A hardcover album with the Phantom is out in Denmark right now. You can purchase from their website here.
Denmark has a long tradition with Phantom publication. Similar to Norway, comics with The Ghost Who Walks could be read for many decades in the comics anthology “Skippern”, Denmark's title was called “Skipper Skræk”.
The Danes have also seen several albums and digest size books with the Phantom. In addition, the "Fantom-hefte" comic booklet was co-printed among others in Norway and Denmark.
From 1971 Denmark had its own Fantomet magazine. After some changes to the concept, the Fantomet comic book was finally closed down in 1999 after 350+ comics.
2024 will make it 25 years since Denmark had a Phantom publication when the publisher E-voke released their first hardcover publication "Fantomet: Legenden vender tilbage". The publisher has faith in the comic series, because on the back cover we can see the images of two upcoming albums in the series.
[Editors note: You can find out more about issue 2 and 3 here]
The first Danish album is a reissue of the Swedish album "Hård mot de hårda" album originally printed in 2021. It includes exactly the same stories and three articles by the Swedish Fantomen editor Andreas Eriksson translated in Danish.
The contents are newspaper stories from the 1960s. Writer Lee Falk collaborating with the artists Sy Barry and Bill Lignante. The album starts with the first co-operation between Falk and Barry, "The Slave Market of Mucar". It is an exciting story in which the Phantom unravels in a mass escape from the large Boomsby prison. In retrospect the story is a Phantom classic, where Sy Barry modernizes the style of the comic. It takes a more realistic approach than what the previous artist Wilson McCoy.
The Bill Lignante drawn story is titled: "Samaris XII”. The story has a completely different graphic expression, where Lignante goes for something best described as between Sy Barry and Wilson McCoy art styles. Lee Falk also uses fantasy elements here, and the main character is the immortal queen who cannot fall in love with anyone.
The three other stories are all created by Lee Falk and Sy Barry.
"The Golden Sands of Keela Wee" is a story were we get to hear the amusing tale of how Emperor Joonkar gifted the beach to one of today's Phantom's predecessors, and there is also action when some villains take over Keela Wee.
"The Lions of Kukhan", where the hunt for a lion in the jungle leads the Phantom to gladiatorial combat in the Misty Mountains. There is more fighting in the last story "The Jungle Olympics", where some villains get a chance to do some robbing during the jungle's own Olympic Games.
This album collects a nice mix of Phantom comics from a good period of newspaper comics. The stories have been published around the world several times, but some of them appear here as more complete than in some of the other publications.
However, there are some objections I have with this printing. The rendition of “The Slave Market of Mucar” is not optimal in either the Swedish and Denmark albums released in 2021 and 2024. If we compare the print quality between these and the Fantomet Spesialalbum no. 1 from 1986, the lines of the art are better and the details have a better contrast in the Norwegian publication .
The top example is from the 1986 Norwegian printing with the bottom example from the Denmark E-voke printing.
The top example is from the 1986 Norwegian printing with the bottom example from the Denmark E-voke printing.
My last point is that both the Danish and Swedish editors, have chosen to reproduce several of the Phantom Sunday newspaper stories that were originally made for color in black and white. I feel it would have been an advantage if these were published in their true colourful glory.
"The Fantomet: Legenden vender tilbage" is an interesting release overall. Although it has some flaws which I have highlighted above, the album is a good introduction to the new generation and re introduction to the older phan. For the Denmark and Scandinavian readers, it may be worth following E- voke in the future.
PUBLICATION FACTS
"The Phantom: The Legend Returns "
By: Lee Falk, Sy Barry and Bill Lignante
ISBN 978-87-7598-045-1
132 pages
239 Danish kroner
[Editors note: if you would like to see the team at Chronicle Chamber do more comparison breakdowns of various printings of stories from around the world, please let us know. Thank you to Kristian Hellesund for providing the translated copy of his review which originally appeared in the Sydvesten newspaper in Norway.]
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