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Re: The Phantom
Posted: 23 Feb 2014, 16:58
by paw broon
Oh, that's great! What an excellent page.
Back to The Phantom. I've just had a link to an American site (completely legit.) where you can read Phantom dailies and Sunday strips, incl. the last month's worth, for free. Many other strips available including classic Mandrake Sundays.
http://www.azcentral.com/thingstodo/com ... 2014-02-22
Re: The Phantom
Posted: 24 Feb 2014, 13:32
by JT Mirana
Lew Stringer wrote:JT Mirana wrote:
Ok, the Black Sapper is coming back. So is 6 Gun Gorilla, and Trixie's Treasure Chest and The Smasher and various other dormant DC Thomson characters. Including The Supercats - written by yours truly! Just waiting for contractual bits n bobs to be settled before I give you any more.
Wow! The Smasher being the massive robot from
Bullet I presume, not the humour character?
Is this directly for DC Thomson or have they licensed out the characters?
All licensed and thumbs-upped from DCT. This has been bubbling away for over a year but they are slow-movers!
Re: The Phantom
Posted: 24 Feb 2014, 16:26
by stevezodiac
My mate Steve says The Smasher was in the Victor?
Re: The Phantom
Posted: 24 Feb 2014, 16:54
by colcool007
stevezodiac wrote:My mate Steve says The Smasher was in the Victor?
The Smasher was in the early issues of The Victor for two serials. They ended the menace from the Smasher by luring him into a rocket and putting him into orbit.
I am not sure if it was previously published, but it was resurrected for Bullet.
Re: The Phantom
Posted: 24 Feb 2014, 19:39
by Phoenix
colcool007 wrote:The Smasher was in the early issues of The Victor for two serials. They ended the menace from the Smasher by luring him into a rocket and putting him into orbit. I am not sure if it was previously published, but it was resurrected for Bullet.
The serial
Smasher in
The Victor in 1962 was a picture rerun of the text serial
The Smasher in
The Rover 1525 (Sep. 18 1954) - 1534 (Nov. 20 1954). I always refer to this as the Kabinda Dam serial. It is particularly notable because Glasgow Harry, who had already tackled, and defeated, the robot twice in
The Wizard, once in 1931, and then again in 1933, is said here to have never met the robot, which has come from space. The second serial in
The Victor in 1968 called
The Smasher Strikes! starts in a similar way to the 1933 text serial in
The Wizard called
Return Of The Smasher, but is modified, and instead of The Smasher ending up at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, it is fired out into space. As Colin says, the character was given a new life in
Bullet, with two serials with Dr Doom in 1976, and two more in 1977. A 1978 serial called
Crusher also featured Dr Doom.
Re: The Phantom
Posted: 24 Feb 2014, 23:27
by Kashgar
I am not in a position to check at the moment
but wasn't there a third Smasher series in
Victor called 'The Smasher Awakes'.
Re: The Phantom
Posted: 25 Feb 2014, 00:46
by Phoenix
Kashgar wrote:wasn't there a third Smasher series in Victor called 'The Smasher Awakes'.
Yes, there was. It started in 1967 so it was the second picture strip serial. I have it noted down in one of my card files, but for some reason it isn't in the other. Guess which one I consulted! It is called
The Smasher Awakes!, and runs from 350 (Nov. 4 1967) - 361 (Jan. 20 1968), and at some point after destroying the bridge that Glasgow Harry was trying to build across the Kwbala Gorge, it destroys the Kabinda Dam, built by Glasgow Harry, and considered the finest engineering feat in Africa. It is a different story from
Smasher, but several of the same plot elements are resurrected.
Re: The Phantom
Posted: 25 Feb 2014, 10:40
by philcom55
The Smasher also turned up in
Red Dagger no.11 - though I think this must have reprinted one of the later serials from
Bullet. Here's the cover and the final page:
Anybody recognize the interior artist? (or the cover artist for that matter - I originally assumed both must be Ian Kennedy, but on reflection I'm not so sure)
- Phil Rushton
Re: The Phantom
Posted: 25 Feb 2014, 12:33
by Kashgar
Interior art Terry Patrick. Cover either Patrick or Kennedy
Re: The Phantom
Posted: 25 Feb 2014, 14:44
by Phoenix
philcom55 wrote:The Smasher also turned up in Red Dagger no.11 - though I think this must have reprinted one of the later serials from Bullet.
It's slightly more complicated than that, Phil. The story in
Red Dagger is a composite of both the serials that appeared in
Bullet in 1977, those being the third and fourth serials about The Smasher with Dr Doom. Furthermore, although the third serial starts in issue 60 of
Bullet, the
Red Dagger version starts from issue 61, and there are further modifications along the way, including some redrawing, in order to fit the stories into the 64 pages allotted to all issues of
Red Dagger. For those interested in checking this out, the serial that runs in
Bullet 60 (Apr. 2 1977) - 71 (Jun. 18 1977) takes up just the first 22 pages of the
Red Dagger version. The remaining pages are taken from
Bullet 90 (Oct. 29 1977) - 101 (Jan. 14 1978).
Re: The Phantom
Posted: 26 Feb 2014, 12:00
by philcom55
Thanks Kashgar and Phoenix. I should have realized to was Terry Patrick: nobody else drew such distinctive noses (of course the Smasher didn't have a nose!).
- Phil R.
Re: The Phantom
Posted: 26 Feb 2014, 13:02
by colcool007
Kashgar wrote:Interior art Terry Patrick. Cover either Patrick or Kennedy
I'd say the cover is Terry Patrick's. It is certainly not Ian's work as it does not have that distinctive "clean line" of his.
Re: The Phantom
Posted: 02 Mar 2014, 22:15
by AllyD
paw broon wrote:Oh, that's great! What an excellent page.
Back to The Phantom. I've just had a link to an American site (completely legit.) where you can read Phantom dailies and Sunday strips, incl. the last month's worth, for free. Many other strips available including classic Mandrake Sundays.
http://www.azcentral.com/thingstodo/com ... 2014-02-22
I've listed an 80s facsimile of Phantom #80 (Story: The Governor & Susie pt.2) on ebay.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/281271998000? ... 1555.l2649
A lovely edition seeing as it's a reprint!
Re: The Phantom
Posted: 09 Mar 2014, 18:29
by paw broon
That is an Australian, Frew comic, but I hadn't realized there were facsimiles that far up the run. The regular facsimiles are those which come packaged with the giant annuals but I don't think they are much further on than #22 or #23 as yet. Given the fact that I am often wrong, I will have a search. Thank you for the link. Just sorry I didn't get to it sooner.
By the way, the best place for Aus. Phantom comics is 30th. Century Comics, Putney. I've been buying from them for a while.
Re: The Phantom
Posted: 09 Mar 2014, 18:39
by philcom55
Afraid I didn't get to Glasgow yesterday but I
did manage to attend marts in Stoke-on-Trent and Manchester where, amongst other things, I picked up a Frew Phantom from the 1950s that seemed surprisingly cheap at £2.95. Annoyingly I can't find any number or date printed on it but, going by a couple of online cover galleries, it seems to be no.76A from late 1954.
Just before I was born then (unless, of course, it's another facsimile!
)
(Incidentally, I'm pretty sure it's not one of Bryon Whitworth's copies!)
- Phil Rushton