Thank you Dudley Hogarth. Dudley is released from Frew Publications

Sad news has come out from Frew Publications that Dudley Hogarth has been released from his publishing duties that he has completed for 12 years. He took over the role from Steve Shepherd (son of the late Jim Shepherd) in September 2014 for Phantom issue #1706 and continued after the acquisition of Frew by Rene White in January 2016.

Dudley Hogarth and Glenn Ford became the power couple behind the renaissance of the comic after the purchase as they worked together to improve the comic. Through their hard work, they saw an increase of sales and subscriptions through several improvements.

These improvements and changes included a dedicated newer younger pool of cover artists, which brought a fresh style and vigorousness that caught the attention of both newer readers and also older readers who had dropped the comic. They hired creators from around the world to create new Frew-created stories, as well as releasing their own products like trading cards, posters, graphic novels, and trade paperbacks. Many phans were also excited about them attending conventions, which gave them a chance to rub shoulders with those who created their comics.

On top of these changes, they produced coloured comics, variant comics, themed annuals, and coloured Daily and Sunday classic stories which pleased many a phan.

Throughout all this, Dudley Hogarth continued to produce a regular fortnightly comic on time, which is not an easy task with an ever-shrinking budget and market in an ever-progressing online-saturated world.

On behalf of the team at Chronicle Chamber, we want to say thank you for the friendship built, the long nights chatting Phantom at the yearly LFMBEC dinners; the train rides home from Supanova; always being a message or email away, and giving us sneak peeks of what is to come from Frew over the 10+ years.

The Phantom's world will be lesser without you in it. The team will be discussing this big move from Rene White, the owner of Frew in an upcoming podcast.

From what we understand, Alan Ho and Glenn Ford will step up and fill the shoes left from Dudley Hogarth. We wish you well, Alan Ho and Glenn Ford, you have big shoes to fill.