By Kevin Patrick

When the first edition of Frew Publications’ new comic book, titled Enter The Phantom, went on sale in September 1948, it was the latest entrant into Australia’s then-booming postwar comic book market.

The ‘boom’ was fuelled by a wartime embargo on the importation of American comic books (in place since 1940), and spurred by the increased availability of newsprint supplies and the easing of government restrictions which curtailed the launch of new, ongoing magazine titles, which were imposed to preserve paper stocks needed for the nation’s war effort.

Australian publishers were handed a captive audience and they launched a flurry of new, locally-produced comic books to meet the rising demand for escapist reading matter. For Peter Chapman, a 23 year-old aspiring artist from Cammeray, North Sydney, there wasn’t a better time to gain a foothold in the comic book business.

The prolific young artist had already become a fixture at Frank Johnson Publications, where he’d written and drawn a slew of comic strips for Johnson’s ‘Magpie Comics’ imprint since 1946, including the sci-fi serial ‘Captain Jerry Winters’ and a jungle drama, ‘Diana Hastings’, for Johnson’s Gem Comics title, as well as contributing stories to the company’s popular True Pirate Comics.

“When I was working at Johnson’s, a famous French writer, Eddie Brooker, who’d apparently had stuff published all over Europe, came along and said he was writing comics, but he couldn’t get anyone to draw them.”

“Virgil Reilly, one of the artists from the Daily Telegraph, wound up illustrating one of Brookers titles, called The Invisible Avenger,” according to Peter.

“Brooker would use a translator to turn his stories into English, but he [Brooker] used too many words, which would ‘kill’ the story.”

“I ended up doing The Invisible Avenger for him [Brooker] and took over from Virgil Reilly as the artist.”

Brooker, who by now was employed as a writer on the Daily Mirror newspaper, would try and sell his stories, using Peter’s original artwork, but often without giving Peter a percentage of any fees he received from publishers. “I’d be a rich man now if I kept all that original artwork,” Peter says ruefully.

Brooker wrote some of the early issues of The Phantom Ranger, a cowboy comic which was originally created by British-born artist Jeff Wilkinson, and became Frew Publications’ first locally-produced comic book when it was launched in October 1949.

According to Peter, Frew’s publisher and co-founder, Ron Forsyth, wasn’t entirely happy with Brooker’s efforts. “That’s when he asked me if I could do it [The Phantom Ranger] on my own instead.”

Chapman took over as both writer and artist on The Phantom Ranger, which was not only published under licence in the United Kingdom and South America, but also generated a line of Phantom Ranger merchandise and was adapted into a popular radio serial in the early 1950s, starring Charles ‘Bud’ Tingwell.

Peter would also assume the writing and illustration for another Frew comic book, The Shadow, starring an urban masked crime-fighter, which was again created by Jeff Wilkinson. While never achieving the same popularity as The Phantom Ranger, The Shadow would enjoy an equally long publishing life.

(For readers interested in learning more about Frew Publications’ Australian comic book characters, selected issues of The Phantom Ranger, The Shadow and Sir Falcon have been republished in electronic format. For details, visit Vintage Australian Comic Books on CD-ROM)

“I worked with Ron Forsyth from about 1949, and well into the early 1960s,” he states.
“Ron was very good – he used to work over at the Daily Telegraph – but he didn’t have a clue when it came to comics,” according to Peter.

“He was offered two titles from America – one was The Phantom, and the other could have been Abbott and Costello – and, as luck would have it, he took The Phantom!” Chapman recalls that Ron Forsyth hired Thomas Russell (‘Tommy’) Hughes, who was then working as the Art Director on The Australian Women’s Weekly, to assemble the Phantom comic book and draw the covers as well. (It’s worth noting that both the Daily Telegraph and The Australian Women’s Weekly were then owned by Frank Packer’s Australian Consolidated Press.)

“Ron and Tommy were pretty good friends, so [The Phantom] was a bit of extra [income] for Tommy.”

“Some of Tommy’s covers were pretty rough, but it almost didn’t matter, because The Phantom sold so well,” explains Peter. “The kids knew who The Phantom was, because he’d been around for a while in the [Australian] Woman’s Mirror magazine.”

In addition to producing The Phantom Ranger and The Shadow, Peter would also assist with the production of The Phantom comic book throughout the 1950s and early 1960s.
“The artwork for The Phantom was supplied to Frew on bromides (black & white photoprints), but sometimes they’d be the wrong size,” he says.

