Frew Publications
| Founded | 1948 |
|---|---|
| Founder | Ron Forsyth, Jim Rishardson, Jack Eisen, Peter Watson |
| Country of origin | Australia |
| Headquarters location | 160 Castlereagh Street, Sydney, New South Wales |
| Key people | Glenn Ford and Rene White Dudley Hogarth (Publisher) |
| Publication types | Comics |
| Fiction genres | Adventure |
| Official website | www.phantomcomic.com.au |
Frew Publications is an Australian comic book publisher, known for its long-running reprint series of Lee Falk's The Phantom. Frew formerly published other comics, including Falk's earlier creation Mandrake the Magician.
Frew Publications was founded in 1948 by Ron Forsyth, Lawford 'Jim' Richardson, Jack Eisen, and Peter Watson, with each contributing 500 Australian pounds to establish the publisher. The name "Frew" is an acronym made from the surnames of the four founders, Forsyth, Richardson, Eisen, and Watson. Eisen and Watson withdrew from the company before the first publication was issued.
Forsyth and Richardson approached Yaffa Syndicate the Australian representative of King Features Syndicate about producing an Australian comic book issue of The Phantom. The agreement was conditional that Frew could not print any stories that was currently running in other publications, nor any story soon after it had appeared in the Australian Woman's Mirror. The first edition of The Phantom, "The Slave Traders", published by Frew debuted on 9 September 1948. The first two issues were not numbered and printed in a landscape format, with the staples were on the short edge of the cover. The third issue, "Mr Hog", was the first to be numbered and reverted to the traditional portrait format.
Between 1949 and 1958 Frew also published comics including Popeye, The Phantom Ranger, The Shadow (an Australian creation not to be confused with the American version of The Shadow), Sir Falcon, Catman and Super Yank Comics, peaking to a total of thirty titles in the mid 1950s. In the early 1960s due to the influx of imported American titles Frew reduced their publications to a single title, The Phantom.
In November 1978 Frew published its first Swedish Phantom adventure entitled "The Ghost" (Issue #730), although it was not until January 1983 that another Swedish story appeared, "The Tiger from Rangoon" (Issue #763).
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