The Sunflowers Licensing company, representing The Phantom in Eastern Europe

According to Licensing Source, the European company The Sunflowers Licensing LTD has taken on the role of representing King Features to potential companies in their region. The brands they are representing are Popeye, Olive Oyl, Flash Gordon and The Phantom.

The exciting part of this news is the number of new countries we have the opportunity to see the Phantom being published or products sold in. The list of countries they will have reached is Albania, Belarus, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Ukraine.

The Phantom had great popularity in former Yugoslavia, which included the very first Phantom comic (you can read about that here). Back in the 1990s, Semic published a limited Phantom comic series in Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia. Since then both Serbia and Slovenia have also published comic book series featuring the Phantom. Hungary is still currently producing Phantom comics - you can read a review of one issue by Szegedi Laszlo here.

It is worth noting that King Features has several different license representatives throughout Europe. The Sunflowers Licensing company only represents the Eastern Europe block.

The report on the Licensing Source website has some comments from Mark Bezodis, director at The Sunflowers Licensing and Carla Silva, svp global head of licensing at King Features. Read into them as you will...

Mark Bezodis:

“These are timeless properties with extraordinary cultural relevance across generations, Our focus is on honouring the heritage of these characters while building thoughtful, high-quality licensing programmes that feel relevant, authentic and creatively strong in today’s market.”

Carla Silva:

“We’re pleased to appoint The Sunflowers Licensing as our agency partner across Eastern Europe. This strategic appointment advances our portfolio expansion, driving growth across new territories and categories through a partner with strong regional insight and proven licensing expertise.”

According to the report, additional news around these new licensees, product launches, and market rollouts within Eastern Europe will be announced in the coming months. If and when they do, we will let you know about them. If you would like to help the team by letting us know of anything new, or reviewing any of the comics, please contact us at ChronicleChamber@gmail.com.