
either — nor on “phans” of The Phantom. One of the earliest, and arguably
most significant of these online resources was The Deep Woods (http://www
.deepwoods.org), an encyclopedic Phantom website developed by Bryan Shed-
den, an Australian “phan.” Shedden recruited an international network of
Phantom fan-scholars from Australia, Sweden, India, and the United States
who contributed articles and shared previously unseen images of rare Phan-
tom book and magazine covers from around the world. Launched in 1996,
The Deep Woods soon established itself as an authoritative fan text about
The Phantom and elevated Shedden’s status as a “fan-scholar” throughout
the then-nascent online Phantom “phan” community.
The production and reception of The Deep Woods website serves as a use-
ful demonstration of how, according to Jeffrey A. Brown, “the cultural econ-
omy of comic book fandom” operates (1997: 26). While conceding that some
comic-book collectors “validate” their hobby “by citing the economic value
of their [collection]” (1997: 27), Brown maintains that most fans substantiate
their participation in fandom by exhibiting their “knowledge of [comic-book]
creators, characters and story lines,” which is gained through the acquisi-
tion of “canonical texts” (1997: 26). The dividend generated by this form of
“cultural capital” gained from the specialized knowledge of popular culture
artifacts is not, according to John Fiske, measured in economic terms, but
instead lies within “the pleasures and esteem of one’s peers in a community
of taste” (Fiske, 1992: 34). Furthermore, Kate Egan’s study of British “video
nasty” fan websites found that many of these online resources were — like
The Deep Woods — content-rich archives designed to “solidify the [website]
creator’s identity as a powerful subcultural teacher and historian” (2003: n.p.).
Indeed, Shedden’s authority as a Phantom “expert” was further recognized by
Moonstone Books (U.S.), which hired him as an editorial consultant for their
new series of Phantom comic magazines and graphic novels (ca. 2002 – 7).5
The international dimension of today’s online “phan” community is fur-
ther illustrated by the Scandinavian Chapter (http://www.schapter.org), a
Swedish fan organization which has, to some extent, surpassed The Deep
Woods as a key online destination for Phantom “phans.”6 The Scandinavian
Chapter was originally formed as a “sister organization” to the Lee Falk
Memorial Bengali Explorers’ Club (LFMBEC), which held its first dinner
in Sydney, Australia, on April 30, 1999, to commemorate the death of Lee
Falk. The event proved so successful that the LFMBEC has continued stag-
ing annual dinners, featuring celebrity speakers (including past and present
Phantom comic artists) and memorabilia auctions, to raise funds for a local
children’s hospital (LFMBEC, 2005).7
The Scandinavian Chapter, like its Australian namesake, considered it-
self a “Phantom club for adults” (Jensen, 2010a: 253). When Bryan Shedden
announced in 2007 that he would no longer be updating The Deep Woods
website,8 the Scandinavian Chapter launched The PhantomWiki (http://www
.phantomwiki.org), an international reference guide to The Phantom which
invited contributions from “phans” throughout the world. The group has
also published two books, Fantomen (2010) and Lee Falk, Storyteller (2011),
as tributes to the character and his creator, respectively. The scholarly intent
and sophisticated production values evident in these works denote the profes-
sional tenor of Swedish comics fandom (Strömberg, 2010: 65 – 71).
Being based in Sweden has given the Scandinavian Chapter privileged ac-
cess to writers and artists working on the Fantomen magazine, and has allowed
it to stage field trips to the offices of Egmont Kärnan and Bulls Press to hold
informal discussions about Fantomen with magazine editors and newspaper
syndicate representatives. Club members were also invited to contribute bib-
liographical research to Fantomen (no. 14, 2006), a special edition commemo-
rating the seventieth anniversary of The Phantom comic strip (Jensen, 2010a:
256). So, just as Sweden has emerged as a key production node in The Phantom
comic-book franchise, Swedish “phans” have now assumed a preeminent po-
190 Chapter Eight
sition in the international Phantom “phan” community. As the Scandinavian

Chapter’s cofounder, Brian Jensen, observed: “We quickly became more fa-
mous than our allies ‘Down Under’ ” (2010a: 253).
Comments such as these draw attention to the internal divisions and ri-
valries that can undermine fan communities’ outward displays of unity and
camaraderie. Derek Johnson observes that early studies of fandom, such as
Camille Bacon-Smith’s Enterprising Women (1992) and Henry Jenkins’s Tex-
tual Poachers (2013), typically “stressed unity within fan communities” (2007:
285). However, Johnson argues that there have always been “ongoing, com-
petitive struggles” between rival fan groupings and “external institutions”
that seek to legitimize the “fan-text-producer relationship according to their
respective interests” (2007: 287). Conversely, Andrea MacDonald argues
that this fundamentally competitive and hierarchical conception of fandom
is problematic, not least because “fandom views itself as being antithetical to
‘mundane’ social norms” (1998: 136). Nevertheless, MacDonald states that
observable hierarchies do exist within (and between) fan communities. These
hierarchies can be delineated by fans’ level of (textual) knowledge, participa-
tion in formal activities, access to “inside knowledge,” and control of venues,
be they physical (convention facilities), or virtual (message boards) (1998:
137 – 38). The Scandinavian Chapter clearly regards itself as the preeminent
Phantom fan organization; its conveners need only point to the industry of its
members (e.g., the PhantomWiki website), the quality of its fan media output
(e.g., books, calendars), and its close links with Swedish media organizations
involved with The Phantom/Fantomen franchise to justify such a claim.
However, the relative prosperity of the Scandinavian Chapter also draws
attention to occasionally stark levels of economic disparity between regional
and/or national fan communities. The recent formation of Phantom fan net-
works in India has been, in part, a response to the scarcity of media texts
in that market. The Phantom, like many Indian comic books, had suffered
greatly as a younger generation of Indian children spurned comics in favor of
new satellite television channels, computer games, and online media. Where
a popular comic magazine could once reliably sell 500,000 copies in the early
1990s, average sales figures for most Indian comics had plunged to 50,000 –
60,000 copies per issue by 2011 (Ahmed, 2011).
Nor have more recent attempts to revive the Phantom in India been met
with success. Following the cancellation of The Phantom comic published
by Egmont Imagination (India) in 2002, the company’s Indian executives

negotiated a management buyout of the firm, which was renamed EuroKids
International (Amarnath, 2009). The company’s publishing activities were
reorganized under the EuroBooks division, which launched a new series of
English-language Phantom comics in 2008, available through bookstores
and via the EuroBooks website. Printed in full color and priced at Rs.199
(US$3.50), these paperback “graphic novels” sold just 10,000 copies in 2008.
“Undoubtedly, the [Indrajal Comics] figures would have been better,” admit-
ted Uday Mathur, managing director of EuroKids International. “[Indrajal
Comics] . . . were far more popular, but we’re trying to revive interest in [the
Phantom]” (quoted in Majumdar, 2009). Yet anecdotal press reports suggest
these newer comics hold little appeal for the thousands of adults who grew
up reading Indrajal Comics in the 1970s and 1980s. These mature-age col-
lectors form the bedrock of an expansive, albeit loose-knit community of
Phantom “phans,” who scour roadside bookstalls and raddiwala (scrap paper)
merchants for old copies of Indrajal Comics. Readers frequently expressed
an almost Proustian pleasure in recalling the very scent and feel of timeworn
copies of Indrajal Comics (Times of India, 2008; Ghosh, 2014).
Paradoxically, the surge in Internet usage and social media which threat-
ened the commercial viability of India’s comic-book industry during the
1990s now provided a platform for the “first wave” of Indian comic-book
fandom. Ritu G. Khanduri’s study of Indian comic-book culture found that,
for an older generation of Indian comic-book fans, The Phantom remains
“a pleasurable childhood memory” (2010: 179). It is through fan-authored
“blogs,” she adds, that Indian readers now “generate a history of Indian com-
ics and a social network of Phantom enthusiasts” (2010: 172).
Indian readers’ yearning for the comics of their (pre-television) childhood
is most apparent on the Reprint Indrajal Campaign website (http://indrajal
.reprintcampaign.com) (est. 2010), which began an online petition lobbying
The Times of India media group to reprint Indrajal Comics. Their demands
are often steeped in nostalgic longing:
They bring back old memories of childhood. I am sad that I lost my

collection and would love to have it back on the market, to be treasured
and passed on to the next generation as some of the best things in our
lives. (Ghorai, 2010)
192 Chapter Eight
Signatories to the petition frequently complained of the scarcity of second-

hand copies of Indrajal Comics at local bookstalls. Treasured copies of the
earliest issues are proudly displayed by “phans” on their blogs and typically
command high prices on auction websites, placing them beyond the finan-
cial reach of most collectors. Some Indian comic-book collectors have tried
to redress this situation by making digitally scanned copies of English-and
Hindi-language editions of Indrajal Comics freely available for “phans” to
download from such sites as the Indrajal Comics Club (www.indrajal-comics
.blogspot.com) and Indrajal Online (http://indrajal-online.blogspot.com).
Despite its whiff of illegality, the online “trafficking” in out-of-print comic
books cannot be automatically likened to India’s far more lucrative trade in
pirated literary works, which accounted for nearly 25 percent of sales in In-
dia’s retail book trade by 2011 (Mukherjee, 2011). Lawrence Liang and Ravi
Sundaram maintain that current debates about copyright piracy in India
continue to elevate the “moral and economic claims of rights holders,” which
are continually juxtaposed against the “illegality and criminality of acts of
piracy” (2011: 344). Yet this approach, they argue, frequently overlooks “the
ordinariness and ubiquity of piracy in the contemporary media landscape”
(2011: 344). Ravi Sundaram explains that since the early 1980s, media piracy
“was the dominant form through which [Indian audiences] experienced new
media” (2010: 121), thanks largely to the availability of low-cost media re-
production and recording technologies, such as cheap photo-offset printing,
and audio and videocassettes (2010: 119). “Pirate culture,” argues Sundaram,
“allowed the entry of vast numbers of poor residents into media culture”
(2010: 112).
Yet in no way could the “phans” responsible for these Phantom comic file-
sharing websites be thought of as belonging to India’s “urban poor.” Their
blog profiles indicate that they are, for the most part, male, well-educated,
and English-speaking and work in India’s information technology/telecom-
munications sector. Nonetheless, their desire to share scarce Phantom comic
magazines — free of charge — with fellow “phans” highlights the important
role that “pirate culture” continues to play in circumventing the institu-
tional and commercial roadblocks that once barred Indian audiences’ access
to mass media. Overlooked and ignored as consumers by past and present
publishers of The Phantom, Indian “phans” have used digital media to make
rare, analog-era texts available to a geographically dispersed, diasporic online
readership. Their commitment to this task further demonstrates how the

