The first, original, and best masked hero to ever grace the pages of comic strips and comic books returns with Hermes Press' new complete reprint of The Phantom! Referred to by comic strip historian Maurice Horn as the "granddaddy of all costumed superheroes," The Phantom was created in 1936 by Lee Falk with artwork by Ray Moore. The strip hit the funny pages of newspapers well before the Dark Knight or Superman made their first appearances and has been acknowledged as an influence on every "masked man of mystery" since. The Phantom set the standard for action, adventure, intrigue, and romance in adventure comic strips and comic books. Now, Hermes Press will offer the entire run of the comic strip, which will span over seventy years of The Phantom legend, ending with artist Sy Barry's run on the strip in 1994. As with Hermes Press' critically acclaimed reprint of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, the new definitive reprint of The Phantom will introduce the strip to a whole new generation of readers and give fans of the "Ghost Who Walks" a chance to revisit the series all over again.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Booklist
A strong case can be made that the jungle adventurer the Phantom is comics’ first superhero. He may not possess superpowers—for that matter, neither does Batman—but he wears a mask and a skintight costume and takes an extralegal approach to fighting criminals. Surprisingly, as these very first strips show, the character was originally intended to be the alter ego of a spoiled playboy (á la Bruce Wayne), but Falk shortly changed course and developed the better-known backstory: the modern-day hero is the latest in a line of Phantoms dating back to the sixteenth century, leading to the belief that he is the immortal “Ghost Who Walks.” These early installments have the overwrought, high-adventure flavor of the era’s pulp magazines, and Moore’s artwork is in the mode of contemporary magazine illustration, albeit somewhat cruder. The Phantom may not be as well regarded as other classic newspaper adventure strips, but its longevity alone—it continues to run to this day—make this collection a worthwhile endeavor. --Gordon Flagg
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Start,
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Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The Phantom: The Complete Newspaper Dailies Volume 1: 1936-1937 (Hardcover)
First off, its a huge relief that this book is finally out. Its almost a year since I placed my order at Amazon.
Its good to have the first ever Phantom hardbound. It is a Huge book, similar to the format most reprints these days come in. Great to get started on the complete collection of Phantom. For those who grew with the stories as a kid, Phantom is a truely remarkable character. The stories, the settings, the action, the adventure, the travels, the dangers, the fun, the romance.. It had everything. The Jungle settings, the caves, the chronicle chamber, the treasure chamber, the island of Eden, the continuum of Phantoms, it is a wonderful set of tales spun by Lee Falk. The Phantom evolved over the decades, the character as well as physical appearance, due to the fact that it was drawn by different artists over this wast span of time. Each artist was unique, had his unique recipe for bringing Lee Falk's tales to life. Ray Moore, Wilson McCoy and Sy Barry among the most prolific Phatom illustrators. The story as well as the settings, and art work evolved and improved vastly year over year, this is easily noted even within an artist's span, one can see Ray's artwork remarkably improve over time. There has been reprints of the Phantom in book format from various publishers. Noted among them is the Australian Frew. They have been consistently producing Phantom for decades. Then there was Pacific Comics Club, who came up with great editions of the reprints. Also there used to be a large number of stories that were printed in India known as Indarjal Comics. Mostly these were one story per book. There are the Frew Annuals, humongous books with tons of stories. very well printed. The version under review is probably one of the best yet. Excellent paper, nicely hardbound, very well printed collector's edition class, and promising to collect all the stories. It is important to note that these are dailies, and are the earliest of the strip. Also, newspaper comic strips were just evolving then. There was a fixed format and a necessity to hold some suspense every single day, and there was a panel daily. All this meant the artist would be at work on a rigid timeframe. Compared to that the Sundays were more carefully rendered and of course the color would enhance the quality. Given that, the printing of the first stories have come out very well in this edition. As the stories progress, and the art matures, it is only going to get better. Looking forward to more art work of Moore, McCoy and of course Barry.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Nice reproduction, still too small!,
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Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The Phantom: The Complete Newspaper Dailies Volume 1: 1936-1937 (Hardcover)
Well, I have been long awaiting for a final version of Phantom. And there it is. But, what a small reproduction of the drawings. There are large 'empty' spaces in all the sheets. Why not to occupy the spaces by enlarging the strips? I bet the stories would be much more attractive to the public. Please Hermes Press' guys, take a look in the IDW's comics like Terry and Dick Tracy, and follow them. My Brazilian edition of the first Phantom story (Singh) has enlarged strips, which made the adventure very enjoyable.
It is never late to acknowledge the mistake and to improve the next volumes!
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
it was about time,
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Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The Phantom: The Complete Newspaper Dailies Volume 1: 1936-1937 (Hardcover)
It was about time for Lee Falk's The Phantom to get the recognition it deserved. It undoubtedly is one of the best written and best illustrated newspaper adventure series ever created. Sophisticated, humorous, suspenseful and most of all cinematic. It has been and still is one of the most popular strips in the world... except in the U.S.! you go figure. As a long time fan, with a large collection of reprints from Italy, Australia, Brazil, etc. I can attest to the completeness of each story in volume 1. As to some of the criticisms that have been made. The quality of the strip reprints is outstanding with the blackest blacks and whitest whites. Just to focus on the main story -the Singh Brotherhood--- it is as good as or better than the reprint in the Italian book "L'uomo mascherato" (Garzanti 1972) but that volume lacked a few panels here and there. It is far better than the last FREW reprint of the Singh Brotherhood, number 1472 (2007) which while complete story-wise, the strip reproductions were quite muddy; e.g. a lovely image of Diana after a shower (3/11/36)was reproduced in FREW as if her hair was drawn with a magic marker. The American version edited by Bill Blackbeard was not as bad, the panels just looked murky and lacking background but despite its claims it was not complete. I have no problems with two panels per page showing them most likely at their original size-- but I wished it could have been printed in somewhat larger size so we could have more fully enjoyed Ray Moore's art. All in all I'm looking forward to future volumes, especially the Color Sundays. Could we hope for reprints of Mandrake the Magician next?
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