In this episode we are honoured to be joined by one of the most distinctive Phantom cover artists going around - Douglas Klauba! Doug is renowned for his covers for Moonstone comic books in the mid-late 2000s, as well as the artwrk that has featured on so many Bradford Exchange products and now most recently, on a future Lightning Strike Comics issue. In a wide-ranging interview that starts with a video tour of his studio (keep an eye on our YouTube channel for the footage), Doug takes us through his origins as an artist and the education he received that was not necessarily in comic books but that brought him back to that medium. We explore his Moonstone era in great depth from start to finish including: who he worked with (including the unsung Rubén Procopio), his favourite covers and the way it all wrapped up. There is a very interesting chat focused on the way Doug used photographic references for his work, with examples of the process in our recent article here. We also discuss what may well have been the first ever published The Phantom jam cover! Check out Doug's work for yourself and contact him for a commission via his websites http://douglasklauba.blogspot.com/ or http://www.douglasklauba.com/ As always - Happy Phantoming! #EdRhoades #Moonstone #DonNewton #XBand #Podcast #DouglasKlauba #LightningStrikeComics #PeteKlaus #RubenProcopio #BradfordExchange

The 2019 Lee Falk Memorial Bengali Explorers Club (LFMBEC) special guest has finally been officially announced in an email LFMBEC patron Richard Fry sent to members. Jeff Weigel, current Sunday strip artist, will be the main guest speaker! It's a great coup for the LFMBEC to have a current newspaper strip artist in attendance - this will be the first time since Terry Beatty spoke at the 2015 dinner. It hasn't exactly been a huge secret that Jeff was planning to be in Sydney Australia in June 2019. In fact, he announced his desire to have original art ready to sell at the 2019 Sydney Supanova with a statement back in March 2018, when he explained that he was going to start drawing his Sunday Phantom strips on Bristol in ink. Learn more about Jeff when he spoke to us on X-Band: The Phantom Podcast #70. It's a perfect time for Jeff to visit the "land down under", as he will have two years of drawing the Sunday Phantom behind him and approximately 40 Sunday pages for phans to pick through. He is also becoming known to non-strip readers with with his popular 2018 Christmas cover for Frew #1828, and of course Frew #1832 which features his art on the cover and one of the internal stories, Duncan Munro's Hero Complex. We're sure that many phans will be keen to have Jeff sign their copies of these books. Jeff is looking forward to the weekend. "I’ll be at both events [LFMBEC dinner and Supanova], and I’ll have lots of original art for Sunday strips and Frew pages for sale. I’ll have some prints, too, priced for the folks not made out of money. I haven’t decide whether to take on commissions during the cons — I hate drawing in public and I want to keep my down time open so I can play tourist with my wife. "I am certainly looking forward to meeting and thanking all the Aussie phans that have been so supportive since I came on board the strip. I’m also looking forward to picking their brains about what they'd like to see in the strip in the future. Also, I hope to pet a Drop Bear while I’m there." Jeff's most recently completed Sunday story (186) The Rat Must Die has not been published yet but it would not be surprising if that story is also published by Frew prior to June. All this should make him a popular artist at either the Frew Booth or Artists Alley for phans to say G'day. The popular artist hasn't mentioned whether or not he will be bringing over pre-drawn sketch covers to go with with the original artwork and prints he will have on sale. However, as you can see it's safe to say that phans will have plenty to spend on. This will be the first time since 2015 that Australians will have been lucky enough to have an international guest visit their shores for the LFMBEC dinner, when Terry Beatty attended dinner #27. At that time he was also the Sunday Phantom strip artist. Since then we have had local creators in Bruce Mutard in 2016 and the Kid Phantom duo of Paul Mason in 2017 (Paul's speech that night here) and Andrew Constant in 2018 (Andrew's speech that night). It is time to start planning for the year. Supanova Sydney is Friday 21 June to Sunday 23 June. Tickets and information can be found here. If you are new and want to know more about the LFMBEC and Supanova, we would suggest listening to X-Band: The Phantom Podcast #67 when we discussed with guest Jon Cookson on how to be prepared for this Mecca Weekend. Make sure you get your time booked off with your partner (and work!), flights booked and start saving those pennies to spend up on an eventful weekend. If you'd like to be kept up to date with everything on the weekend, keep an eye on ChronicleChamber.com and our Facebook page where all updates will be shared. #TerryBeatty #LFMBEC #JeffWeigel #Supanova #DuncanMunro #BruseMutard #DrPaulMason #AndrewConstant