“I’d have to cut them [the stories] from 32 pages down to 21 pages, or sometimes go the other way, in order to fill out the pages.”

“I used to do the paste-ups for Frew’s romance comics, by cutting down the original artwork so that it would fill out the 100-page digest-sized format they were using.”

Peter would also occasionally redraw some of the panels, or even entire pages, of a Phantom comic, in order to maintain story continuity, if some of the original artwork was missing, or had been left out due to space limitations.

“I did a few covers for The Phantom throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, whenever Tommy Hughes was away,” he adds.
“Tommy never seemed to actually drop in [to Frew’s offices], he’d always send someone around to pick up, or drop off his work.”
“I always worked from home myself,” Peter explains. “I was living at Dee Why, and then moved to Springwood. I’d always drop my stuff off at Frew, because I had a deadline to meet every second week.”
“Ron [Forsyth] always had a production bloke in there and a young girl assistant as well,” he recalls. “You’d change things [on the artwork] on the spot, in the office – if you got some grammar wrong, or something like that.”
The initial success of The Phantom allowed Frew Publications to expand its business by adding new, locally-drawn titles, such as Super Yank Comics, and other, short-lived titles like Suicide Squad and The Green Skeleton.
“I once went with Ron to see a psychoanalyst who explained why The Phantom was so popular. He didn’t tell us much more about The Phantom than we didn’t already know ourselves, but we partly based our next comic, Sir Falcon, on the explanation that he gave us.”

“A lot of people said Sir Falcon was a rip-off of The Phantom, and I’d say ‘Oh yeah? What about [Australian sci-fi comic strip] Silver Starr? He was a rip-off of Flash Gordon’.”

Working for Frew Publications was a lucrative, but demanding job for Peter Chapman. “When I started out in the industry at Frank Johnson Publications, I was getting 30 shillings per page of artwork – by the time I was working at Frew, I was getting £110 per comic book, which was good money at the time, as the average wage back then would’ve been £20 per week.”

“But that meant I did everything, including drawing the covers, doing the cover colours using an overlay sheet, writing the stories and all the artwork and lettering myself.”

“Ron used to have the panel borders, six squares per page, printed on to the art paper, which saved me a lot of time, and I could alter the borders to suit the artwork. I worked so fast that it got to the point where I could do the lettering without using guide lines.”

“Comics were possibly the hardest work I’ve ever done,” admits Peter. “Sometimes I’d have to work 48 hours straight, just to meet my deadlines – I’d do six pages per day, and could easily [complete] a full-length comic book per week.”

Peter left Frew Publications in the early 1960s, just as the Australian comics industry was slipping into decline, largely due to the popularity of television and the reintroduction of imported, full-colour American comic books onto the local market.

He has since enjoyed a lengthy and diverse career as a commercial artist and illustrator, as well as teaching art at New South Wales TAFE Colleges. For the last 14 years, Peter Chapman has conducted his own travelling ‘Art School’, which sees him visiting different towns throughout the state, where he conducts art classes.

“I can teach on virtually any art topic, because I’ve used every technique imaginable, from black and white illustration, to airbrushing.”

“I’ve taught students ranging in age from 7 years to 98 years – and that’s how I met my second wife, Meg Madden, who’s a very good landscape artist, too.” Discuss this interview on the forums.

Kevin Patrick orginaly conducted this interview in late 2000. It was originally published online at the now defunked OzComics.com in 2001. In a very generous offer Kevin has allowed the interview he presented once more here at ChronicleChamber.com

Most of us think the golden age of superheroes began with the debut of Superman in Action Comics No.1 back in 1938.

The truth is that the award for the world’s first costumed hero goes to The Phantom which was created and written by Lee Falk and illustrated by Ray Moore , and first appeared in American
newspapers on 17 February 1936!

Strangely enough, The Phantom has always proved more popular overseas than in America. This is certainly the case in Australia, where The Phantom has been a runaway success with generations of readers since its debut in The Australian
Woman’s Mirror in 1936.

So popular was the strip that The Australian Woman’s Mirror published a series of five Phantom annuals between 1938-1940. This made Australia the second country in the world (after Italy) to publish a Phantom comic book.

After the Second World War, the Australian comic book industry enjoyed a short-lived boom, with dozens of local publishers releasing original Australian comics and local reprint editions of such popular American comics as Superman, Batman and Donald Duck, to name a few.

