Eagle eyed phans may have noticed that the credits on Frew comics have changed slightly. From Frew issue 1962 onwards the credit for Glenn Ford has been changed from joint director with Rene White to a new role as an 'Art Director'.
Our understanding of what this means is basically a reduced workload for Glenn, moving to more of a part-time role. He still has a good many commissioned stories to oversee and complete, and is very keen to see these projects to completion, However, it would seem that the overall outcome of this change will be a reduction in the undertaking of these Frew-created stories.
We have asked for comments from the team at Frew and they have stressed that nothing changes from a production point of view. It is Chronicle Chamber’s understanding that Frew has about two-years worth of new material ready to go, even if Glenn did not ever commission another story.
Putting some pieces together, perhaps we begin to understand the bigger picture going forward.
Lightning Strike (Ireland) recently announced their intention to create stories to pass on to other publishers. There is also the possibility of the same from Wick (Germany), who have revealed that they have fielded offers from other publishers to purchase their stories,
On top of this, our rudimentary research suggests that there are also approximately 240 stories previously published by Egmont/Semic in their Fantomen magazine that have not yet appeared in a Frew issue, including some 26 from the last five years. There are also 300+ Fratelli Spada stories which also have not yet been published in English.
This may be very speculative on our part, and perhaps we're connecting dots that are not there. However, if it is the case it would be a real shame for the Australian comics industry, with a range of Aussie authors and artists benefitting over the past eight years as Glenn has coordinated local content from Frew.