Wendell Cavalcanti is a Brazilian artist who has just started having his cover and story art published by Frew Publications in Australia. We were originally introduced to Wendell in an interview published on ChronicleChamber and we saw his first Phantom work in the story Requiem in the 2019 Annual, released in January 2019. You can watch our video review of the annual here (or below at the bottom of this page) and listen here for our podcast review. Wendell's styles seemed to really suit Pidde Anderson's story, which was a dark tale set in the horrors of the first World War. He re-introduced us to the Vultures, a welcome return of a classic villainous organisation originally created by Lee Falk. For many phans, Wendell's art works perfectly with Frew's black and white comic... and now YOU have the opportunity to add some of his original art to your collection! Wendell has decided to start selling off his original artwork from Requiem . Prices are in AU dollars; each page is approx 42cm x 29.5cm. Pages are priced from $100AU, increasing for the more detailed, action-packed pages which particularly feature the Phantom. Please note that Wendell lives in Brazil; all art will be shipped from there and payment will be made via an international payment facility like PayPal. Interested? Go to his Facebook profile and send him an instant message. Wendell has sent us some examples of the original pages (below), including images scaled against a standard Frew comic for you to judge the size. There is also a himself with the double cover for Annual 2019 and an interior page. Please note, at this stage the cover drawn by Wendell is not be on sale. ChronicleChamber's video review of the Frew 2019 Annual including the story from the artistic talent of Wendell and here for our podcast review. #WendellCavalcanti #Frew #PiddeAndersson

There can be no denying that the last three years have been something of a renaissance for The Phantom in Australia. The work of the new Frew Crew has been nothing sort of extraordinary, with a great many innovations in both comic books and merchandise. Trade Paperbacks, Australian creators, Kid Phantom, the resurgence of Giantsize, pholios, phile cards.... the list goes on and on and on... It is always a fascinating and absorbing opportunity to hear from the key driver of this innovation and modernisation - and here is your chance! Glenn Ford, Director of Frew Publications, will be speaking at the Australian Cartoonists Association's President's Night on 2 March 2019 in Lindfield, Sydney. Tickets are at a bargain price of just $25 ($27.46 with booking fees) and include a smorgasbord dinner and a talk from Glenn Ford who will be discussing life with The Phantom. Other (non-Phantom) speakers will include Anton Emdin (who will be talking about that holy grail for cartoonists - creating movie parodies for MAD Magazine), Cathy Wilcox (Sydney Morning Herald regular), Fiona Katauskas (ABC's Talking Pictures) and Nicola Scott (DC, Wonder Woman). There will also be another secret speaker or two revealed nearer to the event. For anyone in Sydney at that time, get along and grab a great smorgasbord dinner and hear multiple awesome guest speakers at the same time! It's an opportunity too good to pass up! So what are you waiting for? This event is open to ACA members and the public alike! No non-members pricing, just $25 per person! BYO drinks - there is a bottle shop nearby. Get your tickets NOW! Bookings close 26 February. DON'T MISS OUT! Go to https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/aca-presidents-night-tickets-56608538663 Thanks to Jules Faber for alerting us all to this sensational opportunity. #GlennFord #KidPhantom #Giantsize #Pholios #Frew

ChronicleChamber is proud to announce that we have an episode of X-Band: The Phantom Podcast featuring an interview with Douglas Klauba coming out very soon. Doug is most famous for the covers he completed for Moonstone between 2003 and 2010. Doug has popped onto the radar for Phantom phans again recently, with an image surfacing of a planned cover for Lightning Strike Comics (right). During our process of planning the podcast with him we stumbled upon his procedure of using photographic references for his Moonstone covers. Given that we had just explored the way that Wilson McCoy used photo references, we had to investigate! Doug was kind enough to send us a couple of the references that have survived after a decade and several moves. The result below is of five (5) of his stunning covers together with the photos of various models posing in cosplay. These helped him paint images that even today arguably rank among some of the best phans have ever seen. Most of the photos show Doug's good friend Duane Perry modelling as The Phantom. An accomplished artist in his own right, at the time Duane was an officer with the Chicago Police. "For every cover, there would be multiple shots, angles, poses and lighting effects for a variety of reasons. All poses are first worked out through my initial thumbnail sketches, which determined the cover design and poses," explains Doug. "Once I choose the thumbnail that is most effective, I rough out the pose a little bit more before scheduling the model. I then match up the poses with the roughs and thumbnails, and shoot full poses, parts of the body, details, face (in a variety of expressions), and always include props / guns. Then it's time for all the photos to be printed and go through them to pull out the useful ones." Look at the different fist shots for the Moonstone #4 cover (below) for an example of the importance of taking photos in a variety of poses. Similarly, the Moonstone #3 collage (above) shows a variety of facial expressions. Thank you so much to Doug for the amazing insight into his work with these photographic references. We discuss this process in more detail in the podcast so if you find it interesting, make sure you don't miss it. Subscribe to X-Band: The Phantom Podcast via iTunes or through your favourite podcast app! #DouglasKlauba #Moonstone #MikeBullock #Podcast #LightningStrikeComics #WilsonMcCoy

