A phans deconstruction journey as a Falkist

[Editors note: We received this email from a phan and we thought it was a great story to share with other phans. At the end of the article, we have incldued a short bio of the phan. We would love to hear your story of your journey as a phan.]

I have recently completed reading all the Sunday and Daily newspaper stories in chronological order - a total of 89 years' worth in five months! It is certainly not the intended way to read the Phantom, but reading at such a rate gave me a new appreciation for the comic I love, as well as a helpful perspective on being able to notice changes over time.

These changes may have been slow for contemporary readers, but reading through the decades so quickly really shows the amazing eras of history, culture, politics and social movements that this comic has spanned. Very few other stories have such a remarkable continuous "canon" spanning from the tail end of art deco, world war 2, the cold war, the foundation and then the peak of the newspaper comic strip medium, the independence of many British colonies, the US civil rights movement, and (counting the post-Falk era) the death of the newspaper comic strip medium.

The biggest realisation for me was how fast and loose Lee Falk was with his own creation. It's unfair to say he didn't plan anything ahead, but he certainly planned very few things ahead. Each story has its own internal canon, prone to change with the next story.

This may be more noticeable when reading years' worth of content close together, but I think it's also likely because Falk didn't seem to care for continuity to get in the way of storytelling (plus he famously didn't keep notes - us readers likely have a better idea of his newspaper canon than he did, since he didn't seem to read his own past stories).

As examples

• names and locations change

• the Phantom proposes to Diana for the first time several times

• Rex is introduced and then aged forward in the one story as if he was there all along;

• Rex's Llongo friend TomTom spends an incomprehensible amount of time in the deep woods instead of his own village and is also privy to knowing that the Phantom has generations of ancestors before him

• and Colonel Worubu replaces Colonel Weeks out of nowhere.

When Lee Falk started writing The Phantom in 1936, it made sense for Bangalla to be run by a colonial power - but in a changing world decades later and in the face of the US civil rights movement, I imagine that Falk thought Bangallan natives needed better representation in organisations like the Jungle Patrol. It's interesting seeing stories that were clearly influenced by US popular culture at the time - a disappointing example being the "Massacre at Walker's Table" (D167) story that was a very boring and generic 'satanic panic'-era story where the bad guys had literally no motive other than being devil worshippers.

Given the time frame over which he wrote, it shouldn't have been surprising to me (but still was) just how frequently Lee Falk re-used plot ideas:

• Dangerous strangers at Eden

• Keela Wee or Walker's Table

• conniving members of Rex's court trying to steal the throne

• witchmen trying to destroy Dr Axel out of jealousy

• General Bababu trying to overthrow Luaga

• or a powerful woman imprisoning the Phantom and falling in love with him.

Some stories are even told then re-told as time goes on, with the first rope people story involving the present Phantom, then getting re-told in "The Tree House" (D143) as having been the 21st Phantom's father, then later still being re-told in "Captain Amazon Pirate Queen" (S134) as having been his grandfather.

Tony DePaul on the other hand, has written a very consistent canon where major events remain forever a part of subsequent stories. Brilliant bad guys like the Python or the Nomad could not have existed in Lee Falk's narrative, but at the same time, controversial story plots like the John X and the Mozz prophecy seem to "stick around" and are difficult to leave behind.

Some rapid-fire observations, since this article is already too long:

• "Ruler of Baronkhan" (D159) has a bizarre scene where Rex's grandfather talks about how the kingdom's riches fund everything so that the people of Baronkhan don't have to pay taxes. This isn't just really bad economics; it's very on-the-nose when you reflect that in the first story where Rex's grandfather was introduced, the kingdom thrives on slavery (which the Phantom then bans)!

  

• Ray Moore's original art deco era depiction of Diana in "The Singh Brotherhood" (D01) is the most beautiful, in my opinion.

• In the mid 1990s, stories like "Drama on Eden" (D187) refer to the Sangh (not Singh) pirates. I assume this is to line up with the Phantom movie's incorrect spelling around this time?

• On that line, Tony DePaul wrote the first newspaper strip to have a Singh pirate related story since the original "The Singh Brotherhood" (D01). In "The Ghost Pirates" (D203) the Phantom only seemed moderately surprised and not utterly gobsmacked (since they had been destroyed in the newspaper canon up to that point) at this knowledge is to me indicative of the blurring of newspaper and Fantomen canon that began after Falk's death.

  

• In the very next daily story "The Animal Collector" (D204), there are direct references to no less than 3 non-newspaper stories, now retroactively made part of the newspaper canon. This was very early into Tony DePaul's tenure as the new newspaper writer (he still wasn't even being officially credited at this point). As a Fantomen writer himself, he seemed to be trying to create a cohesive mixed canon and a clear line in the sand between pre and post Falk rather than just trying to imitate what had come before.

  

• In "Revenge of the Python" (D227) the psychic old male prisoner has sculpted a bust of Dogai Singh - more newspaper-Fantomen canon overlap?

• Mike Manley delightfully inserted himself into "Then Came Towns Ellerby" (D256) as a jungle patrol sketch artist.

Some interesting points regarding Frew:

• I have loved their decision to print the newspaper stories in colour (I was not a fan of Terry Beatty's art until I saw how it had been made to make use of colour).

• It's weird that Jim Shepherd had previously made a big deal about Frew re-naming newspaper stories, then once Tony DePaul took over, Frew re-named several of his stories (including "The Jungle Trek" (D216) and "The Return of Chatu" (D217) ).

• It's interesting that in the late 1990s the recent newspaper stories often were published second-fiddle to Swedish stories which dominated the cover art (frankly, the non-newspaper stories at this time were often more interesting than the newspaper ones).

It's clear that Lee Falk was a story teller with unmatched energy and talent to create the way he did, for as long as he did. Whilst I don't feel the best about stories like the "Phantoms End" (D261), it is also clear that Tony DePaul is a superb writer who has brought his own unique but worthy take on the Phantom character.

Paul Ryan (RIP) remains my favourite Phantom artist. Combined with Tony DePaul's approach to showing the Phantom's human side, Paul Ryan was able to show so much emotion in single panels (examples being the Phantom in grief on the skull throne when he believed Diana dead, and Diana's happy tearful face showing a dozen emotions at once when she hears the Phantom's voice as he approaches to rescue her from Gravelines).

I have more observations, but have taken enough of your time and wanted to say that I am glad that there are still such fandom resources that there are for this great comic!

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About the phan who wrote this article on his deconstruction journery.

I am 33 and have been reading The Phantom since I was 8 or so. My Dad introduced me to the comic, which he had read since his childhood when they gave out Phantom comics in showbags. He stopped collecting in adulthood and regretfully gave away his old comics, but started collecting again in the early 1990s. We both stopped collecting when I left home in 2012.

Over a decade later with uni done and a new career, I could never get into Marvel or DC and always found them too painfully edgy - everything had to be dark and depressing. Long story short, Dad and I took the comics out of storage and I contacted Frew to fill in the gaps up to the present. I had been quite ignorant of the difference between the newspaper and non-newspaper canon growing up as I wouldn't pay too much attention to the editor's page and would just read the comics themselves. As a young child the Ray Moore art was also kind of intimidating to me compared to the more modern artists. Equipped with the PhantomWiki Dailies and Sundays list, I wanted to read the stories in order.