The 12th issue of Shakti Comics Phantom came out in the second week of February 2024 in the three languages. Since the start of pre oders in December 2023 and it's release, the response towards the issue has been diverse with its printing quality, presentation and colour.
The comic contains one clasic Daily story:
"The Presidents" by Lee Falk and Sy Barry
The cover interestingly doesn't have any number mentioned to identify it as the 12th issue. The same also happened with issue #10.
The cover artwork by Abhishek Biswas is very good and stands out with its use of colour. However, the printing doesn't do the cover justice as a change of paper and removal of lamination has occurred with Shakti. The use of the less thicker paper also makes the comic bend easily.
The copyrights page has mention of 2022 as the copyright year. The artwork by Biswas on that page have been used since 2022, since their 4th issue.
The story 'The Presidents' is printed on a much less thicker paper compared to the one used in previous issues. The colours of the story are again done by Santosh Adsul, who seems to have become Shakti's primary colourist with him also working on other publications from them. The colours however, seems to have the same problems as before with the over use of colour on faces, backgrounds to name a few. The colour of the phantoms costumes also remain the same with the dark shaded purple used with the colours of the trunks being black and red.
Some panels however, do look pleasant to the eye, but with majority of them being coloured too much, the overall result is not quite satisfactory. The video review goes in-depth into the topic of colour.
The inclusion of two information pages about the various dictators that the phantom fought is a great inclusion. It surely will be a great tool for the new readers to learn more about the characters.
The back cover features a synopsis of the story with its previous publications with images of the covers. However, couple of typos are seen on the page.
Shaktis new issue is a mixed bag with the good being the extras like the information, images and cover. While the unpleasant being the change of paper, the colouring among other things, which are also very important for a comic book. Shakti has to be mindful of their quality and the colour, if that is improved along with the great additions there can be surely great things coming from them. Wishing them the best and hoping them to be mindful for their future publications.
Until next time, Happy Phantoming!
All Shakti Comics and other Indian and other country comic reviews will be included in our monthly X-Band: The Phantom Podcasts. You can find out more at our website and or subscribe to our YouTube channel for more videos.