It was during this period that The Phantom reappeared in comic book format, this time published by Sydney-based Frew Publications. The first issue apparently sold 50,000 copies on its debut in September 1948, with sales for subsequent issues climbing to 80,000. Such was the demand for the title that The Phantom eventually moved from a monthly to a fortnightly schedule, where it has remained ever since.

Comics were a big part of the young Jim Shepherd’s childhood during the 1940s. Little did he realise know that he would cross paths with The Ghost Who Walks many years later!

“I remember clearly the first comic book I ever read was Buck Rogers” he recalls, “when a lot of comics were coming in courtesy of American servicemen.”

“So I grew up with Buck Rogers, Dick Tracy, Joe Palooka and all those sort of classic American
comics,” says Jim. “For some reason, I never had an affinity for Australian-written and created comic books.”

Jim didn’t give comic books much thought over the years, as he embarked on a lengthy and successful career as a newspaper journalist and freelance magazine writer. Between 1964-70, he was the Sporting Director for Channel Ten Sydney, where he worked as a commentator and producer on a variety of sports shows covering cricket, motor racing, rugby league and boxing.

His first book, The Australian Sporting Almanac, was successfully published in 1974, leading him to establish his own publishing company, Jim Shepherd Pty. Ltd., in 1978. Over the next twelve years, he published 20 sport, travel and corporate history titles.

Then one day in 1987, Jim bumped into Ron Forsyth and Lawford ‘Jim’ Richardson, the founders of Frew Publications.
“They were getting pretty old and, while they hadn’t lost interest in the Phantom title,” explains Jim, “they needed someone who could give them a few ideas about what could be done to kick it along a bit.”

Frew’s owners sent Jim to New York for a meeting with King Features Syndicate, who distributed The Phantom comic strip to newspapers worldwide, to learn about the character and to discuss ideas for rejuvenating the Australian edition comic book.

Returning to Australia, however, Jim learned that Jim Richardson had died during his absence, which left the elderly, semi-retired Ron Forsyth at the helm of Frew Publications. Soon after, Jim and Ron’s son, Peter Forsyth, bought all the shares in the company. Jim subsequently bought out Peter Forsyth, leaving him the sole owner of Frew Publications – a position he holds to this day.

Taking over the reigns at Frew set Jim on a steep learning curve about The Phantom and its publishing history in Australia.

“My first observations of the comic book, as it existed back in 1987, was that it was getting a bit dog-eared, tired and they’d stuck religiously to this self-cover, newsprint format,” he recalls.

“Never being a devotee of The Phantom, although being aware of it, I went through Frew’s files and discovered that they had rarely run any of Lee Falk’s classic stories in their entirety,” he says.

“One example was The Diamond Hunters – they’d only ever run one half of the story!” explains Jim. “They started it half-way through and just dropped the first half.”

Jim‘s first decision was to bring back all of Lee Falk’s classic stories from the 1930s and 40s in their entirety, as a way of bringing one-time fans back to the magazine, to rediscover complete versions of their favourite stories.

Reassembling the original artwork, however, was easier said than done. Amazingly enough, King Features Syndicate did not have complete story runs in their archives – nor did Frew Publications, for that matter.

Going through Frew’s correspondence files, Jim discovered Barry Stubbersfield, a comics’ historian from Brisbane, and a keen devotee of The Phantom.

“I wrote to him and discovered he had lots of contacts in the United States,” says Jim, “including one Professor Rob Griffin from West Michigan University, who had a lifetime hobby of collecting newspaper tear sheets.

“So with his help, and through other people, we slowly, painstakingly, began to bring back the old Phantom stories,” he says.

It was during their first restoration job on the 1942-43 story The Phantom Goes
to War, which was published in its entirety by Frew in 1988, that Jim also started looking at the comic’s cover artwork, which rarely had anything to do with the featured story!

“Tom Hughes had been doing their covers for almost thirty years,” Jim says, “but he would never get any instruction from the publishers, so Tom would just think of anything!”

Yet Jim found that, when he quizzed people in newsagencies and comic shops about their favourite Phantom stories, many people could vividly remember a pivotal scene from that story.

“I started to use these ideas, thinking if people’s memory banks are that good, if they see that image on the front cover, they might get a bit more enthused about buying Phantom comic books,” he explains.