Our first Comics and News review for 2019 has landed! In this episode Dan and Jermayn explore the latest in Phantom news before turning their attention to the latest offerings from Frew (#1828-#1831) which includes the 2018 Christmas Special, the Rex Special and the 2019 Annual - The Phantom At War. Mikael also chimes in with his reviews of the first three Fantomen issues of the year. As always enjoy, and Happy Phantoming! Editor's note: Instead of googling an obscure 1980's band with a not very nice song- you'd probably prefer to check out the work by Ernest Hemmingway and John Donne. (This will be relevant during the review of the 2019 Annual). #XBand #JeffWeigel #GlennLumsden #WendellCavalcanti #GlennFord #EdenSmall #Frew #TonyDePaul #MikeManley #LeeFalk #SyBarry #RayMoore #Charlton #DrPaulMason #PiddeAndersson #Fantomen

There was buzz and excitement among the phandom tribe this week, as the beating of the jungle drums announced a new set of Phantom rings had become available to keen collectors. Or to say it in the modern vernacular, internet algorithms saw a 'related to your interests' post start popping up in our social media streams! The Instagram and Facebook posts linked to the Underworld & Beyond website, where you can view and be awestruck by a new bespoke set of new Phantom rings set now on sale! Available only through the website, the made-to-measure jewelry is priced from $450AUD (includes shipping). Despite being unlicensed, there is no doubt the rings are amazing in quality and design, as the images at the base of this post show. The designer and manufacturer Michael Burke has done a great job with them, so ChronicleChamber has asked him about his background, the rings and the process. I am a self taught sculptor, master fabricator and jewelry artist. I've always made things, from bent willow/rustic furniture to cosplay props, never so much for the money but it was always mostly gifts. Over time I found myself doing a lot of mold making and casting parts for students at art schools. Making copies of sculptures and reproducing them in resin, many of the pieces ended up in art galleries. Which mostly funded my own ideas and concepts. It just became this thing, people would call and ask me to make things. Even if I wasn't sure how to do it, If they had the money I'd figure it out one way or another. Then one day, I showed up to work and realized I just drove 30 minutes to my shop and actually had no work to do that day. I had these huge chunks of resin from left over projects. I found this pretty green chunk and wondered what I could make with it. I quickly Google green superhero. Of course, the Green Lantern pops up and I thought, I could make a ring out of this. So I did. Here is a photo of the first hand carved ring I made. There was a ton of interest in this ring so overtime I refined the process. The Green Lantern fans kept me busy and enabled me to hone my skills. I've produced a couple thousands of rings including non superhero. Taking everything I've learned over the years and combining that with advancements in technology and using old methods for producing metal rings, there's not much I can't make. My shop is pretty old school, the only fancy tools I have are a couple resin printers. Everything else I still do by hand. I am a Phantom fan! He was the first superhero I was introduced to. I can relate better to him then, some alien from another planet i.e Superman or the billionaire playboy with fancy toys i.e Ironman or Batman. Without trying to knock anyone else's work. I generally try not to make things that have been heavily marketed or produced. It also needs to be something I personally want and I feel I can do a better job at what I personally look for. I've waited 30 years to have a set of Phantom rings like these. I've seen many renditions of these over the years. The original promo rings which were cool but pretty cheesy. Other variations in my opinion just missed the mark. Some are huge and bulky, others you can't put your hands in your pockets with. Others are terrible one size fits all cracker jack rings, mass produced commercial junk. I wanted a set of rings that I could wear comfortably every day. Something that looked professional without the over-sized biker ring effect or pirate looking rings. We all have our own tastes and I'm not knocking anyone wearing the other rings. These rings represent what I like and now I am making them available to other phans as well.

