In Frew #1925, a new poster is advertised to celebrate the boxing issue with the classic "The Masked Marvel" reprint in colour & the new sequel story "Until the Final Bell: Requim for a Masked Heavyweight" by Paul Mason.
It costs $25AU plus postage ($17US, 17EU & 180nok/sek).
Anyone that knows about Paul Mason, knows he is a huge boxing fan. It got us curious if there was inspiration and a story behind it. You guessed it, there was and a huge thanks to Paul for allowing us into his mind to explore the story behind the poster.
Please note, The X-Band: The Phantom Podcast Episode #228 will feature Paul Mason chatting with us about this much anticipated story that has been in the works for multiple years.
Paul had the following to say about his poster inspiration and design:
The poster references two designs (though most fight posters of the day were common); it has elements of Joe Louis vs Rocky Marciano fight film poster, and I (Paul) based the phantom’s stance on Ali for his 1975 autobio movie poster. The term “fight of the century”, I know had been used in three previous fights at least: Louis vs Marciano, but primarily though, it was Frazier vs Ali 1971.
I know we’ll have a podcast shortly where I’ll outlay the thoughts on the time period and boxing at the point of Falk’s story vs my own and where it was in the real world, but just wanted to pull from those references. And though fight posters were usually yellow and red (I did do a yellow version which I had in a promo email when I thought the story was coming out in Frew #1923) or black and white (it was originally black and white before the decision of Frew to make it a colour book), I chose to colour it a little more modern- seemingly more uncommon than if you googled fight posters from the eras, but better for a potential poster, with Frew has gone and printed. Though it would make sense to put the other fighter on the poster too, the marketing of the promotors would have wanted to trade off “The Masked Marvel”, so I was happy to just feature that fighter - again, like the Ali film poster which in itself, was designed a bit like a fight poster. the speckle/grimy look was because I wanted the poster to look a bit old or like it was stick up in a boxing gym, with sweat from a nearby fighter skipping or sparring or bag work near it flicking onto the wall.
Are you going to buy a poster?
A huge thanks to Paul Mason for his insight into this poster and ahead of time for The X-Band: The Phantom Podcast Episode #228 were we will discuss much more about the story. If you have any questions, you would like to see asked, please contact us chroniclechamber@gmail.com.