When Tom Hughes retired from the title in 1988, Jim decided to test his ideas by revamping the comic’s format with new cover artwork and promoting each restored reprint as the ‘complete, uncensored’ version.

“These little features obviously worked,” says Jim, “because, magically, the whole thing began to take off from 1988 and, within a year, we doubled the sales, which was quite amazing.”

Soon after relaunching the title, Jim worked out that, due to Frew’s strange numbering system, issue number 972 of The Phantom, due to be published in
January 1991, would in fact be the title’s 1000th issue – a world record for most comics, let alone The Phantom!

“I thought ‘why don’t we come out with a big issue, something special?’,” Jim says. “Then it dawned on me that if we could put together a lot of old stories in their entirety, and made it an event, we could make it bigger and put a bigger price on the front cover.”

Despite reservations from longtime distributor Gordon & Gotch about the commercial viability of a $10.00 special edition comic, Jim went ahead with the bumper anniversary issue.

With the help of Melbourne freelance writer Julian Lewis, who Jim commissioned to generate publicity for the comic, The Phantom‘s 1000th issue was a runaway success and put the title back on the map.

“While I’m normally hesitant to talk about sales figures, I like to crow about this one,” admits Jim. “We printed 45,000 copies of that issue, at a $10.00 retail price, and sold 43,000, which was amazing!”

“Now we’ve never achieved that sale again,” adds Jim, “but the annual January issue is still our biggest selling issue of the year by far.”

The Phantom went from strength to strength from 1988 onwards, with that year’s much publicised visit to Australia by the strip’s creator Lee Falk, through to The Phantom feature film’s release in 1996.

Like the comic itself, The Phantom movie did remarkably well in Australia and Scandinavian countries, such as
Denmark, where Semic (later Egmont) has published the Phantom comic since 1950.

The film, which starred Billy Zane, took $7 million at the Australian box office, but did much better on video, holding the number-one rental spot for two weeks, before reaching the Top 10 once again on its retail release.

Both Marvel and DC Comics in America tried their hand at publishing new versions of The Phantom comic book during the 1990s without success, which begs the question – just why is The Phantom so popular with Australian readers?

Jim thinks that The Phantom has the advantage of being one of the most popular syndicated newspaper strips in Australia, which greatly enhances the character’s exposure. The fact that so many prominent media and sporting identities, such as rugby player Wally Lewis, were
also diehard Phantom fans hasn’t hurt sales either!

“It just amazed me how many media people kept referring to The Phantom, without any pressure from me,” says Jim.

More importantly, Jim argues that it’s the basic concept of the character and all he represents that ensures its popularity with readers in such far-flung markets as India, Brazil, Italy, Spain, France and Australia.

“It’s probably the only major comic book character in the world whose adventures are written and illustrated by so many different people, to the point where the character looks different [in each country],” he remarks.

“Yet the character is consistent and the appeal comes down to the quality of the
stories,” he claims.

The Phantom‘s popularity with older Australians is no surprise to Jim, who claims that the majority of letter writers to the magazine are adults.

“I’ve had many chats with Ulf Granberg, the publisher for the Egmont company in Scandinavia, and he says his audience is basically adults,” he adds.

Part of Jim’s overhaul of The Phantom has been translating stories created by the Scandinavian publisher for the Australian market. While these stories have proved for the most part popular, Jim admits their occasionally offbeat storylines prompted him to search for alternative material.

“We were at the stage where the quality of the material from Scandinavia left a lot to be desired,” he admits. “They kept drifting into stories about Nordic mythology and Scandinavian kings and queens, which had little interest here.”

With Lee Falk’s output of original stories also slowing down by the early 1990s, Jim sought permission from King Features Syndicate to commission locally created stories, which they granted.

Working with celebrated Australian comic book artist Keith Chatto, who created such classic comics as El Lobo, The Twilight Ranger and Steve Carlisle in the 1950s, Jim set about writing the first-ever Australian-made Phantom story.

“Keith and I thought the hottest person in world sports at the time was Mike Tyson,” explains Jim, “so we said let’s do a story about The Phantom fighting the world heavyweight champion, who we called Turner in the story.”

The story, Rumble in the Jungle, appeared in The Phantom No. #951A in 1990 and, according to Jim, “sold like crazy”.

“But just before the story came out, Mike Tyson was knocked out by Buster Douglas, so he was no longer the champion,” he says.