formation and behavior of comic-book fan communities in different national
contexts are influenced by the structures of local media markets, and are often
a response to the actions — or indifference — of media franchise owners.
There are many ways in which “phans” can choose to immerse themselves
in the world of The Phantom. They might follow his exploits each day in their
local newspaper, or in a comic magazine purchased from their neighborhood
newsstand or kiosk. They can even wear a Phantom wristwatch, or pull on a
pair of Phantom socks, if they so desire. To an outside observer, their identifi-
cation with The Phantom appears explicitly tied to acts of consumption. This
image of The Phantom “phan” as a consumerist dupe is both uncharitable
and simplistic. To be a “collector,” as distinct from a “consumer,” requires a
level of dedication, organization, and knowledge that is far from passive. True,
some “phans” may be omnivorous consumers of Phantom merchandise —
but there are others who consider themselves more discerning collectors, and
may, for example, specialize in collecting original pieces of Phantom comic-
strip artwork. What links these different types of collectors is a shared desire
to accumulate, and demonstrate, a unique form of cultural capital within the
broader community of Phantom enthusiasts.
Yet the construction of “phan” identity — both individually and collectively
— is shot through with conflict and contradiction. On the one hand, “phans”
celebrate the Phantom’s “cult figure” status within the superhero genre, since
it reinforces the character’s position (and their own) as outliers on the fringes
of comic-book fandom. Nevertheless, “phans” freely plunder the conven-
tions and practices of mainstream comics culture to create their own parallel
fan community dedicated to The Phantom. But even within this commu-
nity, there are competing hierarchies and divisions. Some fan-driven enter-
prises have struck contractual agreements with official licensors, partly to
give themselves an “official” platform whereby they might exert influence —
ostensibly on behalf of “ordinary” fans like themselves — over the manage-
ment and direction of The Phantom franchise, only to be met with indiffer-
ence or rejection. The Internet has provided Phantom enthusiasts with an
altogether easier entry point into organized fandom, one that allows them to
bypass their hero’s corporate stakeholders entirely, and which has helped fos-
ter an international “phan” network. But here, too, conflict and competition
are evident. Fan-scholars create online destinations to establish their creden-
194 Chapter Eight
tials as authoritative experts on The Phantom, while rival “phan” formations

jostle for position as the preeminent regional/global Phantom community.
Tempting though it might be to dismiss such schisms as adolescent bicker-
ing, these divisions nonetheless point to larger debates about the production,
consumption, and contested ownership of media properties. The Phantom
is clearly much more than a fictional character, but his true “value” can be
fluid and imprecise, depending on how that value is defined — and by whom.
To his legally recognized owners, The Phantom is a commercial commodity
which can be repackaged and resold in an infinite variety of ways. To his
“phans,” however, the Phantom is an almost totemic figure, rich in textual
meaning and emotional resonance. The ongoing struggles within, and be-
tween, different formations of “phans” are perhaps a reflection of this pe-
rennial tension, whereby audiences continually seek new means to define
their relationship to media texts — not as consumers, but as “producers” and
“owners” in their own right, and on their own terms.
ff
Conclusion
The Eternal Champion
A
new statue was unveiled at the Railroad Park, next to Stockholm’s
Central Station, on September 5, 2014, but it was unlike any of the
monuments one normally sees dotted throughout the Swedish cap-
ital’s parks or thoroughfares. The ceremony was, in a way, a tribute
to a Swedish hero, but this wasn’t a statue of some long-dead king, or of a
valiant general slain in battle. It was, instead, a seven-meter tall aluminum
figure of a man dressed in a checked overcoat, his face concealed by a hat and
dark glasses, running in hot pursuit of some unseen, distant quarry. The
work, according to the artist Jan Håfström (b. 1937), was titled Who Is Mr.
Walker? Rendered in the style of comic-strip artist Wilson McCoy, the statue
portrayed the Phantom’s civilian alter ego, and paid homage to Håfström’s
youthful memories of reading Fantomen comics (Bulls Press, 2014).
One need look no further than this brightly colored metallic statue for
proof of just how much Swedes regard the Phantom as their own “adopted”
national hero. But it is a backward glance to a childhood vision of the Phan-
tom, one that has been supplanted by the work of the many artists who fol-
lowed in McCoy’s wake since the early 1960s. It seems less a tribute than an
epitaph for a hero whose time has long since passed.
This sense of melancholy is matched by the elegiac tone evident in the
rhetoric of many Phantom “phans” discussed in the previous chapter, which
betrayed a collective anxiety about what the future holds for “The Ghost
Who Walks.” Whereas other media fan communities are actively engaged in
producing their own texts, such as fan fiction or amateur films, based on their
favorite film or television series, Phantom “phans” instead play the role of
archivists and record-keepers, determined to preserve the deeds of their hero
(and the work of his creators) for posterity. This is not necessarily the work
195
196 Conclusion
of “phans” keen to leave their creative stamp on an officially licensed media

franchise. Instead, these are the labors of an older generation who perhaps
sense that, without them, the Phantom would soon be forgotten.
On one level, such concerns might seem misplaced. Just as the dynasty
of the Phantom is renewed with each successive generation, so too has The
Phantom comics franchise undergone constant renewal. The Phantom news-
paper comic strip — the canonical text at the heart of King Features Syn-
dicate’s “property”— has been reenergized by a cohort of new writers and
illustrators since the death of its creator, Lee Falk, in 1999. The comic strip’s
creative handlers acknowledge Falk’s legacy by employing him as a fictional
narrator in occasional episodes — but they are looking, not to the past, but to
the future of the Phantom dynasty. A recent story line showed the Phantom
and Diana Palmer discussing the paths to be taken by their twin children, Kit
and Heloise, who would shortly turn fifteen years of age (De Paul and Ryan,
2015 – 16). While Diana is keen to send Heloise to a boarding school in New
York, the Phantom suggests that Kit be sent to a remote school in the Hi-
malayas where the sixteenth Phantom was tutored by a wise man, who gave
him the skills needed to become “The Ghost Who Walks.” The present-day
Phantom must now help Kit prepare to fulfill his destiny, just as he did at his
father’s deathbed in the Skull Cave, all those years ago (De Paul and Ryan,
2015 – 16). He will do so under the guidance of artist Mike Manley (b. 1961),
who took over as illustrator on The Phantom daily newspaper strip following
the death of Paul Ryan in March 2016.
Sweden’s Fantomen comic magazine also underwent a significant transfor-
mation in 2012 when its long-serving editor, Ulf Granberg, made way for his
younger successor, Mikael Sol, an independently minded comics creator in
his own right. But the times when Fantomen rivaled Donald Duck as Sweden’s
best-selling comic magazine are a distant memory, and the comic’s print run
is now just 22,000 copies, with an estimated circulation of 71,000 readers
(Gudmundsson, 2015: 7). The magazine was reduced from 68 to 52 pages in
2014, and the number of pages allocated for new Fantomen stories was cut
back from 32 pages to 22 pages in 2015.
Undeterred by these constraints, Sol has tried to overhaul and update the
magazine in order to attract new readers. In 2014 he invited Swedish writers
and artists not previously associated with Fantomen to contribute to “Fan-
tomens värld” (“The World of the Phantom”), a series of short, self-contained
Conclusion 197
episodes focusing on different supporting characters drawn from the Phan-

