The 2026 Frew Annual details announced
- Stephen East
- 13 hours ago
- 2 min read
Yes, it's that time of year again. Frew's 2025 Christmas Special has landed in shops across Australia, which means we are only 2 issues away from the 2026 Annual. Since 2017, each Frew annual has had a specific theme.
On 18th December, Jason Paulos shared a WIP image of a Frew cover that he had been working on. Later in the day he shared the color version.
As you can see, a character who seems to resemble a certain magician with a tendency to "gesture hypnotically" features predominantly, and another character pictured seems to have a striking resemblance to a certain Prince of the Seven Nations. Due to the timing of the release, phans soon speculated that this could be the cover for the 2026 Annual. Could the 2026 Annual have a Mandrake theme?
Chronicle Chamber put the question to Dudley, the Publisher at Frew, who affirmed our speculations.
"The 2026 Annual will be 228 pages, fully coloured and the theme is The Phantom and Mandrake crossover stories. It will also contain a new Frew 3-part story with art by Boris Kay, who previously did The Pinstripe Wizards story. Any further colouring that was needed was done by Ivan Pedersen."
So, with confirmation of the theme and news of a brand new 3-part story in the mix, speculation now turns to what stories will be included.
Not including flashbacks, DotE promotions, and one-off cameos, there are 10 crossover stories featuring both The Phantom and Mandrake in the Daily/ Sunday Canon, according to PhantomWiki. Three of these stories include the characters' respective weddings. These stories do include Daily and Sunday Mandrake stories created by Lee Falk and/or Fred Fredericks.
What stories would you like to see in the Annual? Has Jason Paulos put in any further hints with his choice of roughnecks who are getting their just deserts? Will there be any other non-newspaper stories apart from the Boris Kay-created story?
We will just have to wait till 2026 to find out.
Until then... Happy Phantoming!