History overtook The Phantom on his next Australian-made adventure, The King’s Cross Connection, again written by Jim and illustrated by Keith Chatto, and published in The Phantom No. 1000 in 1992.

“I knew that our then-Prime Minister Bob Hawke was a keen Phantom fan,” recalls Jim, “so I thought ‘Let’s work him into the story.’ A week before it went on sale, he was no longer the Prime Minister!”

“Hawke was really pleased to be a part of it anyway,” he adds.

Rumble in the Jungle wasn’t Frew Publications’ first foray into Australian comics. Inspired by The Phantom‘s strong sales on its 1948 debut, Frew launched a line of Australian titles in the 1950s. These included a handful of short-lived comics, such as Suicide Squad, Planetman and The Green Skeleton, whose scarcity today makes them highly sought-after titles.

Frew Publications had greater success with The Shadow (a masked crime-fighter, but no relation to the famous American pulp magazine character of the same name), Sir Falcon (a medieval knight in a modern-day setting) and The Phantom
Ranger (a masked cowboy who became the star of his own radio serial during the1950s). These titles were mainly illustrated by Jeff Wilkinson and Peter Chapman, and continued to be published (albeit in reprint form) well into the late 1960s.

(For more information about Frew Publications’ early Australian comic book
heroes, visit Australian Vintage Comics on CD-ROM)

Frew also bought the rights to Catman , an American superhero, which was redrawn by several Australian cartoonists during the 1950s.

The first to do so was Lloyd Piper, who drew the strip for Frew’s Super Yank Comics in 1951-1952, before going on to illustrate the Ginger Meggs comic strip. Frew launched a solo Catman comic in 1958, which was written and drawn by John Dixon, before he created the Air Hawk and the Flying Doctors newspaper comic strip.

While several of Frew’s Australian titles survived well into the 1960s, Jim has no plans to reintroduce them to a new generation of Frew readers, claiming “I can’t see any market for them at all.”

Jim admits that, if he had the budgets of Marvel or DC Comics, he would “start to experiment with some classic-type characters and try and recreate the old magic that strips like Dick Tracy, Rip Kirby and Big Ben Bolt had at their peak.”

While he would love nothing more than to see Australian-made comic books compete successfully with their imported rivals, Jim argues that local publishers, “if they made a huge mistake, it was to follow the American line of superheroes, which just added to the oversupply anyway.”

Perhaps the bigger obstacle confronting Australian comics is the local audience’s changing entertainment habits.

“Just about every magazine title in Australia is going down,” Jim argues. “The internet is starting to take people’s attention away from publications.”

“All of this has happened before,” he adds. “When television really got off the ground, not only did comic books and publications generally suffer, but so did movies – people even started to turn off their radios!”

“So here we go again – now people have gotten tired of television, so they’ve started turning to other pursuits, like PCs and Nintendo,” says Jim.

“I don’t know what happens from here,” he adds. “I think people have to say the [internet] is the new version of television, in the sense that young people are really turning on to it.”

The Phantom hasn’t been immune from this trend either. While admitting that sales of the title have plateaued in recent years, Jim stresses that they are “still extremely healthy.”

“With The Phantom comic book, we have the strange situation where the bulk of our readers are not youngsters,” he adds. This could go some way to explaining the title’s continued longevity in the face of competition from computer games and the Internet, which are traditionally more popular with younger people.

So what does the future hold for The Phantom – and for Jim Shepherd as well?

“I think we might try more locally-created stories in the near future,” says Jim.

“I’m talking at the moment with Ulf Granberg about collaborating on a story, where we bring back Sala from The Sky Band into the story,” he says. “The idea is one of us will write the first half and the other guy finishes it.”

Apart from “jazzing up” the magazine’s presentation, running more reader competitions and including more collectable posters, Jim says there won’t be many major changes to the title.

One idea Jim has been toying with is the creation of a Phantom museum, based on Frew’s collection of original Phantom artwork and memorabilia.

As for Jim’s future with The Phantom, he says he will stay on for another 2-3 years, “then I’ll hand over to my eldest son [Steven], who’s champing at the bit to become involved.”

“My son will run the business and I’ll be the curator of the museum,” adds Jim, half-joking.

Kevin Patrick writes the column, Comics Down Under , for Collectormania magazine. He published The Panther comic book in 2001-2002 and was the Guest Curator for the exhibition, Heroes and Villains: Australian Comics and
their Creators being held at the State Library of Victoria from 20 October 2006 – 25 February 2007.