tom comic strip. Sol subsequently commissioned a new three-part series,
Fantomen Kids, starring Kit and Heloise in their own adventures, in the hopes
that it would appeal to younger readers, and — if successful — could be spun
off into a new stand-alone comic magazine for the Swedish market. While
this plan remains as yet unrealized, Egmont Publishing AB (as the company
is now known) launched the Fantomen software application in 2013, which
allowed users to download the latest issue of the comic onto smartphones,
tablets, and laptops as part of its ongoing courtship of the “digital generation.”
The growing influence of Swedish “phans” in the pages of Fantomen has
become evident in recent years. Andreas Eriksson (b. 1981), a prominent
member of the Scandinavian Chapter fan club, began writing “Fantomens
universum” (“The Phantom’s Universe”) for Fantomen in 2015, providing
dossier-styled profiles about the series’ supporting characters, for the benefit
of newer readers. In April 2016 he was appointed acting editor of Fantomen,
serving as a temporary replacement for Mikael Sol for an eight-month pe-
riod. His appointment stemmed in part from his in-depth knowledge of Fan-
tomen/Phantom lore, which, coupled with his professional background as a
technical writer, made him uniquely suited for the role of redaktor (editor).
Eriksson acknowledged that his was a largely supervisory role, with the con-
tents of all issues being released during his tenure planned well in advance,
but he intended to use each issue’s editorial column to put his “stamp” on
the magazine (Eriksson, 2016). Nevertheless, Eriksson’s temporary elevation
to editor further underscores the heightened levels of interaction between
media producers and active audiences aligned with popular media franchises.
In Australia, Steve Shepherd — in the best tradition of the Walker family
— took over as publisher of The Phantom comic magazine following the death
of his father, Jim Shepherd, in April 2013. But Shepherd subsequently handed
over the publisher’s reins to graphic designer Dudley Hogarth in August 2014
so that he could return to his own website and photography business. Jim
Shepherd’s widow, Judith, stepped down as director of Frew Publications in
December 2015 — and then, for the first time in the company’s history, The
Phantom ceased publication for nearly two months.
Australian readers’ concerns about the future of The Phantom comic led to
a flurry of speculation among “phans” on social media, but their fears were
allayed when former Phantom cover artist Glenn Ford announced in Feb-
198 Conclusion
ruary 2016 that he and Rene White (proprietor of The Phantom’s Vault, an
online retail store specializing in Phantom merchandise) had purchased Frew
Publications and successfully renegotiated the company’s publishing agree-
ment with King Features Syndicate (Ford, 2016). These changes took place
within months of Frew Publications having taken its first cautious steps on-
line, launching a website (http://www.phantomcomic.com.au) and a Facebook
page, but these were initially designed to serve as retail sales and promotional
channels only. Nevertheless, Ford maintained that they would assume greater
importance for Frew Publications and Australian “phans” alike:
We have a lot of ideas, some of which, we hope, will surprise you and
some we feel are expected and perhaps long overdue. The most import-
ant aspect of all of this, though, is that YOU now have an opportunity
to get your voice heard. If we are to grow this business, we need to hear
from you. To this end, we intend to make our website and Facebook
page a bit more reactive and responsive . . . We are still formulating a
lot of this — it’s early days — but we are excited. (Ford, 2016)
Dudley Hogarth, who remained as publisher, reinstated the “Phantom
Forum” letters page and reprinted readers’ comments posted on the com-
pany’s Facebook page, thus demonstrating the company’s renewed desire to
engage with “phans,” in print and online. Yet even as Frew Publications
strives to take The Phantom in new creative and commercial directions, Ho-
garth acknowledged Shepherd’s posthumous influence over the magazine:
The legacy of Jim Shepherd is synonymous with the legend of The
Phantom in Oz. Had it not been for his lifelong dedication and effort,
there would be nothing to read or collect today. (Hogarth, 2016: 33)
Nevertheless, Frew Publications has made a concerted effort to court its
“rusted-on” readers in ways that signal a decisive break from Shepherd’s
long-standing, and often conservative, editorial approach. The company has
begun offering limited-edition comics signed by Australian cover artists, is-
suing variant covers for the Australian and New Zealand markets, and pro-
ducing Phantom art folios sold exclusively at Australian comic conventions,
and through its online store. These new marketing strategies are, on one
level, a tacit acknowledgment that Frew Publications must increasingly cater
Conclusion 199
to the needs of diehard “phans” and collectors in order to ensure the future
of The Phantom comic magazine.
But Frew Publications is no less affected by the recent cutbacks made to
the Swedish Fantomen magazine, which remains their chief source of new
stories for the Australian edition of The Phantom.1 Like its Swedish coun-
terpart, the Australian edition of The Phantom has endured declining sales
over time, with average print runs now numbering just 20,000 copies per
issue (Lewis, 2016). The reduced length of Fantomen stories forced Frew
Publications to consider other options to fill out their standard 32-page mag-
azine format. The company initially opted to fill this gap by serializing the
epic story line “The Heart of Darkness” (originally published in Fantomen
during 1994 – 96) as a backup feature in The Phantom, where it has appeared
sporadically since October 2015.
Frew Publications’ more recent initiatives, however, provide some clues
about the company’s future editorial direction. Commencing with The Phan-
tom, no. 1761 (August 2016), Frew Publications announced plans to publish
English translations of “new” Phantom stories sourced from Brazil, Italy,
Germany, Turkey, and elsewhere, previously unseen by Australian audiences:
The stories we’ve found generally date back to the ’60s – ’80s, when The
Phantom was a world-wide newspaper phenomenon, and are accord-
ingly much simpler in their style of story-telling — probably closer to the
Lee Falk school of comic-strip writing — and quite far removed from
the modern, Egmont-style gritty, multi-part epics. (Frew Publications,
2016)
This statement acknowledges that the era when The Phantom comic strip
could be legitimately described as a “newspaper phenomenon” has long since
passed. Furthermore, it indirectly addresses the generational divide between
Australian readers who prefer the “traditional” Lee Falk interpretation of
The Phantom and those (often younger) readers who favor the “modern”
Swedish Fantomen stories.
The company has commissioned new, Australian-drawn stories which it
undoubtedly hopes will appeal to each of these distinctive audience clus-
ters and, more importantly, entice a new generation of readers to follow the
Phantom’s adventures. “The Phantom by Gaslight,” a new serial written by
200 Conclusion
Christopher Sequeria and illustrated by Jason Paulos, is set in Victorian-era

London, and thus emulates the long-standing Swedish tradition of historical
Phantom/Fantomen adventures (ChronicleChamber, 2017a). Frew Publica-
tions has also commissioned another series, Kid Phantom, which builds on
Lee Falk’s earlier storyline, “The Childhood of The Phantom” (Falk and
McCoy, 1994a [1944 – 45]: 50 – 78). Kid Phantom, slated to appear as a digest-
sized quarterly magazine, will be written by Andrew Constant and is drawn
in a distinctively cartoon-like style by Australian artist Paul Mason, not
dissimilar from the Swedish “Fantomen Kids” serial, thought to be more
appealing to younger readers (ChronicleChamber, 2017b). Each of these se-
ries is scheduled to appear in 2017 and, if successful, could presage Frew
Publications’ elevation as a regional content producer for the global Phantom
comics franchise.
EuroBooks’ ongoing release of new English-language Phantom comics,
distributed throughout India via bookstores and online retailers, arguably
hopes to capitalize on the nostalgic brand awareness of The Phantom among
older generations of readers as part of its efforts to promote English-language
graphic novels as educational aids for children to India’s lucrative middle-
class audience. This approach has been emulated by other Indian comic-book
publishers. Muthu Comics, which previously published Tamil-language ep-
isodes of The Phantom in the late 1970s, has enjoyed greater success in pub-
lishing deluxe-format, graphic-novel collections of European comics (such as
the Italian cowboy hero Tex and the Belgian espionage thriller XIII), which
have proved popular with expatriate Tamil audiences in Africa, Australia,
France, and the United States (Moorthy, 2016). These marketing and dis-
tribution strategies now being undertaken by Indian firms mirror similar
efforts made by Western publishers in recent years to reposition comics as
“graphic novels,” a socially acceptable (and financially lucrative) alternative to
the ephemeral and pernicious “comic books” of previous decades.
Despite these signs of editorial innovation and institutional regeneration,
there is no denying that King Features Syndicate and its international licens-
ees are confronted with a radically transformed publishing environment,
where comic-strip characters like the Phantom no longer command readers’
attention as they once did. The challenge confronting each of these organiza-
tions — whereby they must strive to make the Phantom attractive to younger
Conclusion 201
audiences without unduly alienating their loyal, older readers — has never

been greater, or more urgent.
Newspapers, the original conduit for The Phantom comic strip, have strug-
gled to compete with broadcast radio and television for decades, and now face
an even greater threat from digital and mobile media. And comic strips, along
with other syndicated features, continue to bear the brunt of cost-cutting
measures, as newspaper publishers attempt to staunch the flow of retail sales
and advertising revenues to online media. Even countries like Sweden, which,
despite its small population (currently 9,700,000) once boasted a thriving,
diverse newspaper industry, have not been immune from these trends. For
example, the number of Swedish newspapers published six days per week
plummeted from the postwar peak of 110 titles in 1950 to just over 60 titles
by 1998 — a decline that first became evident during the first decade of tele-
vision broadcasting (Hadenius and Weibull, 1999: 135). According to Peter
Grännby (marketing manager, Bulls Press), comic-strip syndication suffered
further as Swedish newspapers switched from broadsheet to tabloid formats;
where newspapers would once carry 6 – 8 comic strips per day, they could now
only fit 4 comic strips in their smaller page format. Nevertheless, Grännby
pointed out that, as of 2012, Bulls Press supplied the Fantomen comic strip
to forty-five newspapers throughout Scandinavia. This was, he suggested, a
respectable figure, given that the “adventure [comic] strip is nearly dead.”2
Demonstrating the kind of innovative thinking borne out of economic
necessity, King Features’ most recent online initiative denotes a significant
break with its historical role as a “content broker” between publishers and
readers. Unveiled in 2008, Comics Kingdom (http://comicskingdom.com)
goes directly to the consumer by offering annual (US$19.99) and monthly
subscriptions (US$1.99) to over ninety comic strips, editorial cartoons, and
puzzles. Subscribers can download customized selections of comic strips onto
mobile digital devices and share them across social networking sites, thereby
furthering exposure for the service. Comics Kingdom aims to cultivate a
dedicated online community of comic-strip fans by encouraging subscribers
to post questions on the Ask the Archivist blog. Comics Kingdom generates
new revenue streams from dormant media properties by offering subscribers
access to a selection of “vintage comics” (including The Phantom) which,
the site advises, “are no longer in syndication” and are available exclusively
202 Conclusion
online (King Features Syndicate, 2012). By adopting this strategy, King Fea-
tures Syndicate effectively takes on the dual roles of content broker for media
organizations and that of a bespoke, online publisher for a new generation of
consumers who are no longer wedded to reading newspapers.
This snapshot of the challenges and opportunities confronting King
Features Syndicate and its affiliates in Australia, Sweden, and India under-
scores the complex dynamics of global media production, and how much
they have changed in the decades since The Phantom made its debut in The
New York Journal on February 17, 1936. Take, for example, Sweden’s emer-
gence as a key production node for Phantom/Fantomen comics. When Åhlén
& Åkerlund (later Semic Press) commissioned locally drawn stories for its
Fantomen magazine to overcome a shortfall of new material available from
the United States, this gave Swedish writers and artists the chance to refash-
ion the Phantom as a nominally “Scandinavian” hero, steeped in European
history. Semic Press licensed these Swedish Fantomen episodes to Australia
and India throughout the 1980s and 1990s, and subsequently provided many
of the editorial personnel chosen by King Features Syndicate to briefly take
over production of The Phantom newspaper comic strip following Lee Falk’s
death. Thus, the Swedish “periphery” now stands as a regional “center” in
the global production of The Phantom comics franchise.
But how has The Phantom continued to survive when so many of its comic-
strip contemporaries have fallen by the wayside? The ubiquity of The Phantom
comic strip in foreign newspapers, comic magazines, and other print media
owes a great deal to the favorable economics of international comic-strip syn-
dication, but the commercial acumen of King Features Syndicate and its
international business partners cannot entirely account for the popularity
of The Phantom in Australia, Sweden, and India. Lawrence W. Levine’s as-
sessment of how Depression-era American audiences responded to the mass
culture of their day is no less relevant when considering how international
audiences might also respond to (imported) American mass media:
It is important to remember that not all [American] mass culture was
popular . . . even if a substantial percentage of what was popular by the
1930s was mass produced. The significance of this is clear: choices were
being made; in every popular genre, audiences distinguished between
Conclusion 203
what they found meaningful, appealing and functional and what they
did not. (Levine, 1992: 1373)
Why, then, did Australian, Swedish, and Indian audiences “choose” the
Phantom, seemingly above all other American comic-strip heroes? Readers
from all three countries have alluded to many reasons why “The Ghost Who
Walks” resonated with them in ways that few other “superheroes” ever did.
The mysterious ruler of a faraway land, the Phantom himself was neither an
identifiably “American” character, nor was he a “superhero” in the modern
sense of the word. Although he called the Afro-Asian jungles of the Deep
Woods his home, the Phantom’s exploits took him to many lands, and, in the
pages of The Phantom Chronicles, through time itself. He was, in a sense, a
truly universal hero. More than that, as one Australian reader put it, he could
be me — or you:
[The Phantom] is more like a persona that the reader can wear . . . His
simple, bland costume and his face that lacks pupils help to give this
feeling in the reader. In fact, one at no time ever sees The Phantom’s,
or Mr. Walker’s eyes. He’s unspecific, so “he could be me, if I was as
good as I could be” . . . Even the name “The Phantom” gives a feeling
of unsolidity . . . As though he’s a spirit floating around in the ether that
we, the readers, can access and temporarily put into our own bodies,
simply by reading one of the comics . . . In a comic, we must breathe our
own voice and movement into the character, [but] in animation or films,
the filmmaker does that job for us, so it’s different. (Male respondent,
36 – 49 years old, March 26, 2012)
This reader touches on the importance that the comic-strip medium itself has
played in cultivating the image of the Phantom. Once he has been cut loose
from the page, the Phantom inexplicably becomes less real when he takes on
a more tangible, physical form, especially when he is portrayed by someone
who exists outside our own imaginations. But so long as readers worldwide
are free to imagine him into existence, he will forever remain “The Ghost
Who Walks – Man Who Cannot Die.”
ff
Appendix
The Phantom Comic Book

Survey – Questionnaire
(1) What was your first exposure to The Phantom?

