Been extremely busy for some time, hence no posts. Posting today a short (only 5 pages) but classic phantom sunday strip from Lee Falk and Wilson Mccoy. This is #S040 - The Gibs Brothers, first published in 1955.
Set in a food joint in the coastal town of Bengali, it is one of those early tales which helped set the image of phantom as a tough and fearless crime fighter who maintains a whole world of secrecy about his sudden appearance and equally mysterious disappearance into the obscure surroundings of the streets full of mist.
The same act, with slight modifications, has been repeated in a number of other adventures (for example, in the
phantom sunday strip posted earlier - #S136). But the original is original and has a solid effect on the reader, something that is found missing in the later repetitions.
I also found the story unique in the sense that Devil although accompany Phantom during the full length, never had to do any business whatsoever. He remains a silent spectator to the happenings. May be he is sure of his master's abilities to deal with the mean guys of the local town. Not feel like even barking at any stage. :-)
While coloring, I set my target on completing it with minimum of time. I wanted to check my speed with this Wilson Mccoy work. It came out quite satisfactory for me as the entire strip took about five to six hours spread over two days. That makes a single page on an average an hour. Not bad.
But I seriously doubt if this speed could be achieved with any of Sy Barry's Work also. Barry is a master is illustrating with delicacy and depth even the smallest of object appearing in the scene. Not to mention the landscapes and characters to which he pay extremely high attention.
For now you can enjoy this strip in full color.
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This strip encouraged many children to drink milk regularly -------!!!!!
ReplyDeleteThis comic and that too in colour !!!!!!!!!!!
Tonnes of Thanks
Praveen
Welcome back,nice colored pages for us to have a look.You are gaining coloring experience strip by strip.Here are few of my pennies too,avoid vibrant and hard colors and use soft and natural colors more.
ReplyDeleteSomehow i always imagined the color of Phantom overcoat as dark grey or dark and dull green as these colors adds up to the mysterious personality of Phantom.
Yeah,Sy Barry was a perfectionist about background details and in his work background details adds up prominently with the scene.
McCoy though not paid much attention to emboss background much and many of times he simply used criss-cross set of horizontal lines in place of background.
Moore's style highlights the shading effect much more to create a mysterious persona around Phantom image rather than depicting fine background details which later on were taken care of superbly by Barry.
@praveen: welcome praveen. the simplicity of the story is remarkable. still it delivers the message. i think every parent should like to read the story to their kid. :-)
ReplyDelete@CW: thanks. your feedback is extremely valuable, as usual. i tried to use simple colours in this strip and barring a few logos, the remaining panels are quite natural in appearance, that's what i think. yes, hard brushes with too vibrant colours take away the charm (e.g. moonstone and other modern illustrations) from the story. I tried to stick to the classic theme and did not use gradation for characters. only the background colouring was done using gradation technique.
ReplyDeletefor phantom's overcoat, i took inspiration from the old indrajal colouring for the same (take a look at ijc - 6, the lunar cult.) in later stories dark greenish/bluish colour was used, mostly in barry's work. that has become a trademark for the phantom's cover clothing. I too used the same in my previous attempt (Sunday Strip - 136). But in earlier IJCs, they also used orange/brown kind of brushes and that too is good.
You might have noticed that for Phantom's customary costume (mask etc), I used a different colour this time. this is inspired by Harvey Hits phantom.
Meanwhile, Now a days I am working on another phantom classic from McCoy and this time I am trying to take some liberties myself. A slight variation in phantom's costume. Let it be complete.
Barry's work of late sixties and entire seventies was of the highest standards. Simply incomparable. Though with modern approaches and amendments, the mysterious image of phantom bore a little dent(if we compare it with the stories of moore and mccoy era).
But overall all the three main artists deserve the appreciation for their contribution in developing and forwarding the phantom saga for us to enjoy forever.
I love all three of them for their own unique styles and flavours they imparted to the strips.
I think it is going to be my longest comment ever. :o)
Well,thanks for making me feel important.Yes,in very initial IJCs Phantom overcoat was shown in light colors such as yellow etc which was changed to dark blue/green later on in Barry's work but it will be interesting to experiment with some other dark and dull colors in your future work.
ReplyDeleteThis,S-40(Gib's Brothers),was the shortest Sunday story which ran for only 5 weeks and this is also among those very few stories where Phantom was not seen in his traditional attire(Masked costume) in the entire story.After this particular story in 1955 a majority of Phantom fan mail,quite unsatisfied,asked why Phantom was not presented in his costume in the whole story!
Falk took care not to repeat it at a quite regular basis though again he created a similar story which was based on this particular Sunday-40,can anyone name that story!
one more thing,for analyzing purpose try Illustrated Weekly Phantom strip as reference as IW Phantom strips are among one of the best Phantom colored strips of which i came across.
ReplyDeletevery interesting piece of information CW. I wasn't aware of the reader's initial reaction to this strip. there was clearly a craze for seeing phantom in his customary costume. And the great creator took the suggestions positively, shows the open mindedness of Falk to healthy feedbacks.
ReplyDeleteIW phantoms are surely a class apart as far as colouring is concerned. I will try to learn few things from that. Thanks.
Great comics collection you have.Thanks for sharing here.
ReplyDeleteIndian Advertising Network
Such wonderful coloring! Keep up the good work
ReplyDeleteDr Krishna Raman
Thanks Krishna Ji. More colouring projects are in pipeline.
ReplyDeleteI am looking indrajal comics collector who want to buy my whole collection for recent offer with good condition. Reply asap.
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