Discuss this article on the forums

By Joe Douglas

Publisher of the world’s longest running Phantom comic Mr. Jim Shepherd is a very important man in Phantom circles. Joe Douglas has the pleasure of chatting to the man behind Frew about his publication and his love for a man in purple tights…

ChronicleChamber.com: G’day Jim, thanks very much for joining us here at ChronicleChamber.com. First off, for those who came in late, tell us how you first became publisher of the worlds longest running Phantom publication.

Jim Shepherd: In 1987 I was running a quite successful book publishing company of my own when I was asked by the then partners in Frew to handle some business negotiations on their behalf. Later the same year, one of the partners died and the other decided he wanted to retire. I agreed to buy a small stake in Frew and later purchased 50% of the company. The opportunity later arose to purchase all the issued shares. By 2001 I became the sole owner.

CC: The Phantom is a huge pop culture icon in Australia. What is it about the character that makes him so endearing to Australian readers in particular, do you think?

JS: Almost certainly because the character has been around for so long…as a
syndicated newspaper and magazine strip since the late 1930s for example. It
has out-lasted so many syndicated Australian, American and British strips
and today ranks No.2 (behind Ginger Meggs) as the most widely distributed
comic strip in Australia. Frew has been on the scene since September, 1948.

CC: As a Phantom phan yourself, do you still collect Phantom memorabilia or do you just concentrate on putting the book out?

JS: I don’t collect merchandise, although a huge amount comes my way as
gifts. I do collect Phantom publications of every type. If anybody out there
has a copy of a comic book published in Russia, please get in touch! I think
it is the only example of an international Phantom comic book I do not
possess.

CC: Do you have a personal favorite Phantom story?

JS: Still love some of the very early Lee Falk stories and especially the
original, The Singh Brotherhood. In no order, other Falk favourites are The
Phantom Goes to War, The Golden Circle and The Slave Traders.

CC: You were lucky enough to have met the Phantom’s creator, the late Lee Falk. For those of us who never had that honour, tell us a little about the man.

JS: I first met Lee when he and wife Elizabeth came to Australia in 1988 and saw him at least once every year until his death. With one exception (when he returned to Australia in the 1990s) we always caught up in New York. He was a highly intelligent man, always friendly and interested in so many things. Despite our age difference, we hit it off because we quickly discovered we shared so many interests….the theatre (his real passion in
life!), jazz and classical music, , magic and among many other things, boxing! At many of our longish lunches in New York, we often never broached the subject of comics, but concentrated entirely on the merits of boxers from the golden era of the 1940s and 1950s.

CC: Lee Falk’s other comics hero, Mandrake, almost comes hand in hand with the purple clad hero. Even though they have only appeared together on few occasions the characters seem almost inseparable. Do you personally enjoy the Mandrake strips?

JS: I loved the Phil Davis era with Mandrake and rate it one of the best
illustrated comics of that time. Sadly, a lot of the Mandrake ‘magic’ faded
when Davis died, but of course, that can be said for so many other famous
strips ranging from Dick Tracy to Joe Palooka and Prince Valiant.

CC: This may go in hand with the previous question but apart from The Phantom are you a fan of any other comic books or strips?

JS: Far too many to mention in detail! I grew up with vintage Buck Rogers, Dick Tracy, Joe Palooka, Prince Valiant and Flash Gordon and still like to read classic adult/adventure strips of the period. I was also something of a fan of old Australian strips such as Wanda The War Girl! Wish I’d kept the hundreds of old Australian comic books I once owned!

CC: Much of Frew’s output in the last few years has been reprints of Egmont stories. How exactly do you choose which stories to print?

JS: When I first became involved with Frew, I was extremely selective about Semic and later, Egmont stories, because fairly early, I embarked upon a plan to bring back as many complete (unedited) Lee Falk stories as possible. Now that Frew has re-published so many old Falk stories in their entirety, I have almost been forced into purchasing almost every new story published by Egmont. Once sufficient years have passed, I will probably cut back a little on new Scandinavian stories and bring back more of the old Falk adventures.

CC: Recently Frew has printed many multi-part Egmont tales. Due, I assume, to the availability of the scripts and art there is often a “filler” issue between one part of the story and the next. If Frew has these stories to use as “fillers” would it not be better to print those “filler” stories until all issues of a multi-part story are at your disposal rather than having the story interrupted by an unrelated tale, or is Frew not able to do this?