Read The Phantom comic strip in newspaper or magazine
Read The Phantom comic book
Saw The Phantom in animated cartoons on TV or DVD
Saw The Phantom miniseries on TV or DVD
Saw The Phantom movie at the cinema/on TV or DVD
Read about The Phantom on the Internet
Heard about The Phantom from a friend
Heard about The Phantom from a family member
Other: Please specify
(2) What did you like about the Phantom?
(3) After your first exposure to the Phantom, did you follow the character
in other media formats?
Yes No
(4) If you answered “Yes” to question 3, please indicate which other media
formats you used to follow the Phantom series. (You may select more
than one answer.)
205
206 Appendix
Newspaper/Magazine comic strip Comic book

Television Cinema Videocassette/DVD
Websites
(5) D
o you read any of these currently published Phantom comic books?
(You may select more than one answer.)
The Phantom (Frew Publications, Australia)
The Last Phantom (Dynamite Entertainment, USA)
Fantomen (Egmont, Sweden)
Fantomen Christmas Album (Egmont, Sweden)
Fantomen – Den inbundna årgången (Egmont, Sweden)
The Phantom (Egmont Imagination/Euro Books, India)
None of the above (Proceed to questions 7 and 8.)
(6) How long have you been reading any of the currently published
Phantom comics listed in Question 5?
Less than 1 year 1 – 2 years 3 – 5 years 5 – 10 years
10 years or more
(7) H
ave you read any of these previous Phantom comic book series?
(You may select more than one answer.)
The Phantom (Australian Woman’s Mirror, 1938 – 1940)
Super Yank Comics (Australia, early 1950s)
The Phantom Adventures (Australia, mid-1950s)
Giant-Size Phantom (Australia, 1957 – 1961)
Indrajal Comics (India, 1964 – 1990)
Muthu Comics (India, 1977 – 1980)
Diamond Comics Digest (India, 1990 – 2000)
Rani Comics (India, 1990 – 2005)
Serie-Pocket (Sweden, 1972 – 1985)
Fantomen Kronika (Sweden, 1993 – 2010)
Appendix 207
(8) If you selected “None of the above” in question 5, please indicate how
long you previously read Phantom comic books.
Not at all
Less than 1 year
1 – 2 years
3 – 5 years
5 – 10 years
10 years or more
(9) Do you recall why you stopped reading The Phantom? (You may select
more than one answer.)
Outgrew reading The Phantom
Became bored with The Phantom
Didn’t like the creative direction The Phantom series was taking
Began reading other comic books
Stopped reading comic books entirely
Other (Please specify)
(10) Did you — or do you currently — read any other comic books in

addition to The Phantom?
Yes No (If “No,” proceed to question 13.)
(11) Can you recall the name(s) of those other comic books you read, in
addition to The Phantom?
(12) How does The Phantom compare to the other comic-book characters
that you’ve read? Is he different from them? If so, how is he different?
(13) Can you recall any favorite Phantom stories that you enjoyed more than
others? Can you remember why you enjoyed them (e.g., story, artwork,
characters or plot, etc.)?
208 Appendix
(14) D
id you ever join an “official” Phantom fan club in your country?
Yes No
(15) H
ave you ever participated in other areas of comic-book fandom that
weren’t connected to the Phantom?
Yes No (If “No,” proceed to question 17.)
(16) If you ticked “Yes” to question 15, please specify how you’ve
participated in other comic-book fandom activities. (You may select
Attended comic-book conventions
Published, or contributed to, fan magazines (“fanzines”)
Joined other (non-Phantom) comic-book fan clubs
Created my own comics-related website and/or blog
Participated in comics-related online forums/message boards
(17) H
ave you visited any of the following websites, blogs, or message
boards dedicated to the Phantom? (You may select more than one
answer.)
Chronicle Chamber (Australia)
The Deep Woods (Australia)
Fantomen.org (Sweden)
Indrajal Online (India)
The Return of Indrajal Comics (India)
Scandinavian Chapter of the Lee Falk Memorial Bengali Explorers’
Club (Scandinavia)
(18) H
ave you ever downloaded digitally scanned copies of old Phantom
comic books?
Yes No
Appendix 209
(19) Have you ever owned any merchandise featuring the Phantom?
Yes No (Proceed to question 21.)
(20) If you answered “Yes” to question 19, please specify what kind of
Phantom merchandise you have purchased or owned. (You may select
Stationery (e.g., posters, calendars)
Clothing (e.g., T-shirts, jackets, jewelry)
Trading cards
Food/Confectionery
Toys (e.g., action figures, board games)
Electronic Media (e.g., videocassettes, DVDs, computer games)
Household items (e.g., plates, cups)
Non-comic book publications (e.g., novels, fan club newsletters)
Other (Please specify)
(21) H
ave you seen any of the following films and/or television shows
featuring the Phantom? (You may select more than one answer.)
The Phantom – movie serial (1943)
The Phantom – TV pilot episode (1960)
Defenders of the Earth – animated cartoon (1986)
The Phantom 2040 – animated cartoon (1994)
The Phantom – motion picture (1996)
The Phantom – TV miniseries (2009)
(22) W
hat was your opinion of The Phantom films and/or television shows
that you’ve seen? And how do they compare, in your opinion, to the
comic-book version of The Phantom?
(23) A
re there any other comments you’d like to make about The Phantom
comic book?
210 Appendix
(24) Please indicate your gender:

Male Female
(25) What is your approximate age-group?

18 – 35 years 36 – 49 years 50 – 65 years
65 years and above
(26) In which country do you live?