Today, 10th February, we are celebrating the birthday of one of the biggest Phantom artists in Turkey! Aslan Şükür has drawn well over 200 covers for Kizilmaske publisher Tay Yayınları, who had the license for The Phantom from 1973 through to the early 1990's. All told, Tay Yayinlari produced nearly 400 Kızılmaske (Phantom) comics, including some original stories. In the 2018 Frew Phantom Cowboy themed Annual we saw one of these stories published in English for the first time. The founder and owner of Tay Yayınları was Sezen Yalçıner, and was Turkey's leading comics publisher in the 1970's. Founded in 1969, it was in business until the early 1990's. Today we celebrate their main cover artist in Aslan Şükür. We thank Aslan for his time and hope he has a great birthday! ChronicleChamber: Please tell us about yourself. Where did you grow up? How did you find out about your artistic talents? When did you decide to pursue to be an artist? Aslan Şükür: I was born in in 1945 in Bafra, a town along Turkey's Black Sea coast. As a family we moved to Istanbul together. When I was a student I used to draw caricatures on my notebooks. Some of them were published in local newspapers and magazines.Then I started drawing on souvenirs which were really liked and one day I met Yucel Koksal ,who was one of the greatest artists in Turkey, and he discovered my talent. So my career in Tay Yayinlari, began in Cagaloglu, the heart of publishing houses in Istanbul. CC: How did you meet Yucel Kolsal and can you tell us a bit about him? AŞ: When I was drawing on souvenirs, I met Yucel Koksal’s brother first. He told me that his brother had been drawing comics and covers and then he introduced me to Yucel Koksal. As I mentioned above, he discovered my talent in the following days. I can say that Yucel Koksal is one of the greatest artists of Turkey. We can say that he is the grand master on this field. CC: Were you a Phantom fan? Did you know of the Phantom? Did you read comics? Did you read many Phantom stories during your reign as cover artist for Tay Yayınları, and did you have any favorites? AŞ: When I was a student, Of course I used to read comics with pleasure and I used to know Phantom very well as well. However as I used to work hard, I didn’t have much time to read all the stories of Phantom during my cover artist days, but I used to analyze all the drawings technically to be able to draw the best cover for the stories. CC: Any thoughts on the various colours of the Phantom costume over the world? Do you have a personal phavourite? Would it be red? AŞ: Phantom was painted in different colors in Turkey and in the comics I saw. Some artists painted it in grey, some painted in blue, generally he was painted in purple, but I preferred drawing it in red, which was really liked in Turkey. I also personally think red is the best color for Phantom, it is my favourite one. In my opinion Phantom in red is more attractive. CC: How did you get the job as the cover artist for Tay Yayınları (and Kızılmaske) in 1970? AŞ: As I mentioned above, I met Yucel Kolsal in 1971 and he discovered my talent and he brought me to Tay Yayinlari and introduced me to the owner of the publishing house. CC: What was it like working for the Turkish publisher? How did you get assignments and did you have any contact with other Turkish creators, like Ozcan Eralp? AŞ: Nearly all the publishers knew me well so they all trusted me and never interfered in my work. That’s why I was able to work freely. I was always pleased working with them. As for Ozcan Eralp and the other artists of that time I used to know all of them .They were all our friends but my office was at home so we didn’t have much day-to-day contact. CC: Can you tell us the process of working with the comic publisher and how you went about your covers? AŞ: At first when I started with Tay Yayinlari the publishing houses would tell me the stories and what they wanted for each cover, then I designed the composition and started drawing. Each time they liked my paintings and as my career progressed I had more and more freedom. They ended up having complete trust in me with the composition and design of the covers. CC: What size card did you paint your covers on? AŞ: The smallest card size I ever painted on for of the covers was 14cm x 21cm. Other sizes of card for the cards have been on 20cm x 30cm card. Today I draw on 37cm x 40 cm card. CC: Did you sketch first and then paint? What was your process of drawing a cover? How long did it take you to paint a cover? AŞ: Yes, first I sketched and then paint. I used to finish a cover in around 2 days. CC: You did around 200 covers for Kızılmaske but you also did other covers for other comics including Mandrake and Zagor. Which one was your favourite character to paint and why? Which character was the hardest to draw? AŞ: My favourite ones were Zagor and Phantom, because I really liked their adventures. To be honest none of them was difficult for me to draw because I loved my job. CC: Have you ever been asked to do covers for other publishers around the world? AŞ: Yes, I have done Western covers that were sold to Germany, and I also did some James Bond covers for the Denmark audience. CC: About 10 years ago your work started to sell online. Are you still selling now? And do you accept commissions? AŞ: Actually the old original paintings that were used for the covers are all now sold so I don’t have those old paintings, but I still draw and get commissions from phans that I sell online. CC: We thank you Aslan for your time to answer our questions. If anyone would like to contact you for a painting and or commission, how can they get in touch with you? AŞ: People can contact me on my Facebook and Instagram accounts (Aslan Sukur) or send messages through Messenger. #Kizilmaske #Turkey #AslanŞükür

