Phantom (comics)
| The Phantom | |
|---|---|
Moonstone Books' The Phantom #12
Cover art by Joe Prado |
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| Publication information | |
| Publisher |
Comic strip King Features Syndicate Comic books David McKay Publications Harvey Comics Gold Key Comics King Comics DC Comics Marvel Comics Moonstone Books |
| First appearance | February 17, 1936 |
| Created by | Lee Falk |
| In-story information | |
| Notable aliases | Kit Walker |
| Abilities |
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The Phantom is a fictional, costumed crime-fighter who operates from the fictional country of Bangalla. The character was created by Lee Falk for the adventure comic strip The Phantom, which debuted in newspapers on February 17, 1936. The Phantom was later depicted in many forms of media, including television shows, movies, and video games.
Lee Falk's newspaper comic strip The Phantom premiered on February 17, 1936, with the story "The Singh Brotherhood", written by Falk and illustrated first by himself, for two weeks, followed by Ray Moore, who was an assistant to artist Phil Davis on Falk's Mandrake the Magician strip. A Sunday Phantom strip was added to newspapers on May 28, 1939. During Moore's World War II military service, he left the strip to his assistant, Wilson McCoy. Upon Moore's return, he worked on the strip on and off until 1949, when McCoy succeeded him. Following McCoy's death in 1961, Carmine Infantino and Bill Lignante (who would later draw several Phantom stories directly for comic books) filled in before Sy Barry was chosen as a successor. Barry would continue working on the strip for over 30 years before retiring in 1994.
Barry's longtime assistant, George Olesen, remained on the strip as penciller, with Keith Williams joining as the inker for the daily strip. The Sunday strip was inked by Eric Doescher until Fred Fredericks became the regular inker in 1995.
Falk continued to script Phantom until his death on March 13, 1999. His last daily and Sunday strip stories, "Terror at the Opera" and "The Kidnappers", respectively, were finished by his wife, Elizabeth Falk, after the hospitalized Falk had torn off his oxygen mask to dictate the adventures. After Falk's passing, King Features Syndicate collaborated with the European comics publisher Egmont on the strip. They went from initially publishing Phantom stories in licensed comic books to providing the stories for the newspaper strip by adapting their own comic-book stories. Tony DePaul and Claes Reimerthi alternated as writers of the daily and Sunday newspaper strips, respectively. DePaul would later become the sole writer of the strip.
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Wikipedia