Australia India Sweden Other (Please specify)
Notes
Chapter Two
1. Puck – The Comic Weekly proved to be a remarkably successful advertising plat-
form for General Mills, which used its Inspector Post comic strip — developed by
the advertising agency J. Walter Thompson — to promote its Post Toasties snack
product each week, beginning in 1932. Children sent in approximately 3,000,000 Post
Toasties box tops as proof-of-purchase required to join the Inspector Post Junior De-
tective Corps within the first twelve months of the campaign (Asquith, 2014: 25 – 26).
2. Bob Kane (1915 – 1998) who, together with writer Bill Finger (1914 – 1974), cre-
ated Batman, readily acknowledged the influence of The Phantom on his own comic-
book superhero. In his autobiography, Batman & Me (1989), Kane recalled how he
drew copies of The Phantom comic strip, which he read in The New York Journal as
a teenager. Kane, whose original designs for Batman were modeled on the Phantom’s
grey “form-fitting leotard with a hood and slim black mask,” regarded the Phantom
as “the forerunner of the superhero” (Kane and Andrae, 1989: 41).
3. Sheena, Queen of the Jungle originally appeared in Wags, a weekly tabloid comic
developed by Editors’ Press Service (U.S.) exclusively for overseas English-language
markets. Wags initially contained reprints of American newspaper comic strips and
was launched in Australia in September 1936, with a British edition following in
January 1937. Wags’ British publisher, T. V. Boardman, subsequently contracted
the American comic-art studio Universal Phoenix Features (owned by Will Eisner
and Jerry Iger) to create entirely new comic-strip features for the magazine. The
American cartoonist Mort Meskin (1916 – 1995) drew the first installments of Sheena,
Queen of the Jungle, which first appeared in the British edition of Wags in January
1938, and were subsequently published in the Australian edition, just prior to the
character’s American debut in Jumbo Comics (September 1938) (Ryan, 1979: 150, 154;
Gifford, 1984: 110 – 11).
Chapter Three
1. David Yaffa also reportedly negotiated many major newspaper deals on Frank
Packer’s behalf (Griffen-Foley, 2000: 98).
211
212 Notes to Pages 63 – 86
2. It was not until the early 1970s that the first Indian-owned newspaper feature
syndicates, such as AFI Features, began operation, promoting locally produced ed-
itorial content, including comic strips, to Indian publications (Murthy, 2009: n.p.).
3. In 1975 King Features Syndicate released an advertisement, depicting a laugh-
ing face imposed over a papier mâché globe, proclaiming that the company’s range
of 101 comic strips, panel cartoons, and Sunday comic supplements made “the whole
world laugh” (King Features Syndicate, 1975).
4. “Flash” is an old Australian slang expression, typically used to describe some-
one who is trying too hard to impress others.
5. Vecko-Revyn did not, however, have exclusive publication rights to Fantomen
in Sweden — a situation that arose by chance, rather than design. The Swedish daily
newspaper Svenska Dagbladet (est. 1884) had purchased Lee Falk’s Mandrake the
Magician from Bulls Press (which it planned to serialize as Mandragos), but was
mistakenly supplied with The Phantom instead. Unable to rectify the mistake at short
notice, Svenska Dagbladet renamed the strip Dragos for its debut on June 8, 1942,
which remained in place until 1980, when it was changed back to its “correct” title,
Fantomen (Eriksson, 2010: 210 – 12).
6. The company was named after The Times of India’s editor, Thomas Bennett,
and his business partner, F. M. Coleman (Natarajan, 1962: 170).
7. Vecko-Revyn currently maintains that Swedish men comprise 10 percemt of
its 117,000 estimated readers (Vecko-Revyn, 2015: 1). This indicates a marked de-
cline in both its male readership and overall audience reach in recent years; in 2012,
Swedish men accounted for 16 percent of the magazine’s 171,000 estimated readers
(Vecko-Revyn, 2012: 1). However, Swedish men now account for 20 percent of the
Vecko-Revyn website (veckorevyn.com) audience, which attracted 480,000 “unique
visitors” each week (Vecko-Revyn, 2015: 1).
Chapter Four
1. One Australian publisher, Ayers & James (Sydney), launched its series of one-off
“Yank” comics (e.g., Popular Yank Comics, Gripping Yank Comics) in 1940, which
reprinted American newspaper comic strips, including Alley Oop and Don Winslow
of the Navy (Ryan, 1979: 162; McGee, 1981: 20).
2. Despite these economic constraints, the Fantomen comic strip continued to be
picked up by Swedish newspapers, including Nerikes Allehanda (1943) and Norra
Västerbotten (1944), throughout the war.
3. Background information on the establishment of Frew Publications supplied
by Jim Shepherd, managing director, Frew Publications (e-mail to the author, De-
cember 4, 2012).
Notes to Pages 86 – 108 213
4. “Frew” was an acronym consisting of the first letter of each partner’s surname
— Forsyth, Richardson, Eisen, and Watson. Eisen and Watson withdrew from the
partnership prior to the release of The Phantom, but Forsyth and Richardson (having
bought out their partners’ shares in the business) retained the company name.
5. Åhlén & Åkerlund could not accurately duplicate the purple color scheme of the
Phantom’s costume on its old printing presses, which came out looking blue instead.
The character’s trunks — originally colored purple and black — were subsequently
changed to red and black diagonal stripes to provide a stronger contrast with his
dark blue body costume (Fantomen, 1990: 100). This accidental color combination
eventually became the “official” Swedish version of the Phantom’s costume and is
still used in Fantomen magazine to this day.
6. The Straffrättskommittén proposal was still awaiting formal response from the
Justitiedepartementet (Department of Justice) in 1957, by which time it was widely
felt that the comic-book debate had subsided (Björk, 1999: 150).
Chapter Five
1. See Hollick (1992: 17 – 21) for a historical overview of the relationship between
American westerns and European popular culture.
2. This Australian study reported far greater declines in cinema attendance (64
percent) and listening to the radio (54 percent) among Sydney’s adolescent population
(Campbell and Keogh, 1962: 111 – 12).
3. Australia’s privately owned television stations were allowed to broadcast adver-
tisements, but Australian households were also required to pay an annual television
licensing fee, which funded the government-owned Australian Broadcasting Com-
mission’s television channel launched in November 1956.
4. Sy Barry’s brother, Dan Barry (1923 – 1997), illustrated the daily version of the
Flash Gordon comic strip for King Features Syndicate during 1951 – 90.
5. Gold Key Comics was owned by Western Publishing, the same firm that —
through its Whitman Publishing Company subsidiary — also owned the Big Little
Books imprint, which produced the children’s novels starring The Phantom back in
the 1930s.
6. The two Gold Key/Phantom stories, “The Rattle” and “The Test” (both
illustrated by Bill Lignante), were subsequently reprinted by Frew Publications in
1968, 1974, and 1981.
7. Frew subsequently sold the publishing rights for The Phantom Ranger and
The Shadow to Page Publications (a magazine publishing company owned by the
Yaffa Syndicate), which continued to produce both comics as giveaway items sold in
children’s gift bags until the early 1970s (Patrick, 2007a).
8. “Semic” was an amalgamation of the Swedish word serier (comic) and the
English word “comic.”
9. Edizioni Fratelli Spada (est. 1956) commenced publishing an Italian-edition
Phantom comic magazine, known as Avventure americane – L’Uomo Mascherato
(1962 – 80), which contained translated reprints of Lee Falk’s newspaper stories,
along with episodes from the Gold Key Comics and Charlton Press series of Phan-
tom comic books. The company commissioned new Phantom stories, illustrated by
Italian artists, produced under license from King Features Syndicate, which were
reprinted (albeit in edited form) by several publishers throughout Europe.
10. Author interview with Janne Lundström (Sweden, May 23, 2012).
11. Lundström’s first Fantomen story was “Plantagens hemlighet” (“The Secret
of the Plantation”), published in 1971 (Lundström and Wilhelmsson, 1971: 3 – 26).
12. Author interview with Magnus Knutsson (Sweden, May 22, 2012).
14. Author interview with Ulf Granberg (Sweden, May 25, 2012).
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid.
17. Author interview with Peter Grännby (Sweden, May 22, 2012).
21. The Danish edition of Fantomet was originally published by Interpresse A/S.
In 1973 Semic Press acquired a 50 percent stake in the company before purchasing
it outright in 1986, when it subsequently became Semic Interpresse.
22. Bastei, a West German publisher, launched a new series of The Phantom in
1974, which initially featured translated versions of American, Italian, and Swedish
Phantom/Fantomen stories. The company subsequently commissioned new stories,
many written by German author Peter Mennigen (b. 1952), exclusively for the Ger-
man/Austrian market throughout the 1970s and early 1980s.
23. Williams Förlags AB acquired 40 percent of Press & Publicity’s Centerförlag
comics division after Semic Press purchased the majority of Centerförlag’s assets.
Williams Förlags AB subsequently released Swedish versions of several American
superhero comics, including The Fantastic Four (Fantastika Fryan, 1967 – 69) and
The Amazing Spider-Man (Der Fantastika Spindeln, 1967 – 70) (Nederman and
Hallin, eds., 2011: 289 – 336).
24. Semic Press subsequently launched new editions of Fantomen in Hungary
(Fantom, 1988 – 92), Poland (Fantom, 1992 – 93), Estonia (Fantoom, 1993 – 94), and Rus-
sia (Fantom, 1992 – 93) following the end of the Cold War in Europe.
25. Rs.1 crore is equivalent to Rs.10,000,000 (Indian rupees); Rs.5.5 crore is equiv-

alent to Rs.55,000,000 (Indian rupees).
26. The 1971 census identified 281 “mother tongues”— that is, the language spoken
in an individual’s home during their childhood — with more than 5,000 speakers each
(Prasad, ed., 2005: 70). The Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India currently
lists 22 scheduled (or officially recognized) languages spoken throughout India.
27. S. Ramajayam subsequently took his employer, Varanthana Rani (Rani
Weekly), to the Madras High Court in 2008 for wrongful dismissal (S. Ramajayam
vs. The Management of Varanthara Rani, on 4 February, 2008).
28. Author interview with Jim Shepherd (Australia, July 10, 2012).
29. Jim Shepherd subsequently bought out Peter Forsyth and became the sole
owner and managing director of Frew Publications, a position which he retained
until his death in April 2013.
30. Due to Frew Publications’ often inconsistent numbering system, which included
both unnumbered issues and duplicated numbers (e.g., nos. 910, 910A) for double-
sized issues, The Phantom no. 972 would actually be the 1,000th published issue.
32. Ibid.
Chapter Six
1. Victor McLeod and Leslie Swaback had previously worked on the screenplay
for Columbia Pictures’ 1943 movie-serial version of Batman, based on the DC
Comics character.
2. The majority of survey respondents who stated they had watched The Phantom
serial most likely saw it on either VHS videocassette and/or DVD/Blu-ray discs, as
copies of the serial have been available in both formats since at the least the early 1990s.
3. These changes were evident from a study of Swedish households’ use of audio-
visual technologies during the 1980s, which disclosed significant take-up of video-
cassette recorders (25 percent of households), and even higher levels of household
ownership of audiocassette recorders (80 percent) and color television sets (90 per-
cent) (Roe and Johnsson-Smaragdi, 1987: 358, 362). A parallel survey of Swedish
adolescents’ media consumption patterns held during 1976 – 87 also revealed that
listening to music overtook television viewing as most adolescents’ preferred media
activity (Rosengren, 1994b: 54 – 56).
5. The Phantom feature film fared better in Australia, where it eventually took
A$4,900,000 in box-office receipts, and ranked in 33rd place among the Top 50
highest-grossing films released in Australia during 1996 (Screen Australia, 2012).
6. Author interview with Gulshan Rai (e-mail, August 22, 2012).

7. The Condoman campaign was subsequently overseen by the Queensland As-
sociation for Healthy Communities. The character was featured in sex-education
comic books, posters, and stationery, as well as in a computer-animated video dis-
tributed via the HITnet touchscreen network.
8. Holt Public Relations’ media kit for “The Year of The Phantom” suggested
further possible story angles for journalists, including the release of the 1,000th issue
of The Phantom comic magazine, profiles of celebrity Phantom fans, and photos of
the new range of licensed Phantom clothing and merchandise (Holt Public Relations,
ca. 1990).
Chapter Seven
1. For detailed summaries of major U.S. studies of comic-book readers, see Jour-
nal of Educational Sociology (1944: 250 – 55); and Witty and Sizemore (1954: 501 – 6;
1955a: 43 – 49; 1955b: 109 – 14).
2. For recent studies of American comic fan culture, see Tankel and Murphy
(1998: 55 – 68); Pustz (1999); Brown (2001: 93 – 132); Dittmer and Larsen (2007:
735 – 53); and Gordon (2012: 120 – 32).
3. See the appendix for further details about the implementation and promotion
of the Phantom Comic Book Survey, along with the text of the online questionnaire.
4. Shortly after launching the Phantom Comic Book Survey, this author conducted
an online search in April 2012 which identified seventeen English-language or dual
English-Hindi language websites and/or blogs dedicated to The Phantom, Indra-
jal Comics, and other historical-fan tributes to Indian comic-book characters and
publishers.
5. This is especially true when it comes to scarce, early editions of long-running
Phantom comics. In Australia, Johnson’s Official Phantom Price Guide (Johnson,
2006: 14) estimated that a near-mint copy of The Phantom, no. 1 (Frew Publications,
1948) would fetch A$22,000 (US$16,000). In Sweden, the Sereisam’s Guide Alla Serier
i Sverige (Nederman and Hallin, eds., 2011: 88) valued near-mint copies of Fan-
tomen, no. 1 (Serieförlaget, 1950) at SEK25,000 (US$2,900).
6. The character of Julie Walker, twin sister of the seventeenth Phantom, was
introduced in the 1952 newspaper comic strip story line “The Female Phantom”
(Falk and McCoy, 1999a [1952]: 7 – 19). The character was reintroduced in the Swedish
Fantomen comic in 1985 (Worker and Bess, 1994 [1985]: 3 – 36), and has since become
a recurring character in subsequent historical adventures published in Sweden.
8. Ibid.
9. Author interview with Claes Reimerthi (Sweden, May 28, 2012).