The Frew Best of 2018 might be run and won, but the Fantomen Best Story comp is still open until February 8. And now it's time to vote for the Best Cover of Fantomen 2018! Go to Fantomen.org or click here to get voting. Throughout 2018, Fantomen released 19 issues. Henrik Sahlström was the main cover artist of the year with 13 covers. The team Sal Velluto & Eugenio Mattozzi drew 5 covers and Rafael Ruiz did one cover. No matter where you are in the world, you can still vote as you do not need the physical comic to be able to judge what you think is the best cover. The cool thing is that every entry goes into the prize draw! If you can't read Swedish to follow the website, you can use Google Chrome which has an inbuilt translator tool. We would also suggest using Phantomwiki for Fantomen 2018 which lists all the covers. With just a little research you can place an informed vote and be in the running to receive one of 100 bags, with the winning cover as a printed image on the bag. NOTE: All entries are eligible for the prize - you do not have to have selected the cover that ends up winning. No word when the voting ends so get in today before you miss out. So without any further delay - go ahead and VOTE for Best Fantomen Cover of 2018! #Fantomen #TeamFantomen #Egmont #SalVelluto #HenrikSahlström #RafaelRuiz #EugenioMattozzi

On the 1st February, Sal Velluto posted a progress image on Facebook which featured a female and male Phantom, each wearing a Phantom ring, with the Singh mark behind them. It does not take much to put it together that this is likely to be Heloise and Kit Jnr reprising their role as the future Phantoms trying to find out what happened to their Dad, the 21st Phantom, who has been missing for a year. At the top of Sal's sneak preview, it has the title "Shadow of an Enemy". However there is no word yet on when the next part(s?) will appear in a Fantomen issue, let alone a Frew comic. This story began with The 22nd Phantom trilogy, first published by Egmont in 2016 and Frew in 2017. Written by Claes Reimerthi, the first three parts featured art by the late Paul Ryan, Alex Saviuk, Coral Martinez and Rafael Ruiz. Back in August 2018 on Facebook, Fantomen editor Mikael Sol said that the highly popular The 22nd Phantom saga would be making a return in 2019. The ChronicleChamber team reviewed the first three parts back in X-Band: The Phantom Podcast #79, which you can listen to here. #22ndPhantom #PaulRyan #AlexSaviuk #RafaelRuiz #Fantomen #Egmont #ClaesReimerthi #SalVelluto #Frew #CoralMartinez

Who have been the most influential people in the history of The Phantom? It's a huge cast of characters to draw from: there's an 83-year continuity in the newspapers alone, as well as countless other comic creators, promoters, editors and phans contributing over the decades. In this podcast, ChronicleChamber takes on the daunting prospect of identifying and ranking the most important and influential individuals in Phantom history. While #1 may seem obvious to everyone, it will surprise no one to hear that Dan and Jermayn disagree from #2 onward! The full written list of our Top 20 is available to our Patreon subscribers. It's a fascinating excercise to consider and we fully expect controversy with some of our selections, so feel free to comment below and let us know who we got wrong and why. #XBand #KingFeaturesSyndicate #Podcast #Frew #Fantomen #Egmont #TonyDePaul #WilsonMcCoy #GlennFord #SyBarry #UlfGranberg #JanneLundstrom #LeeFalk #JaimeVallve #Felmang #ClaesReimerthi #KariLeppänen #Semic #RayMoore #JimShepherd #RonForsyth #NormanWorker #HansLindahl #Spada #PeteKlaus #EdRhoades #FriendsofThePhantom #JohnHenderson #ThePhantomClub #DonneAvenell #BillyZane #GeorgeOlesen #BillLignante #BillHarris #RolfGohs #BertilWilhelmsson #MagnusKnutsson #GrahamNolan #ElizabethFalk #JimAparo

