Re: Anyone read Frew Publications "Phantom"?
Duggy
aus.arts.comics which is little used by may have better answers.
slugbug wrote:
> I'm a big fan of Lee Falk's Phantom, and have been ever since I first
> discovered him in the daily in our newspaper when I was a kid.
> Recently, I discovered that an Australian company, Frew Publications,
> has been publishing Phantom comics since the 1940's. In fact, they put
> out about 30 issues a year, averaging 50 pages each. I found a
> subscription page:
> http://www.deepwoods.org/frew2.html
> However, the information is out of date by about 7 years, and I was
> wondering if anyone could confirm that they are still producing
> monthly?
I haven't read a Frew Phantom for years. When I first got back into
comics in the early 90s I was buying them off newstands.
At the time they were publish about 2 issues a month and were well past
issue #1000 (I think I had both of their #1000s - it's a long story.
I'd say there were 30-odd pages each and had regular 90 pages issues,
and one a year a 500 pager. I have no idea what's happened to my
collection, though, they seem to have disappeared in a number of
moves... or maybe I gave them to someone.
Recently I was talking to a friend who works as a teacher about comics
and she was saying how kids in her classes don't read them (except one)
but she does see The Phantom occasionally. She's thinks it's because
they are cheap.
> Back in 1999, it cost about $128 (U.S.) to subscribe and get
> about 1,500 pages worth for a year. Also, does anyone happen to know
> the current price for International Subscriptions?
I could see if they have any information in a copy in a local newsagent
if you want...
> Supposedly, about
> 2/3 of the stories in this publication are new, and 1/3 are classic
> Falk reprints.
Well... once again, speaking historically...
1/3 are Falk Sundays or Dailies. They like to talk about how good
their collections of them are, deleting extraneous pages or making
changes to fit the comicbook format, and they are pretty good. They
have rules about not repeating the Falk stories for 5 years or
something.
2/3 are reprints of comics. A recall one DC story in an larger page
count comic, and but most are from European Comics. Unfortunately
there's often no rhyme or reason to these reprints. A story, although
self-contained, will refer to a ongoing storyline in the European comic
that we never see, and next time we get an issue from 2 years earlier.
I recall 1 Australian written issue, and they made quite a fuss about
it.
Now, all this may have changed in the last 15 years.
A suggestion, try an Australian search engine (like www.yahoo.com.au
and do an AU only search) it may come up with something.
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= DUG.
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