The Phantom is a newspaper strip created by Lee Falk in 1936. Since its debute the strip has never been out of print and has spawned many comic book series, tv shows, movies, video games and, of course, collectables.
I first read The Phantom when I was in the first year of primary school. I was one of those kids for who reading was quite the challenge; I was taken out of regular class to attend special reading lessons. However, the material in these lessons was less interesting and Parliment questions time, so I was pretty unenguaged with it. Seeing this my dad gave me heap of his old Phantom comics hoping the art in them (I was arty even at that young age) would grab my interest. It did, and it wasn't long before I was reading them myself and then graduating to "real" books. I've been a huge fan ever since.
If you'd like to learn more aboit The Phantom, I plan on adding a shrine soon. Until then, please enjoy checking out the items in my collection.
This Phantom movie backpack appears to be quite rare. It's possible it was only released in Australia.
Art, Posters & Prints
Items of Note:
The first image is of a small promotional card that would sit behind issues of Frew's The Phantom in newsagents to promote 50 years of continuous publishing in Australia
One of a series of seven prints by acomplished AUstralian artists known as 99.94. This one is by Frantz Kantor.
The Deep Jungle Map (which, as you can see, is clearly not a map) came with the Glow Zone Sticker set.
The black and white image is by the late Ed Rhoades, a very famous figure amoung Phantom fans. He was clearly obviously a very talented artist. He did this for me as a gift of thans for precuring him a few items he needed for his own collection.
The 12th image is a cool little lenticular card that was used for promotion of the 1996 movie in cinemas
The next image is a poster of art by the late Paul Ryan, a wonderful Phantom artist. He signed this for me when I had the pleasure of meeting him at a LFBEC dinner.
The 19th image is a promo card released for the Aussie created Phantom story Search for Byron. It was a huge deal upon release.
Badges, Pins & Keyrings
Not a huge part of the collection, but important nontheless.
The first image is of a bunch of different items from Australia. After that are pins produced by Phantom fan site ChronicleChamber.com (which I build back in 2006, but is now run by others), a custom keyring I had made at a con from model clay, and a skull pin released by Moonstone Books when they had the Phantom licence. The remaining pin all came as gifts with issues of the brilliant Kid Phantom, a series from Australia which re-imagines all the characters as, well, kids.
Cards & Stickers
This sections is very much incomplete. I plan to get better images of the full card sets and so on I have in my collection, but until then this will give something of an idea.
Figures, Toys & Statues
Unfortunatley, merch of this type is one of the most unserviced within Phantom collecting. The reason most likely being that they are quite costly to produce and relativley small audience not being large enough to justify. Still, there have been some, as you can see below.
Items of Note
The first three images are toys apparently based on the Phantom 2040 animated series from company Ja-Ru. I say "apparently" because none of these weapons actually appeared in the show and apart from what looks like some hastily put together packaging there is no connection to 2040. My theory is they had these ready ot go when they got the licence so just slapped the 2040 logo on it.
The fourth image is of a PVC figure released around 1996 in Australia. It's the first Phantom figure I ever owned.
The ninth image is a "bust candle", so if made of wax. It houses a ring which can be seen in the Apparelle & Accessories section.
The Heroclix is fan-made
The different Pop Vinyls represent the different colours the Phantom costume appears around the world. Purple is the "official" colour that he appears in in Australia, the US, England and most countries. Blue is Scandinavian, while red is Italy. The grey in the next image was an Australian exclusive; grey was Lee Falk's original costume colour choice.
Home Media
Phantom 2040
In 1994 this futuristic take on The Phantom debuted. This animated series was developed by Hearst Corporation with character designs by Peter Chung, creator and director of cult animated series Æon Flux.
Dealing with the issues of environmentalism, coporate greet and political mechinations as well as how the media can skew facts, the series was praised for its high level concept and not talking down to its audience. Featuring the voices of Mark Hamill, Margot Kidder, Ron Perlman and Deborah Harry, the series had a pretty impressive voice cast. Although it only lasted two seasons, the show still boasts a cult following to this day, even outside "traditional" Phantom fans.
The first, and so far only, The Phantom movie released some 60 years after the character's debut. At the time it was not considered successful as it did not perform well at the US box office, thus plans for sequles were cancelled. It did perform well in countires where the character was much more well known, such as Australia and India. However, it has gained something of a cult following since its release on home media and streaming platforms.
Australian DVD and Laser Disk Release:
HMV Premium Collection BluRay
UK retailer HMV released a series of films under an Premium Collection banner. These releases came in a a slip case, art cards and a poster. The Phantom collection was released crica 2021.