The last twelve months have been a massively busy time here in the ChronicleChamber offices. It sure feels like the website and the podcast is going from strength to strength, and the growing readership and listening numbers suggest to us that we are on the right track at least! One huge area of growth for us has been the continued expansion of the Phantom Preservation Project (P3). It was a huge change as we re-structured the way we stored all those digital Phantom goodies and delivered them to phans. It has certainly become easier from our end to top it up month by month, and feedback suggests that our supporters have enjoyed what they find there. It's quite a privilege to collect and share all these fascinating pieces of Phantom history which might otherwise be forever lost, or certainly not widely known or seen. Late last year, we actually got ourselves to the point where we were struggling to remember what was in the P3! And so a school holiday job was to create an actual usable Index of the files contained in the P3. We'd really encourage you to follow this link to check it out - it surprised even us the way it's grown and the diversity of stuff in there! The new stuff we add regularly each month will be highlighted in the Index every month will hopefully help everyone find it easily enough. For instance, in the last few days we have added: The order of service from Lee Falk’s funeral (special thanks to Jamie Diaz for sharing this with us) Various Scandinavian newspaper and magazine articles (courtesy of Thomas Askjellerud, another huge thank you!) A range of 99.94 items including the complete set of newsletters, some correspondence from artists, the proposal for the uncompleted 8th painting, and a range of associated advertising Jermayn’s article in the Italian publication Fumo di China, and importantly - the English language version as well! Access to the P3 is available to all phans who are able to find $5/month to help us out with website and podcast hosting costs, phone calls for international interviewees and other ChronicleChamber expenses. Each month, Patrons receive a confidential message with fresh details on how to get into the P3 folders. So if you're keen to access the contents of the P3, make sure you check out our Patreon page and see how you can: a) support the website b) gain access to some rarely seen and otherwise potentially lost Phantom files! #Patreon #P3 #LeeFalk #9994

It's that time of year again - Steve, Dan and Jermayn take a look back at the year that was!. Reflecting on the 80+ issues of The Phantom comics published internationally, we nominate our choices for best writers, best artists, best stories, best issues, and best covers of 2018. We also consider what we thought was the best merchandise, our favourite additions to our own Skull Caves, the best moment of being part of the ChronicleChamber team in 2018, and our overall reflections on the year. Importantly, we also announce the People's Choice Award winners from the Best of 2018 survey that we ran together with Frew Publications - what did you the phans nominate as your favourite Frew covers and favourite Frew stories of 2018? That's a lot to pack into a surprisingly short podcast - we hope you enjoy! Happy Phantoming. #HermesPress #XBand #KingFeaturesSyndicate #Podcast #Frew #YearinReview #KidPhantom #PhantomsWorld #Giantsize #Fantomen #Fantomet #Egmont #LightningStrikeComics #JamieJohnson #SalVelluto #MassimoGamberi #DrPaulMason #TonyDePaul #AlexSaviuk #JeffWeigel #RafaelRuiz #Mallon #WilsonMcCoy #Supanova #GlennFord #MikeManley #AvonBooks #ChrisWahl #SyBarry #JasonPaulos #FreddieWilliamsIII #GrangeWallis #OisinRoche #HenrikSahlström #UlfGranberg #JanneLundstrom #LeeFalk #DavidBishop #AndrewConstant #DaleMaccanti #OzcanEralp #JaimeVallve #RonGoulart #Felmang #ChristopherSequeira #Gaslight #ClaesReimerthi #KariLeppänen #LFMBEC #Pholios #GuyPoissant #9994 #Croftminster