11. Ibid.
12. Several other members of Sweden’s “Team Fantomen” worked as uncredited
“ghost-writers” on the Sunday episodes of The Phantom comic strip, including Ulf
Granberg (1999) and Donne Avenell (2000) (Holtz, 2012: 312).
13. Author interview with Claes Reimerthi (Sweden, May 28, 2012).
Chapter Eight
1. Mikael Sol is best known for his graphic novel memoir Till alla jag legat med
(To Everyone I Slept With) (Sol, 2008).
2. Mikael Sol, interviewed by the author (Sweden, May 30, 2012).
3. Ibid.
4. The astonishing growth of India’s “periodical press” sector, which had ex-
panded to over 7,800 separate magazine titles by 1986 (Bhatt, 1997: 2, 33), was made
possible by the swelling number of readers literate in Indian languages (other than
English), which was projected to grow by more than 150,000,000 people throughout
1991 – 2001 (Jeffrey, 2000: 20).
5. Shedden eventually resigned from this position in 2006 due to “ongoing dis-
agreements [with Moonstone Books] about editorial and scriptwriting decisions”
(Shedden, 2007b).
6. Ironically, two of the group’s founding members, Brian Jensen and Torbjörn
Onegård, first contacted each other via the guest book on The Deep Woods website
in 1997 (Jensen, 2010a: 252).
7. The LFMBEC took its name from the Bengali Explorers’ Club featured in the
1954 Phantom story line “The Belt” (Falk and McCoy, 1999b [1954]: 53 – 71).
8. Bryan Shedden stated that he would no longer be updating The Deep Woods
website because he disliked the quality of recent Phantom comic-book stories, which
he felt “do not do justice to the legacy of Lee Falk,” and would therefore not promote
a product that he no longer enjoyed (Shedden, 2007c).
Conclusion
1. Translated Swedish Fantomen episodes accounted for 83 percent of all Phantom
stories published by Frew Publications for the combined Australian/New Zealand
market in 2015. However, the number of translated Swedish Fantomen episodes used
by Frew Publications throughout 2016 dropped to 44 percent, a reflection of the com-
pany’s growing emphasis on using previously unpublished Phantom stories sourced
from elsewhere in Europe, South America, and the United States.
2. Author interview with Peter Grännby (Sweden, May 22, 2012).
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Index
91:an (Sweden), 64, 103 The Argosy, 31

Ace Comics, 45, 51–53 “Austen Tayshus” (Jacob Gutman),
Action (United Kingdom), 6, 149 143. See also The Phantom Shuffle
Action Comics, 1–2, 46–47, 49, 124 The Australasian Post (Australia), 139
The Adventures of Buck Rogers (Austra- Australian Electoral Commission
lia), 79. See also The New Idea (AEC), 140
Advertising Films India, 115. See also Australian Journalists’ Association
AFI Features (AJA), 62, 82
AFI Features (India), 115, 132, 212n2 The Australian Woman’s Mirror (Aus
Aftenposten (Evening Post) (Norway), tralia), 68–69, 73, 79, 86, 92. See
82–83 also The Bulletin; The Phantom
Aftonbladet (Sweden), 63 (self-titled comic books); women’s
Agnihorti, Sunil, 130 –133. See also magazines
Betaal Pachisi The Australian Women’s Weekly (Aus-
Ahlén & Åkerlund (Sweden), 71, 80–81, tralia), 69, 74–75, 87. See also Man
89, 100, 104, 113, 121 drake the Magician; Warnecke,
Ahlén & Åkerlund Youth Magazines George; Yaffa Syndicate
(Sweden), 103, 109 Avon Books, 178
Åkerlund, Erik, 71. See also Ahlén &
Åkerlund Bahadur (Brave) (India), 83, 115
The All-Story, 31 The Bantam (Australia), 138
Allt för Alla (Sweden), 64 Barker, Martin, 6, 10, 149
Amar Chitra Katha (Immortal Picture Barry, Dan, 111, 213n4. See also Blixt
Stories) (India), 114, 132. See also Pai, Gordon
Anant Barry, Seymour (“Sy”), 23, 27–28, 104–
Amazing Stories, 31, 33, 179 105, 107–108, 161, 165
Amok–Il Gigante Mascherato (Italy), 95. Batman (television series), 175, 177
See also Kilroy Beatty, Terry, 2
anti-comic book campaigns: Australia, Bennett, Coleman & Co. (India),
91–92; India, 91; Sweden, 92–93; 63–64, 72–73, 75, 96, 114–115, 131,
United States, 54–55 134, 158, 182. See also The Illustrated
249
250 Index
Weekly of India; Indrajal Comics; Centerförlaget (Sweden), 88. See also

Times of India Press & Publicity AB
Betaal Pachisi (television series) (India), Chapman, Peter, 94. See also Frew
130 –134 Publications; Sir Falcon
Big Little Books, 42–43, 178, 213n5. See Char Chapman–The Phantom of the East
also Whitman Publishing Company (Australia), 94. See also Hardacre,
Blixt Gordon (Flash Gordon) (Sweden), Kevan
81, 111 Charlie Chuckles (Australia), 63. See
Bonnier AB (Sweden), 70 also Consolidated Press; Packer,
Bonnier family (Sweden): Bonnier, Frank; the Sunday Telegraph
Albert, 70 –71; Bonnier, Gerhard, 70; Charlton Comic Group, 113–115, 151,
Bonnier, Jonas, 163; Bonnier, Karl 178
Otto, 71; Bonnier, Lukas, 88–89 Chatto, Keith, 142–143
Brahmania, Govind, 96, 115. See also Chicago Tribune Syndicate, 29, 43, 106
Indrajal Comics ChronicleChamber.com (website), 8, 151
Bringing Up Father (comic strip), 40, Columbia Pictures, 125–126, 128–129,
62, 65, 67 215n1
Bringing Up Father (film), 125 comic strips (adventure-serial):
Brogan, John A., 61. See also King Depression-era entertainment, 29–
Features Syndicate 30; declining popularity of, 105–106;
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, 79. international demand for, 107;
See also Fitchett Brothers; The New narrative techniques of, 165; visual
Idea appeal of, 74
Budget Books (Australia), 119 Comic World (website), 8
Bull, Cornelius, 13, 63. See also Bulls comic-book audiences (academic study
Press of), 10 –12, 148–149, 171–173. See
The Bulletin (Australia), 64, 68, 82 also cultural studies
Bulls Press (Bulls Presstjänst AB) Comics Code (United States), 55
(Sweden), 63, 80 –83, 88, 93, 104, 189, Comics Kingdom (website), 201. See
212n5 also King Features Syndicate
Bundal Baaz (film) (India), 133–134 Comics Magazine Association of
Burroughs, Edgar Rice, 22, 31, 53 America, 55
Buster Brown (comic strip), 174–175 Condoman (Australia), 137–138, 216n7
Buster Brown (film), 125 Consolidated Press (Australia), 62, 86.
See also Packer, Frank; Yaffa, David;
Captain Easy, 29–30, 105. See also Yaffa Syndicate
Crane, Roy; Wash Tubbs Coogan, Peter, 48
Catman (Australia), 87, 100. See also Crane, Roy, 29. See also Captain Easy;
Frew Publications Wash Tubbs
Index 251
Cross, Stan, 66. See also Smith’s Egmont Imagination (Denmark/India),

Weekly 183, 191
cultural imperialism, 59, 76, 118 Egmont International (Denmark), 164,
cultural studies, 5–6 182–183
Egmont Publishing AB (Sweden), 197
Dagens Nyheter (Sweden), 70 Eriksson, Andreas, 197
The Daily Telegraph (Australia), 62 EuroBooks (India), 191, 200
Dalmia, Ramkrishna, 73. See also Ben- EuroKids International (India), 191
nett, Coleman & Co.
David McKay Company, 45, 51–53. Falk, Elizabeth, 165
See also Ace Comics; King Comics Falk, Lee: on Afro-Asian setting of
DC Comics, 1, 52, 108, 215n1. See also The Phantom, 96; on color of the
National Periodical Publications; Phantom’s costume, 42; on creating
De Geer, Carl Johan The Phantom, 31, 35; death of, 165;
De Paul, Tony, 166 as narrator of The Phantom, 196;
De Vries, David, 144 on popularity of The Phantom with
The Deep Woods (website), 151, 185, African-Americans, 23; on pulp-
188–189, 217n8 fiction magazines and The Phantom,
Defenders of the Earth (animated car- 33; and William Randolph Hearst,
toon), 126–127 38; on writing for daily and Sunday
Dell Publishing Company, 44–45, 52 episodes of The Phantom, 42; on
Detective Story Magazine, 31. See also writing for reduced comic-strip
Street & Smith Publications formats, 106; visits Fantomen-
Diamond Comics (India), 132, 182 land (Sweden), 169. See also Falk,
Dina Thanati (Daily Thanati) (India), Elizabeth
116 Family Court of Australia, 141. See also
Doordarshan 2 (India), 130, 132 The Wisdom of the Phantom
Famous Funnies, 44–46
Eastern Color Printing Company, 44– Fanta (film), 134. See also Shead,
45 Garry
Editors Press Service, 107, 211n3 Fantomen (Sweden), 87–89, 99–100,
Edizioni Fratelli Spada (Italy), 109, 114, 103–104, 109–113, 163–164, 179–181,
214n9 196–197
Egmont (Denmark): acquires Semic Fantomen Kids (Sweden), 197, 200
Press, 164; expansion into Sweden, Fantomen Klubben (Sweden), 8,
88; historical background, 88; joint 179–180
venture with Indian Express News- Fantomen-land (Sweden), 169–170
papers, 182–183. See also Egmont Fantomen.org (website), 8, 151
Imagination; Egmont International Fantomet (Denmark), 113, 214n21
252 Index
Fantomet (Norway), 82–83, 113 ardson, Lawford “Jim”; Shepherd,