JS: Go back a little and you will note that we did, in fact, publish Semic and Egmont serial stories in an unbroken line. Sadly, Egmont now follows a schedule of having long gaps between episodes of serial works and it is not unusual for a four-part story to be spread over 12 months. I’d like to run part stories in a continual line, but this is not possible.

CC: It’s known that some Egmont re-prints in Frew editions are edited to conceal nudity and such. An example would be the story Giovanna which saw the title characters’ bare breasts covered in the Frew edition. However, in Son of the Pirate Queen (Frew #1389, 1426, 1427) a female pirate’s naked breasts are seen in nearly every page. Also, in the recent Circe’s Island (Frew #1455, 1456) Felmang’s art, while not explicit is defiantly suggestive yet these stories were not edited or censured in any way. I am not saying these decisions were wrong, but could you explain how you decide what stories need censoring which stories do not?

JS: It’s true that for quite a long time, I ‘censored’ many Scandinavian stories. Some of the older stories were far more explicit than current creations. It’s really a matter of public reaction. Since I eased up on my self-imposed ‘censorship’ policy, we have had virtually no complains. Obviously there is a new level of acceptance out there!

CC: The question of censorship in Frew’s comics raises the question as to what age group you’re aiming your comics at. While young children can easily enjoy The Phantom – indeed many phans started reading the comics at an early age – there are a number of possible “mature” themes in some of Frew’s issues, such as the near murderous rampage the Phantom goes on due to suffering from a bullet wound in the Year One story line. In this day and age that is very sensitive as to what children are exposed to how do you decide what age group to aim your publication at and if the stories you publish are acceptable for that demographic?

JS: I have tried hard to establish exactly our audience. The best I can offer is that the bulk of our customers are 20 years and over and that the largest growth area is 50 years and over! Younger girls and boys buy The Phantom of course, but judging by correspondence we receive, I believe sub-teenagers comprise less than 15% of the total. When you think about it, think Mission Impossible when you try to settle on story selection which will not offend anti-violence and semi-adult themes. So many of the Scandinavian stories these days are at least a mite gory and the American dailies and Sundays contain varying degrees of violence. Just try to be careful!

CC: Are younger audiences something that Frew has to keep in mind? Obviously if a book doesn’t pull in more readers it will eventually fade away and getting them while their young seems to be the best way of ensuring you’ll have lasting fans. Has Frew taken, or do you plan to take any steps towards promoting The Phantom to a younger audience?

JS: We do not have any specific plans to promote towards younger audiences. Frankly, there are too few suitable stories available and as previously said, the growth market is with older people. It seems so many older people are re-discovering The Phantom. Now, that’s a highly unusual situation when you compare it to the current United States comics market!

CC: A subject of much discussion in the Phantom on-line community is that of the Phantom being “up-dated.” The Phantom has always been a modern character for the time in which he is written. In your opinion, would it be at all “wrong” to see the Phantom using, say, broadband Internet rather than that giant, ancient radio he keeps in the Skull Cave to contact Diana and the Jungle Patrol in this techno savvy year of 2006?

JS: The Phantom is far more up-market these days in terms of technology. The
Catch-22 situation is that whenever we bring back an old story, he reverts
to his old fashioned methods of communication. I don’t think it matters one iota. The true fans simply love the stories!

CC: Speaking of technology in Phantom stories, Frew has recently published the first two parts of Hans Lindahl’s Cyberspace run of stories (Frew #1442, 1460). These seem to have been well received by phans, but what is your personal opinion on them?

JS: The Cyberspace series has had a slightly mixed reception, but overall, seems to have been popular enough. I have really enjoyed them! There will not be too many more stories on such themes.

CC: Still on the Cyberspace stories, tales such as this really demonstrate the versatility of the character. Do you believe writers should experiment more with The Phantom? Take our hero to different places and put him in situations we might not have expected?

JS: I’m not in favour of The Phantom venturing into sci-if domains. Nor are the vast bulk of readers. If there is one message contained in reader correspondence, it is that The Phantom should be seen more often in his jungle domain. I agree!

CC: Going off Frew’s publication for a moment, have you seen or read any of American publisher Moonstone’s Phantom comics? The majority of Phans seem to be enjoying these books and they have been selling well as well as raising awareness of The Phantom in America to the highest point it’s been since, possibly, the 1996 feature film, especially among younger readers. Surely this can only be a good thing?

