The Phantom Head

Mandrake Sunday Strip 052 - The Jungle Fullback (Colored)

2011-09-04T21:22:00.000+05:30

Here comes a nice Mandrake Sunday story from Lee Falk and Phil Davis, which I completed coloring recently.

I think it was the first time Lothar was shown as a seasoned footballer much to the astonishment of the team bosses who discover him and then to the general public. The theme was repeated in later stories drawn by Fred Fredericks (perhaps more than once).

Download Mandrake S052
(Only 6 MB, ~1250 px Wide, 9 pages)

I am working on another Mandrake strip, a very old daily. Hope to complete it by the end of this month.

Enjoy friends.

(1) I Support Anna & (2) A fine Spiderman comic

2011-08-21T20:27:00.000+05:30

It's time to stand up and get counted against the ever growing cancer of corruption paralysing the growth of the nation. I am with Anna in this fight.

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Now for comics. A lot of talk goes on about declining standards of Phantom stories. The current strips do not stand anywhere against the classics of Falk. On the other hand it is good to see spiderman stories keeping the standards and the creators producing really nice reads. The presented comic has two stories. The second one is the one that I am talking about. It is really heart-touching to read and has a good re-read value. One of those you'd enjoy reading again. Beautiful.

Download Spiderman - 03 (Hindi)
(Just 6.4 MB, 1200 px wide, 24 pages)

Note -
(1) More spiderman comics posted in this blog can be found here.
(2) This comic was scanned some two years ago. Posting quite late.

First Ever Frew Phantom Comics in Full Colours

2010-12-02T20:25:00.005+05:30

For a long time a much talked about issue among the phantom fans the world over has been why frew publication in australia is not priting phantom comics in colour format. A lot many readers are interested in seeing those stories in coloured format as they are some of the finest ever created if we are talking about works of writers and artists other than Lee Falk and his team.

Today I am going to post a story which was published in frew quite recently (only a year ago or so) but which actually is an old one from 1978 from scandenavia. A fine story it is but in all its printing history it was always printed in black and white only. It gives me immense pleasure to present this in colour now.

Written by Norman Worker, a fine story writer, who can better be introduced to indian phantom phans as the writer of Indrajal Comics "Vultures over Vacul Castle" which was published in two parts and is counted among the handful of good indrajal stories not penned by Falk himself. The artwork is by Georges Bess. During the initial years of his work, Bess was considered to be influenced by the style of Sy Barry, and for which some of the phans target him. But I liked the artwork in the comic for a number of reasons. Now it is upto you to decide about the quality of the artwork in the comic.

Special thanks to prabhat, who posted the black and white scans of this frew comic on his blog, and from where I downloaded this and to the original scanner.

Earlier issue covers of the same story (from scandenavia)

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I am away from the comics blogs for a long time now. This very comic I had uploaded on mediafire about 2 months ago, but did not find time to post the same on blog. Life is passing through a turbulent phase and I don't know how and when it will settle down for some calm and peace. Till then, the irregularity will remain, sadly.

English Version of Mandrake Daily D065 - The Million Dollar Loaf

2010-08-21T04:30:00.009+05:30

The English version of Mandrake Daily #D065 "The Million Dollar Loaf".

This has been a unique project for me. Translating from a language which is completely alien to me was interesting when I began but became a little tiring and time consuming as the work progessed and once the initial phase was over the speed became slow. Because I was taking help of mechanical translator like Google Tranlation, the conversion was not very smooth, as I mentioned in my last post, but somehow I was able to complete it.

Now, if you compare both Hindi and English translated versions, you'll find differences at a few places. Those are brought deleberately. Sometimes it was done to bring local flavour in Hindi version, and at some other occasions I was forced to change the text only to fit the text into the given speech balloon. For instance at page number 8 panel 4, in English, Lothar asks Mandrake if he were willing to have some sandwich, to which Mandrake replied "No, thanks, I dined with Narda." But the Hindi text read as "नहीं धन्यवाद, मुझे भूख नहीं है. Actually There was not much space to fit the correct text, "नहीं, धन्यवाद, मैंने नारडा के साथ रात्रि-भोज किया था."

Same constraint forced to trim the actual dialogue at a few other places. There was one other option to bring down the text size (and I used it once or twice) but most other times changing of sentence was preferred.