feature syndicates (United States): Jim; Sir Falcon; Super Yank Comics;
business model of, 37; comic strips White, Rene; Yaffa Syndicate
and, 40 –41; comic-book industry Funnies on Parade, 44, 46
and, 44–46; economic growth of, 39–
40; historical background 36–37 Gaffney, Fred, 119. See also Gaffney
Fellowship of Australian Writers International Licensing
(FAW), 70 Gaffney International Licensing (Aus-
Fitchett Brothers (Australia), 79. See tralia), 119, 140, 186
also The Adventures of Buck Rogers Gallup, George, 39
Flash Gordon (comic strip), 3, 45, 67, Garage Graphix (Australia), 140.
81–82, 97, 104, 111, 115, 213n4 See also Australian Electoral
Flash Gordon (film serial), 125 Commission
Fleetway Publications (United King- Gernsback, Hugo, 179
dom), 116 Gibson, Walter B., 31–32. See also The
Fleming, Dan, 174 Shadow
Ford, Glenn, 198. See also Frew Gohier, Franck, 137
Publications Gold Key Comics, 108, 115, 151, 175,
Forsyth, Ron, 86, 88, 117, 119, 143, 214n9. See also Whitman Publishing
213n4. See also Frew Publications Company
Frew Publications (Australia): acqui- Gordon, Ian, 38, 174
sition by Glenn Ford and Rene Granberg, Ulf, 110 –112, 128, 163–164,
White, 197–198; appointment of Jim 180 –182, 196
Shepherd as editor, 119; capitalizing Grännby, Peter, 111, 201. See also Bulls
on popularity of The Phantom, 94; Press
and censorship of The Phantom, 92; The Gumps, 40, 66, 125
censorship of Swedish Fantomen sto-
ries, 182; historical background, 86; Hardacre, Kevan, 94. See also Char
launch of Kid Phantom, 200, 213n4, Chapman–The Phantom of the
215nn29–30, 217n1; post-war expan- East
sion of, 87; publication of Australian- Harvey Publications, 54–55
drawn Phantom stories, 142–143; Hatfield, Charles, 11
publication of Swedish Fantomen Hearst News Syndicate, 38
stories, 117; reduced comic-book Hearst, William Randolph, 35, 38–40,
output of (1960s), 108; and social 45, 58, 60 –61
media marketing initiatives, 198. See Henderson, John, 118, 172, 184–187.
also Catman; Chapman, Peter; Ford, See also Phantom Club
Glenn; Forsyth, Ron; Hogarth, Herald and Weekly Times (Australia),
Dudley; The Phantom Ranger; Rich- 79
Index 253
hero pulps, 31, 33. See also The Shadow Jungle Comics, 53
Hills, Matt, 11 jungle comics (genre), 54, 139
Hogan’s Alley, 38. See also The Yellow Jungle Jim, 29. See also Raymond,
Kid Alex
Hogarth, Dudley, 197–198. See also
Frew Publications Kalle Anka & C:o (Donald Duck)
Hoggart, Richard, 5. See also cultural (Sweden), 80, 88, 110, 164
studies Kane, Bob, 211n2
Holt Public Relations (Australia), 140, Kellogg Newspaper Company, 37
216n8 Kid Phantom (Australia), 200
Kilroy (Sweden), 95
The Illustrated Weekly of India (India), King Comics, 45, 51–52. See also David
72–73, 75, 131. See also Bennett, McKay Company
Coleman & Co.; The Times Illus- King Comics (publisher), 113. See also
trated Weekly of India King Features Syndicate
Independent Phantom Fan Club of King Features Entertainment, 126
Australia, 185. See also Henderson, King Features Syndicate (United
John States): and Bennett, Coleman &
Indian Express Newspapers (India), Co. (India), 63–64; and Bulls Press
182 (Sweden), 63; and comic-strip
Indrajal Comics (India), 9, 96–97, merchandise, 42; and David McKay
114–117, 131, 134, 138, 150, 157, 163, Company, 45, 51; domestic growth
182, 191–192, 216n4. See also Ben- of, 40; employment conditions of
nett, Coleman & Co.; Pai, Anant staff cartoonists, 38; historical back-
International News Service, 38 ground, 38; impact of World War II
on, 81–83; international expansion of,
Jain, Sahu Shanto Prasad, 73. See also 60 –61; and launch of Comics King-
Bennett, Coleman & Co.; Dalmia, dom website, 201–202, 212n3; and
Ramkrishna launch of King Comics imprint, 113;
Janson, Rolf, 89 and licensed Phantom merchandise,
Jenkins, Henry, 11, 136, 190 175; and Yaffa Syndicate (Australia),
Jensen, Brian, 190, 217n6. See also 62–63. See also feature syndicates
Scandinavian chapter (United States)
Jimmie Dale/The Gray Seal, 32–33 King Features Television, 126
“Julalbum” (Christmas album) (Swe- Kingston, Peter, 134, 136–137. See also
den), 80, 104, 151, 162, 183 Fanta
Jungle Beat (Australia), 118, 184. See Knutsson, Magnus, 109–110, 166
also Henderson, John; Phantom Koenigsberg, Moses, 60 –61. See also
Club King Features Syndicate
254 Index
Ledger Syndicate, 63 Muthu Fine Arts (India), 116. See also

Lee Falk Memorial Bengali Explorers’ Muthu Comics
Club (Australia), 8, 189
Lee Walsh Licensing (Australia), National Periodical Publications, 49–
186–187 50, 77. See also DC Comics
Lignante, Bill, 108, 213n6 New Fun, 46
Lost World–Indrajal Comics (website), The New Idea (Australia), 79
8 The New York Herald, 174
Lumsden, Glenn, 144 The New York Journal, 2, 17, 35, 202,
Lundström, Janne, 109–112, 214n11 211n2. See also Hearst, William
Randolph
MacFadden Publications International, The New York Morning Journal, 38.
77, 85. See also Rheinstrom, Carroll See also Hearst, William Randolph
Man of Steel (film), 1–3, 6 The New York World, 38. See also
Mandrake the Magician (comic strip), Pulitzer, Joseph
33, 38, 45, 68–70, 75, 82, 87, 97, Newspaper News (Australia), 62, 66.
212n5. See also The Australian Wom- See also Yaffa, David
en’s Weekly; Falk, Lee
Mandrake the Magician (film serial), 125 Outcault, Richard F., 38, 174. See also
Manley, Mike, 2, 196 Buster Brown; The Yellow Kid
Marvel Comics, 99, 108, 144
McCoy, Wilson, 23, 99, 104, 121, 161, Packer, Frank, 62–63, 69, 86, 211n1.
195 See also The Australian Women’s
McGuinness, Robert, 138–139. See also Weekly; Consolidated Press; the
The Bantam Daily Telegraph; the Sunday Tele-
McManus, George, 40, 65. See also graph; Warnecke, George
Bringing Up Father Page Publications, 213n7
media piracy, 192 Pai, Anant, 96, 114. See also Amar
Meehan, Eileen R., 178–179, 186 Chitra Katha; Bennett, Coleman &
Moberg, Rune, 65 Co.; Indrajal Comics
Moore, Ray, 2, 19, 23, 33, 42 Palmer, Diana (fictional character):
Morby, T. Armas, 77, 88. See also Press becomes the female Phantom, 25;
& Publicity AB joins the Jungle Patrol, 110; roman-
Munsey, Frank, 31 tic relationship with the Phantom,
Murray, Kenneth (K. G.), 85, 101 74, 156; socialite and explorer, 18;
Musse Pigg Tidningen (Mickey Mouse United Nations human rights officer,
Weekly) (Sweden), 80 25; United Nations nurse, 25; wife
Muthu Comics (India), 116, 200 and mother, 196
Index 255
Pals (Australia), 79. See also Herald & 79–80, 82; India (Egmont Imagi-
Weekly Times nation, 2000 –2002), 182–183; India
Parade of Pleasure, 54 (EuroKids International, 2008),
Paramount Pictures, 128 190 –191; United States (Charlton
The Paul Hogan Show (Australia), 123 Comic Group, 1969–1977), 113–114;
Petersen, Egmont, 88 United States (Gold Key Comics,
Petersen, Lars, 110 1962–1966), 108, 175, 213n5; United
Phantom 2040 (animated series), States (King Comics, 1966–1967),
175–176 113; United States (Marvel Comics,
Phantom, the (fictional character): 1995), 144
African home of, 26–27; ancestral The Phantom (television pilot), 126
dynasty of, 19; The Deep Woods, Phantom Art Show (Australia), 139–
22; description of costume, 21; Devil 140. See also Holt Public Relations
(animal companion of), 21; Good Phantom Club (Australia), 118, 172,
Mark Ring of, 19–20; Hero (ani- 184–185. See also Henderson, John;
mal companion of), 21; the Jungle Jungle Beat
Patrol (leader of), 24; Kit Walker/ Phantom Comic-Book Readers’ Survey:
Mr. Walker (alter-ego of), 21; “Old aims and description, 7–10; demo-
Jungle Sayings” of, 20; the Phantom graphic profile of survey partici-
Chronicles, 22; racism and, 22–24; pants, 149–151; fans’ consumption
sex and, 138–139; the Skull Cave, 22; of online media devoted to The
“Skull Oath” of, 19; Skull Ring of, Phantom, 151–152; fans’ explanations
19; use of violence by, 20. See also for intrinsic appeal of the Phan-
Diana Palmer tom, 153–156; fans’ views on film/
The Phantom (film), 128–130. See also television versions of The Phantom,
Boam, Jeffrey; Paramount Pictures; 126–130; fans’ views on the Phantom
Sherlock, Bruce; Sjoquist, Peter; as “adopted” national hero, 156–158;
Village Roadshow Pictures; Warner interacting with The Phantom/
Roadshow Movie Studios; Zane, Fantomen comic book, 179–181;
Billy pleasures of reading The Phantom,
The Phantom (film serial), 125–126. See 158–160; readers’ favorite Phantom
also Tyler, Tom stories, 163; reasons given for no
The Phantom (self-titled comic books): longer reading The Phantom, 152–
Australia (Budget Books, 1985–1987), 153
119; Australia (Frew Publications, The Phantom Detective (magazine),
1948–present), 86–87, 108–109, 117– 32–33
121, 197–199; Australia (Henry Ken- The Phantom Detective (paperback
neth Prior Publishers, 1938–1940), novels), 178
256 Index
The Phantom Enrols & Votes (Austra- Richardson, Lawford “Jim”, 86, 119,
lia), 140 –141. See also Australian 213n4. See also Frew Publications
Electoral Commission Rotary Color Print (Australia), 63. See
Phantom Official Fan Club–Australia, also Yaffa Syndicate
185–187 Ryan, Paul, 166, 196
Phantom Phorum (website), 8, 150
The Phantom Ranger (Australia), Saptahik Hindustan (India), 65
87, 92, 108, 213n7. See also Frew Scandinavian chapter (Sweden),
Publications 189–190, 197
The Phantom Shuffle (record) (Austra- scholar-fan, 11
lia), 143. See also “Austen Tayshus” science-fiction fandom, 179
PhantomWiki (website), 189–190. See Seduction of the Innocent, 54. See also
also Scandinavian chapter Wertham, Fredric
Popeye Meets the Man Who Hated Semic Press (Sweden): acquisition of
Laughter (animated cartoon), 126 Press & Publicity, 109; acquisition
Popular Comics, 45 of Williams Förlags AB, 113; crea
Press & Publicity AB (Sweden), 77, 88, tion of “Team Fantomen” confer-
95, 109, 214n23 ence, 163; expansion into Eastern
Prior, Henry Kenneth, 68, 79, 82. See European markets, 214n24; expan-
also The Australian Woman’s Mirror; sion into Scandinavian markets,
The Bulletin 113; formation of, 109; launches
Puck–The Comic Weekly, 39, 41, 211n1 Phantom comic in West Germany,
Pulitzer, Joseph, 38, 66 113; relaunches Fantomen as color
Pulp-fiction magazines, 30 –31, 179. comic, 152; sells Fantomen stories
See also hero pulps to Australia, 117; sold to Egmont
Puss Magazine (Sweden), 135 International Holdings, 164, 214n21.
See also Granberg, Ulf; Lundström,
Rani Comics (India), 116–117 Janne; Zetterstad, Ebbe
Raymond, Alex, 3, 125. See also Flash Serieförlaget (Sweden), 89, 103
Gordon Seriefrämjandet (Swedish Comics
Redback Graphix (Australia), 137. See Association), 109
also Condoman Seriemagasinet (Sweden), 77, 95, 109
Reimerthi, Claes, 163–166, 217n9, The Shadow (magazine), 3, 31–33. See
217n13 also hero pulps; Street & Smith
Reprint Indrajal Campaign (website), Publications
191 The Shadow (paperback novels), 178
Rheinstrom, Carroll, 77, 85. See also Shadow Comics, 51. See also Street &
DC Comics; National Periodical Smith Publications
Publications Shead, Garry, 134, 136. See also Fanta
Index 257
Shedden, Bryan, 185, 188–189, 217n5, The Sunday Times of India (India), 64.
217n8. See also The Deep Woods; See also Bennett, Coleman & Co.
scholar-fan Super Yank Comics (Australia), 87. See
Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, 53–54, also Catman; Frew Publications
211n3. See also jungle comics (genre) Surti, Aabid, 83. See also Bahadur
Shepherd, Jim: becomes co-owner of Sveriges Radio (Sweden), 101
Frew Publications, 119; on censoring
Swedish Fantomen stories, 182; death Tarzan of the Apes (comic strip), 29
and posthumous legacy of, 197–198, Tarzan of the Apes (novel), 31. See also
215n29; hired by Frew Publications, Burroughs, Edgar Rice
119; implements new publishing Team Fantomen (Sweden), 163, 165–
strategy for The Phantom, 119–120; 167, 177, 217n12
launches Phantom Forum letters television (impact of): Australia,
page, 181; negotiates licensing agree- 100 –102; India, 102–103, 131–132;
ment with King Features Syndicate, Sweden, 101–102
119; on selecting Swedish Fantomen Terry and the Pirates, 106
stories, 121; writes first Australian- Thimble Theater, 42. See also Popeye
drawn Phantom stories, 142–143. See The Times of India (India), 63, 72–73,
also Frew Publications 84, 96, 191, 212n6. See also Bennett,
Sherlock, Bruce, 128. See also The Coleman & Co.
Phantom (film) The Times of India Illustrated Weekly
Sir Falcon (Australia), 94, 108. See also (India), 73. See also Bennett, Cole-
Frew Publications man & Co.; The Illustrated Weekly
Smith’s Weekly (Australia), 66 of India
Socialdemokraterna (Social Democrats) Times of India Group, 73
(Sweden), 101 Tuff och Tuss (Sweden), 103
Sol, Mikael, 180 –181, 196–197, 217n1 Tyler, Tom, 125–126. See also The
Steinsvik, Bjarne, 63, 88, 93. See also Phantom (film serial)
Bulls Press
The Story of the Phantom (paperback Ungar, Robert, 119. See also Budget
novels), 178 Books
Street & Smith Publications, 31–32, United Features, 29, 45
51 United Media, 107
Strömberg, Fredrik, 24, 95
Stubbersfield, Barry, 184. See also Vecko-Journalen (Sweden), 71
scholar-fan Vecko-Revyn (Sweden), 70 –75, 81,
The Sunday Telegraph (Australia), 63, 212n5, 212n7
86. See also Consolidated Press; Vidyarthi Mithram Comics (India), 116
Packer, Frank Vidyarthi Mithram Press (India), 116
258 Index
Vilda Västern (Wild West) (Sweden), 88 Williams Förlags AB (Sweden), 113,

