The last month has been exciting for Phantom phans from around the world with a discovery that the Phantom was published in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in the late 1980's and 1990's. Nearly 40% of the population from the UAE are Indians so it is no surprise that The Phantom who is very popular among Indian phans was published there.
In the late 1980's and 1990's a childrens magazine called "Young Times" was released and along with the magazine came a comic book supplement called "Funtimes" which included 16 pages of comics, posters of musical and sporting stars, puzzles and activities.
The characters along with The Phantom that were featured in the supplement "Funtimes" included: Mandrake the Magacian, Spider-Man, Tarzan, Donald Duck, Flash Gordon, Henry, Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, Beetle Bailey, Archie and many more.
The magazine published Sunday stories of the Phantom with a few weeks lag of when they originally appeared in newspapers. In looking at the supplements we have, the stories are "The Eastern Dark at Janorra" (Sunday 135) and "Return of the Thuggees" (Sunday 136) by Lee Falk and Sy Barry.
Attached is a scanned copy of one of the Supplements. You can flick through the album and see the various pages.
A huge thanks goes to Anjan Kumar for finding the magazines and supplying them for the research into this article.
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