Defenders of the Earth
Defenders of the Earth was an animated series that debuted in 1986 which brought together several King Features-owned characters, including The Phantom, into an Avengers-like team. The series lasted for 65 episodes and the whole thing can be seen on YouTube
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1943 Serial
For those who aren't in their 70s, a movie serial is a series of short episodes that would play before the main feature at a cinema. Think of it like watching an episode of a TV series before watching a full film. The Phantom serial starred Tom Tyler in the lead role. Lee Falk himself described the serial as "terrible" due to the change of many aspects of the strip, such as The Phantom's real name. It's pretty corney by today's standards, but worth a watch for Phantom and film fans.
Publications
Avon/ Hermes Novels
In 1972, American publisher Avon released a series of 15 prose novels based upon The Phantom strip stories. Of these, Lee Falk himself wrote five while the remaining ten were written by comics historian Ron Goulart. The last of the novels was released in 1975 and remained out of publication until 2016 when publisher Hermes Press began to release facsimile editions of the novels.
I've a complete run of both the original 1972 novels as well as the Hermes reprints in my collection. Also included is a German edition of novel 5 The Golden Circle (last image).
Diaries
Beginning in 1993 and published almost annually by Mallon in Australia, the Phantom diary has become something of a staple for Aussie Phantom phans at Christmas time. The series began as oversized hardcover editions containting lots of background information and trivia about The Phantom.The 1998 edition moved to spiral binding and instead concentrated on cover art, reproduicing art from Phantom comic covers from around the world. 2005 then combined these two ideas together with ring binding and a hard cover. These editions also saw the return of trivia.
The last diary I purchased was 2016 as I had moved to England the year before and, in 2018, Mallon moved to a mail-order system which made it quite hard to precure them internationally. There were no diaries produced for 1999, 2001, 2002 or 2019.
One other diary was produced in Australia, this time to tie in with the Phantom movie (see last image below). Produced by Trielle, it contained lots of stills and background information on the film.
Defenders of the Earth Books
Fan Club Newsletters
Here we have several newsletter from two different Phantom fan clubs. The first is The Official Phantom Fan Club of Australia which began in 1991 in celebration of Frew Publications' 1000th issue, and ran until 1999 due to King Features not renewing the licence. It was run by a gift/ novelty company known as Famous Faces that also ran fan clubs for Elvis Presley, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe and others. A newsletter was sent out to all members with a total of 15 being produced, although the last of these was released in January of '98.
The second is an American club called Friends of The Phantom which was produced by Phantom historian, consultant, writer and legend within the Phantom phan community, Ed Rhoades. Begun in 1993, the club ran until 2002 and released a total of 23 newsletters.
Various
Items of Note:
The Enter: The Phantom Exhibition catalogue comes from an exhibition where Bradley Peach, something of a legend amoung Aussie Phantom collectors, put part of his collection on display in 214 (and again in 2017) at the Albury Library Museum in Albury, New South Wales.
The Phantom Project Kit is a small supplement of behind the scenes info that came free with Frew #1094 in 1994.
Lee Falk: Story Teller is a rather comprehensive book put together by the Scandinavian chapter of the Lee Falk Memorial Bengalla Explorer's Club that collects many articles about and interviews with The Phantom's creator.
Miscellaneous
Lee Falk Memorial Bengalla Explorer's Club
The Lee Falk Memorial Bengalla Explorer's Club (LFMBEC) is an appreciation society tht was set up by Australian fans after the death of Phantom creator Lee Falk in 1999. Since then they have annual dinners at which various pieces of Phantom memorabilia are auctioned off with all proceeds going to the Sydney Children's Hospital. I've been to several of their dinners and they are always a great time. I managed to bring back several items from them s well.
Arguably the coolest items here are the three wooden invitations. Given to attendees of the 25th dinner, these replicate the wooden plaque-like invitations that the Phantom and his wife, Diana, sent guest to their wedding in the story The Wedding of The Phantom.
And The Rest...
Items of Interest:
I love the Phantom 2040 lunch box and thermos set. I don't know why but I fidn these kinds of items really cool. ^_^
The certificate for Lee Falk (4th image) is from the was awarded to him at the Kansas City Comic Con in 1994 to congratulate him on 60 years in the comics industry. The following image is a certificate of authenticity showing it came from Falk's personal collection. This is one of the items I secured at one the LFMBEC dinners.
The 16th page is a page of script straight from Lee falk's typewriter. There are notes and corrections on it. Unfortunatley, I've not been able to identiy which story this is from.