News have reached us from Turkey that longtime Phantom artist Özcan Eralp passed away on January 12, 2019. His funeral was held in the Kızıltoprak mosque on January 13, 2019. He was 83 years old. When I was a child, my uncle lived with us for a while and drew The Phantom. Some of the best memories I have, was from when he drew and I was watching, as he explained how the images and speech bubbles would fit together. We always had fun, calm and cozy moments, even though he was working. This was a big thing for a small child. We have visited my uncle in Turkey several times after he moved. I would like to describe my uncle as a good artist, down to earth and very kind hearted. In my eyes, he was and will always be the amazing talanted warm man that I am proud to call my uncle. Suzan Eralp Doberck Özcan Eralp's association with the Phantom is long and unusual. He moved to Sweden in the 1960s, inspired by his brother who was already there. He found work as an illustrator with comic book publisher Semic Press. His ambition to draw his childhood hero The Phantom came true in 1968, but first only as a filler artist adding and redrawing panels when Italian Fratelli Spada stories were adapted to the format of the Swedish Fantomen magazine. His first complete Team Fantomen Phantom story was The Treasure Seeker published in 1970, and was not only drawn but also written by him. Eralp remained a cornerstone of the Team Fantomen production until 1991, even after he moved back to Turkey in the 1970s. Each year he had a steady output of stories, sometimes as an inker for artists such as Knut Westad and Bertil Wilhelmsson. His last writing credit was from the 1989 story Secret of the Volcano Valley. His final Phantom story as an illustrator was Mystery of the Reef in 1991. During this time and beyond, he was also a productive illustrator in Turkey, producing comics, cartoons and illustrations. He was greatly inspired by his favorite artist Sy Barry, whose style he sometimes followed very closely, but he also varied his technique in the late 80s and produced other, non-Barry-esque art. But to be honest, he was never the phan favorite that some artists are and compared to some of his more spectacular fellow artists he was given relatively little attention and was a bit of a mystery. That's one reason why one of the first online Phantom article that I wrote was a piece on Eralp for Deepwoods.org, that you can still find there. I figured that the "big names" would be covered by other writers, so I gathered the information I could find and put together an Eralp tribute. Özcan Eralp was a humble man, and I spent quite some time from 2010 and onwards trying to get in touch with him. I found his relatives in Sweden that forwarded messages from me, but the only time he replied it was to say that all that needed to be known about him was already available online at Deepwoods.org - in the article I wrote! As years passed, it was however clear that my article was far from complete and much was still unsaid about Özcan's life and career - and even his Phantom work. PhantomWiki's top contributor Marko Davidovic was as far as I know the first person to realise that some Eralp stories published in Turkey had never appeared elsewhere. I tried to find out more about this from Eralp, but no luck. I contacted his former coworkers Ulf Granberg and Janne Lundström, who were completely surprised by the fact that Eralp had done Phantom work elsewhere, but also continued to praise Eralp as a reliable and dedicated resource, who was a genuine Phantom phan at heart. The Phantom stories where he is credited as writer or co-writer were usually done on his own initiative on his spare time, investing a lot of time without knowing if a story would be accepted or not. Some stories required some editing and redrawing before they were accepted, but his editor/co-writer Janne Lundström noted that Eralp may not have seemed pleased about the extra work but always completed it as instructed. A true professional. Having temporarily served as editor of Fantomen, and being a publisher/editor for other titles as well, I can vouch for the fact that editors dream of having artists like Eralp in their roster. Someone who you can always trust will get the job done on time, every time. Eralp was a Team player, and his longevity as a Phantom artist is a testament to how appreciated he was by Lundström and later editor Ulf Granberg. Notably, Eralp also completed the map of Benagli commisioned by Semic in the early 1980's. This map has been widely recognised as the most comprehensive and complete map of Phantom Country and beyond ever created. [An English language verion of the map is available in the P3 - Ed.] Frew brought some of Eralp's stories into the light recently: Breaking the Circle in the 80th Anniversary special and Badlands, Wagon Master, The Indian Hater, and Terror in the Desert in the 2018 Annual: Phantom Cowboy Special. Guran's Secret also appeared in a regular Frew issue early in 2018. Thanks to Eralp's family, copies of these issues were sent to Eralp, but at this moment we don't know if they reached him before he passed. All we can hope is that he felt appreciated for his Phantom work. #OzcanEralp #Semic #Egmont #AndreasEriksson #UlfGranberg #KnutWestad #BertilWilhelmsson #TeamFantomen #SyBarry #Frew #Spada #JanneLundstrom

In 108 episodes of X-Band: The Phantom Podcast, only once have we actually traveled overseas to interview a guest - and this is it! Parisian Ohm Roy is a phan with a focus on collecting original Phantom art, predominantly from pre-1970, and is a wealth of knowledge when it comes to the acquiring and preserving of Phantom history. It really is fascinating to hear how phans from around the world have come to know and love our favourite comic strip hero and Ohm's journey is one to savour. We know that you are going to enjoy this chat with France's foremost Phantom phan! Happy Phantoming! #XBand #Podcast #KingFeaturesSyndicate #SyBarry #RayMoore #WilsonMcCoy