The Phantom Daily D111 - 'Yes' (Strip #01)

Starting today is a classic Phantom daily strip from very early seventies. It is D111 - "Yes" with original publication dates 7 Dec 1970 - 13 Feb 1971.

The reason why this beautiful story was never published in Indrajal Comics is beyond understanding. I guess the lack of much action in the storyline might be the reason. Diana's bikini outfit during her long stay at Eden island could just be another reason. Remember, during those days it was not considered appropriate to publish such pictures without proper editing in Indian comics. Anyway, it is a beautiful story with truly marvelous illustrations by one and only Seymour Barry.

A quick introduction to the story from this ipcomics page.
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The Phantom brings Diana to the Deep Woods for a few days’ welcome relaxation before Diana has to fly back to the States, but this time is slightly different. Two young boys have started to think about what will happen to the Phantom line if the present incumbent dies without any heirs to carry on the tradition.

Rex and Tomm are unusually keen to accompany Uncle Walker and Diana around, and when the boys overhear a conversation in the Skull Cave about eventual succession and who can be eligible, they decide on drastic action...
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About coloring, this particular strip has taken more time than any other strip thus far. Individual strips taking between 30 to 45 minutes with some demanding even more than that. Many strips went past multiple revisions before they reached satisfactory level. This story is so close to my heart.

The Phantom Daily D111 - Yes                                     (Strip #01)
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Enjoy friends.

Another Phantom Daily Strip Colored

Hello friends. Back after a long time.

More than a year ago, upon suggestion of a friend, I had started working on coloring of a Phantom daily strip by Falk and Barry. It was strip No. "D179 - Nukes" (publication dates 21 June 1993 to 13 Nov 1993).

This is a strip from post Indrajal era (which had ceased publication in 1990 as we already know). So it was never published in Indrajal Comics. Moreover as per trend in those days, newspapers published daily strip only in black and white format. Hence, it can be assumed that this strip was never published in color anywhere in the world.

It is a long strip spanning 21 weeks. That means a total of 126 individual strips. I started working and a good part of the project was completed smoothly within a month and half after start. And then the hurdles started coming. First some health issues and then some new developments in professional life kept me away from comics world. The coloring project took it's place in a deep freezer (but it was never buried).

Classic Phantom Daily Strip by Ray Moore and Lee Falk (D006 - Adventure in Algiers) in full colours.

Phantom punishing a young girl old school style

Presenting another classic phantom tale here in this post, one from the earliest adventures penned by Lee Falk and illustrated by the original Phantom artist Ray Moore. The story was published as far back as 1938.

For Indian readers this is unread in coloured form (for most even in any form) as it was not published in indrajal comics. In fact they never published any of the Moore's strips. It seems a curious case as to why they overlooked some of the best phantom stories while giving space for some non-Falkian stories from franchisees from american publishing houses e.g. charlton etc.

Phantom Daily Strip #060 (coloured) - The Wisdom of Solomon

During its peak period, many newspapers world over were publishing Phantom's adventures in form of daily and sunday strips. Many magazines were also happy to find a space for this mysterious masked man on their precious pages. While many newspapers and most magazines carried coloured prints for sunday strips, the daily strips were still published in only black and white.

Indrajal comics in India published many daily strips in coloured format, but still there remain  many a daily strips which were never published in Indrajal ever. For this reason, these stories are still not known to Indian comic lovers.

I decided to colour one such daily strip from the McCoy-Falk combo. This is a real classic from 1956. It is D060 - The Wisdom of Solomon.

TPH #069: Phantom Daily Strip (D-208 "The Hit Men")

Continuing the series on Phantom Daily Strips. Here comes another one, D-208, "The Hit Men".

Story

Cici, a young and innocent teenager, accidentally becomes an eye-witness to  a murder order by a highly placed underworld agent. She is encouraged by  her mother to stand by the truth and to testify in the court against the  evils. Courageously she follows the advice and becomes star witness in  the case.

Her testimony in the case could prove fatal for a number of high  positions. So, A plan is carefully laid to get rid of her, but her death  should not arise any doubts, so an accident is planned. She, along with  few of her friends, is sent to Bangalla jungle in the name of a high  adventure trip where two professional killers are in wait for her.

TPH #068: The Albees (Phantom daily strip D-194)

Today I am going to talk about another Phantom daily strip coming from Mr Lee Falk's own pen. While reading this story one thing which kept coming to my mind, and confirmed my believe, is that the magic of Falk was certainly on a decline during his last phase. He only appears as a shadow of himelf in the stories he created during the 90s. The special Falkian flavour which kept the readers glued to his creations for so long (almost 5 decades) is completely missing. It seems he was finding it difficult to cultivate new ideas and to develop them in some interesting manner, once Sy Barry bid a farewell to the illustration job. That's why we often get to see either the repetition of past events or long references to them. It's tolerable or even good upto some extent but when it overshadows the main storyline the things start to turn boring.

TPH #67: Phantom daily strip by Lee Falk (D-193, The Dakk Pirates)

A repeatitive theme in Phantom stories is 'the eastern dark' and the evildoers belonging to that land. For centuries phantoms have been fighting a constant battle against the ever upsurging crime-waves from the lands of dark. Lee Falk created at least four different stories on this topic.

One of the titles that Phantom holds declares him "the guardian of the eastern dark". The age old rivalry between the pirates/thugs of eastern dark and phantoms have provided Phantom lovers with some great stuff to read. The last of these (from Falk's pen) was the daily strip number 193, "The Dakk Pirates". This is presented in the current post.

TPH #066: Another Phantom Daily Strip (D-222, The New Recruits)

Another phantom daily strip. This time one created by Tony DePaul and Paul Ryan.

Story:

Jungle Patrol second in command, Colonel Worobu, is facing a unique situation. T wo young ladies from Mawitaan (capital city of Bangalla), tired of their boring routine work life, one working as a policewoman and the other a waitress in a restaurant, want to join the famed organisation, patroling the borders of 7 countries.


The girls are fed up with their current jobs and are in search for some stiff challenges and excitement in their lives. The two happened to be friends of Diana, from whom they get to know about the strange history of the only guarding unit of 1000 miles spreading jungle.

TPH #065: Now you can read it, actually (Phantom Daily Strip D-211, The Locust god)

Presenting a Phantom Daily Strip from post-Falkian era.

Story:

Of late, Phantom and Diana are missing the warmth of love as they are routinely finding it difficult to spend enough time together alone. Diana is busy with her UN work assignments and phantom is involved in his jungle activities as ever. Finally they decide to go to walker's table for a two day journey where only two of them could be alone for some time.

Here on the top of the mesa, they meet a strange and mysterious person who calls himself "the locust god". he asks phantom to help him nab a fugitive murderer. phantom is amazed to see that the person is well aware of his ancestral trail and also knows about the myth of his immortality. but he promises to help him.