JS: I have every Moonstone edition. I’m not really impressed with most of the art and most of the stories. For some unaccountable reason, the Moonstone creators seem to be trying to turn The Phantom into a B-grade ‘super hero’

CC: The Frew Annual is an issue that is much looked forward to every year. However, a number of phans have said they’d like to see one or two changes in the Annal’s format, for example havening a free poster instead of or as well as the replica issue. Other’s have suggested keeping the Annual itself full of Phantom stories but instead of the free replica they’d prefer a reprint of Mandrake the Magician strips. Would you ever consider changing the format of the Annual?

JS: Frew’s Annual is by far our largest seller each year. I have no plans to dramatically change the current format and unsurprisingly, even new chum fans seem to appreciate seeing old Frew editions, cute as many were! During 2007, Frew will commence adding bonus items to selected editions (similar to the Lee Falk tribute issue earlier this year). We have something really special planned to accompany our 1500th edition which will appear in April, 2007. It’s so secret I’m not dropping even a hint at this stage. I’ll include a Mandrake story in the Annual only if it is a Phantom crossover.

CC: Something else phans have been asking for are books reprinting Falk’s strips in chronological order rather than the “miscellaneous” way they are appearing in Frew at the moment. It has been suggested that perhaps the Annual could adopt this format. Would Frew ever consider doing anything along these lines?

JS: Another Catch-22 situation. It’s far too late to even think about publishing a chronological run of Lee Falk dailies and Sundays. There would be far too much repetition. A pity, but when Frew started, stories appeared at random!

CC: Would you consider publishing Mandrake as a regular book again?

JS: No. We tried Mandrake some years ago and the results, while passable, were not economically viable.

CC: Frew issues used to have original covers produced by artists such as Glenn Ford and Antonio Lemos rather than the “photocopied” covers we see now. Is there any chance Frew will return to original cover for their books?

JS: Yes. However, our research has proved beyond doubt that editions sporting a cover linked to the contained story work far better than one-off, theme-style covers. Glenn Ford is always welcome and Antonio Lemos and ‘Tessa’ (Terry Welsby) are still contributing.

CC: In a recent interview one of Moonstone’s Phantom writers said that they have to follow strict guidelines laid down by King Features when creating a Phantom story. Does Frew have to follow any similar rules or guidelines?

JS: King Features does not insist on anything from Frew (other than the best possible good taste). We have a strong and wonderful relationship.

CC: There are a number of Falk stories that have been out of print for over ten years, such as Romance and the Vesta Pirates. Do you plan to reprint these stories anytime soon?

JS: Commencing early 2007 there will be upwards of 20 older Falk stories slotted into the schedule. All have been out of print for upwards of 17 years.

CC: Does Frew have any plans to publish any more stories from the Charlton Phantom editions

JS: No. It is now not possible to obtain pristine repros of any Charlton material. More’s the pity!

CC: Frew has been printing Phantom comics for close to sixty years now. Surely you must be doing something right! Why do you think the comic has been able to last for so long when others lose popularity?

JS: Return to my previous comment re the continual exposure The Phantom receives in Australia. Add to that our cover price!

CC: Although The Phantom is arguably Australia’s most popular comic the book doesn’t have a large presence at Australian conventions such as SupaNova, other than Glenn Ford signing and stores selling back issues. With these cons becoming more and more popular would Frew ever consider havening a Phantom stall at any of these cons? I’m sure there are many phans who would love to help out and many more who would visit.

JS: Frew has been represented at a number of Australian conventions, but admittedly, not for some years. My feeling is that the current Cons are aimed directly at the super hero audience. The Phantom is way outside this market. Frew editions have, however, been exposed at a number of up-market promotions in Canberra and currently, in Melbourne.

CC: One of my favorite Phantom stories is Search for Byron (Frew #1131). Is there any chance will see you pick up the writers pen once more?

JS: Not in the immediate future. Loved the experience (and thanks for your
comment!), but I am so busy on so many other fronts (mainly sporting) as an
historian for the Sydney Cricket Ground and NSW Sports Centre Trusts and as
Patron and newsletter compiler with the Veteran Speedway Riders Association
of Australia. That’s just the tip of the iceberg!

CC: Thanks very much for your time Jim, I wish you and Frew the very best for the future! It’s been a pleasure!

JS: The pleasure has been all mine. Thanks for the opportunity.

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