The Phantom

The Phantom
First Sunday strip (May 28, 1939); art by Ray Moore
Author(s)	Lee Falk
Current status / schedule	Ongoing
Launch date	February 17, 1936
Syndicate(s)	King Features Syndicate
Genre(s)	Adventure

The Phantom is a long-running American adventure comic strip, first published by Mandrake the Magician creator Lee Falk in February 1936, now primarily published internationally by Frew Publications. The main character, the Phantom, is a fictional costumed crime-fighter who operates from the fictional African country of Bangalla. The character has been adapted for television, film and video games.

The series began with a daily newspaper strip on February 17, 1936, followed by a color Sunday strip on May 28, 1939; both are still running As of 2017^[update]. In 1966, King Features stated that The Phantom was being published in 583 newspapers worldwide. At its peak, the strip was read by over 100 million people daily.

Falk worked on The Phantom until his death in 1999; from then until the present, the comic strip has been written by Tony DePaul. Since 2016, it has been drawn by Mike Manley (Monday–Saturday) and Terry Beatty (Sunday). Previous artists on the newspaper strip include Ray Moore, Wilson McCoy, Bill Lignante, Sy Barry, George Olesen, Keith Williams, Fred Fredericks, Graham Nolan, Eduardo Barreto and Paul Ryan. In the strip, the Phantom was 21st in a line of crime-fighters which began in 1536, when the father of British sailor Christopher Walker was killed during a pirate attack. Swearing an oath on the skull of his father's murderer to fight evil, Christopher began a legacy of the Phantom which would pass from father to son. Nicknames for the Phantom include "The Ghost Who Walks", "Guardian of the Eastern Dark" and "The Man Who Cannot Die".