Village Roadshow Pictures (Australia), 214n23
128 The Wisdom of the Phantom (Austra-
Vote 1 Phantom (Australia), 140. See also lia), 141. See also Family Court of
Australian Electoral Commission Australia
Without Authority (Australia), 136
Wagner, Geoffrey, 54. See also Parade women’s magazines, 74–76
of Pleasure women’s magazines (and The Phantom):
Walt Disney Comics (Australia), 86 The Australian Woman’s Mirror,
Wangka Maya Pilbara Aboriginal Lan- 68–70; The Illustrated Weekly of
guage Centre (Australia), 141–142 India, 72–73; Vecko-Revyn, 70 –72
Warnecke, George, 69. See also The Wunder, George, 106. See also Terry
Australian Women’s Weekly; Consoli- and the Pirates
dated Press; Mandrake the Magician;
Packer, Frank Yaffa, David, 62, 66, 69, 82, 86, 211n1.
Warner Roadshow Movie Studios (Aus- See also Yaffa Syndicate
tralia), 129 Yaffa Jr, David, 117. See also Yaffa
Wash Tubbs, 29. See also Captain Easy; Syndicate
Crane, Roy Yaffa Darlington Licensing (Australia),
Weekly Budget (United Kingdom), 61 119
Wertham, Fredric, 54. See also Bejerot, Yaffa Syndicate (Australia), 62–63, 65,
Nils; Seduction of the Innocent 69–70, 117–119. See also Page Publi-
White, Rene, 198. See also Frew cations, Rotary Color Print
Publications The Yellow Kid, 28, 38, 40, 174
Whitman Publishing Company, 42–43,
213n5. See also Big Little Books Zane, Billy, 129
Wilhelmsson, Bertil, 99, 104 Zetterstad, Ebbe, 109

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The Phantom Unmasked

Design by April Leidig

No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any form

The University of Iowa Press is a member of Green Press Initiative

Printed on acid-­free paper

Library of Congress Cataloging-­in-­Publication Data

Works Cited 219

Eriksson for introducing me to many key members of “Team Fantomen”

The Forgotten Superhero

led to a new generation of Superman merchandise encompassing children’s

and is published in 15 different languages, and currently appears in over 500

potentially harmful effects of mass media on children’s welfare which, ac-

publishing practices and editorial conventions of British romance comics was

The Phantom Comic-­Book Readers’ Survey

Newspaper syndication agreements and comic-­book circulation figures pro-

classified as members of a self-­contained fan community solely aligned with

eighteen years of age (which typically requires obtaining permission from

Comics Studies and Comics Fandom

Phantom comic-­book fans’ keen endorsement of this research project may

the preserve of academics. This is especially true of the Phantom, where it

content to newspapers, magazines, and websites across the United States

particularly in Australia — is a tacit acknowledgment of how the Phantom has

The GHost Who Walks

even ruthless gangsters like Fats Horgan. Diana Palmer is portrayed as a

The Story of the Phantom

from father to son. It’s a brilliant piece of storytelling. (Male respondent,

The Phantom’s World

subsequently became the democratically elected premier of Bengali (later

Heroes of the Great Depression

Roy Crane’s Washington Tubbs II (1924) is widely regarded as a pivotal

wealthy Jimmie Dale was a “gentleman cracksman” (safecracker) who left a

The Syndicated Superher0

Phantom as an American comic-­book franchise was as much due to King

Feature Syndicates and the Birth of “the Funnies”

The production of a comic strip — like that of motion pictures or recorded

Comic Strips and American Mass Culture

The editorial influence of feature syndicates on the aesthetic development of

Syndicate to commission Lee Falk and Ray Moore to produce a full-­color

The Comic-­Book Explosion

Feature syndicates played an important role in the development of America’s

In the Shadow of Superman

Clad in a skin-­tight purple costume, his face concealed by an eye-­mask and

From the outset, the Phantom defied straightforward categorization; by

a hero by night (Jimmy Wells). (Female respondent, 18 – 35 years old,

Some fans, however, suggest that the Phantom represents an important

The Phantom, according to Peter Coogan, came closest to challenging Super-

ongoing indifference to the Phantom’s commercial potential as a headline “su-

Twilight of the Superheroes

Superheroes had an undeniable economic and cultural impact on America’s

These sensational publishing tactics, deployed to expand the market for a

comic magazines, spurred on by the arrival of Superman. Although the

The Phantom Abroad

The passage of time had perhaps clouded Stuart’s memory, as he confused

Some critics contend that the international syndication of The Phantom

Exporting American Laughter

The groundwork for the international expansion of American mass media

gram of overseas expansion, relying on a multipronged approach that included

That news stories could be packaged as a profitable commodity was by no

Comic strips, therefore, became an integral part of the new emphasis on

strategic industry contacts on behalf of their American business partners.

Printed on acid-free paper

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The Phantom Comic-Book Readers’ Survey

Newspaper syndication agreements and comic-book circulation figures pro-

classified as members of a self-contained fan community solely aligned with

Phantom comic-book fans’ keen endorsement of this research project may

Phantom as an American comic-book franchise was as much due to King

Syndicate to commission Lee Falk and Ray Moore to produce a full-color

The Comic-Book Explosion

Clad in a skin-tight purple costume, his face concealed by an eye-mask and

The Phantom became an undisputed comic-book star at a time when there

The initial postwar success of The Phantom comic-book franchise in Aus-

undeniably compelling, when it came to publishing adventure-serial comics,

The demise of many of the pioneering adventure-serial comic strips from

A strip used to have six columns [across a newspaper page] . . . Through

The resurgence of the “comic-book movie,” heralded by the blockbuster Bat-

adventure-strip heroes: Flash Gordon, Mandrake the Magician, and The

Comics were once a staple of Swedish children’s entertainment diet . . .

by Keith Chatto (1924 – 1992), a veteran Australian comic-book author and

Studying Comic-Book Audiences

Swedish readers were more likely to nominate Swedish-drawn stories, since