Recently on social media we announced that Frew's celebrational 2000th issue will be a coloured comic featuring a classic reprint story with a new sequel. Now we can announce further details of the celebrational issue including the cover. Comic number 1972 will feature 100 pages, all in colour and five stories including one newly created story.
For those who have come in late some phans may be wondering why it is the 2000th issue when it is only number 1972?
This is because issue #330 was never published, and there were a total of 29 special issues either unnumbered or designated as an "A" issue. So 1972 plus 29 minus 1 leaves 2000. To eliminate further confusion since issue #972, Frew has dispensed with the use of the A-series for special issues.
I think many Frew readers and phans were expecting something like issue #972 (the 1000th issue) or even their recent 75th anniversary comic and while it is not the bumper annual style issue, at least it is something that celebrates the anniversary. The stories are remastered in colour and we get a newly created story. It is also a better comic in my opinion than number #1500.
The cover is by Shane Foley and coloured by Sarge. Interestingly, this cover was drawn in 2023 as you can tell by the cover signature. Be curious if this story was originally designated to be printed beforehand and maybe was held over with this anniversary in mind.
The stories included in this celebrational comic are:
"The Maharajah's Daughter" by Lee Falk and Wilson McCoy
"Royal Hero" by Pidde Andersson and Shane Foley
"Of Man & Beasts" by Andrew Constant and Jason Paulos
"The Fence" by Lee Falk and Sy Barry
Four of the stories are coloured by Ivan Pederson who has a real eye for colouring the classic stories and tends to be Frew's go to for these colour combination comics. The coloured version of "The Fence" story by Lee Falk and Sy Barry was previously published in the Norwegian Fantomet Year Album 2023 and Regal #33.
You can see below samples of the colouring for the two reprints of the classics.
Something else that caught our eye is that one of the bad guys about to be skull marked is a well known phan collector who purchased a spot to be included in a Frew story. If you would like to learn more about this opportunity, please visit this article explaining how you could also be included in a story and you can also be skull marked. Talk about a conversational starter!
Are you excited about this celebrational issue to celebrate Frew's 2000th issue published? We will review this issue, and the stories in our next comics and news podcast.
Please note, that the 2000th issues if for the regular series and does not include other titles like Kid Phantom, Phantoms World, the two series of Giant Size plus others.
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