It was fun working on this project (but I an not going to repeat it again). Now, I wish to see the original English version by Lee Falk. Just to compare my translation. At many places I used common sense since google was not providing any meaningful sentence. It would be interesting to chech the original for real text.

The translation is talked in depth now, few words on colouring also. Because half the pages were printed in colour by the magazine, the liberty of choosing a colour of own choice was not available to me. I had to follow the pattern selected by original colouring artist from magazine, and I would say it was disappointing at times. Not enough care was taken by publisher on that part. You'll notice the colour of the dog running away with bread in his mouth. at the same page it was white and then suddenly turned blue. Goofed up. There are a few other similar examples.

But finally it is here. So friends, let's enjoy this interesting Mandrake story in English now.

Download Mandrake Daily Strip D065

"The Million Dollar Loaf"

Within next three weeks, this blog is going to complete three years of its existence. Another surprise package is under production for that occasion. First of its kind, yet again. Hope to see you there, dear friends.

Mandrake Daily Strip D065 - "The Million Dollar Loaf" in Hindi (लाख रुपये की डबलरोटी)

2010-08-02T05:00:00.039+05:30

Presenting today Mandrake Daily Strip No. 65 - 'The Million Dollar Loaf' in Hindi. This strip was only available in French so far (as I know). I decided to translate it so that it can be read by readers of other languages.

Now, French is completely 'French' to me. How could it be possible? I knew nobody who could help me in translation of French. So thought, why not try with Google Translation service? First it appeared almost impossible task. To write all French dialogues (which didn't make any sense to me at all, as I do not know even the basics of this language) was a tough job. Secondly, google translation does not work as smoothly, as one would desire it to. The sentences I got back from machine were almost equally incomprehensible. Then I tried to convert them to both Hindi and English, and somehow it worked. Now I was able to infer something which made some sense. At some places I was also forced to use some common sense.

The conversion from one language to other may not be of professional standard, but you will get the story in conceivable form. I am no Lee Falk. The dialogues may not be as witty as you would expect from the ace writer, but I have worked to make them as close to the original, to the best of my ability. Now it is for you to decide how successful I have been.

The original copy from which I got this story was from some old french magazine. It was posted by Balaji in one of his posts. In that publication, only half the pages were coloured and rest in black and white. So, first job in hand was to convert them all to coloured format. While doing so I had to maintain the continuity and consistency of the colouring done by the magazine artists. No personal choices to follow. :(

So friends, here comes a mandrake story you might not possibly have read before. The story is very interesting, funny and simple. I liked it. Drawings are from Phil Davis, the first and original Mandrake artist to work with Falk. Hope you enjoy it.

I am also posting the original french version in full colour. Some cleaning work is also done on those pages which were already in colour in the magazine. Those who understand French may also like to go for it.

Enjoy friends.

Download Hindi Version	Download French Version
Mandrake Daily Strip D065 - The Million Dollar Loaf

I am also working on its English Version. It will be here soon.

Mandrake Sunday Strip 072 - The Casino (year 1957) cleaned and coloured

2010-06-22T21:30:00.009+05:30

First an announcement. I have joined twitter and my tweets are now available at twitter.com/phantom_head

And here comes a Mandrake Sunday strip illustrated by original artist Phil Davis. This is sunday strip No. 72 - "The Casino" from 1957. It's not a very long story but I found the story interesting enough to be taken for colouring.

I had downloaded the black and white strip pages from Lothar's blog, which is a fine blog dedicated to Mandrake strips. It seems that he had downloaded it from some newspaper archive and hence the quality of print was not good. A lot of black spots appeared on the pages which required treatment before the strip could aquire some presentable form. Out of eight pages, four were cleaned by somebody (most probably Lothar himself) when I downloaded it. But the remaining four were still in quite a bad condition.

I faced a lot of trouble in removing those black spots. In fact it took more time and effort than colouring itself to clean the pages. another truoble with the pics was that the pages were having some folding lines of newspaper. It required clone brush to correct them. In some balloons, the dialogues were not legible. So those were written again.

Now, after colouring, the final result is quite satisfactory. It is completely transformed into a beautiful story. You can compare the black and white page with the coloured one here to see yourself the transformation.

In Original Downloaded Form

After Cleaning and Colouring

The story is quite interesting. A new casino is announced to be opened in the city. Police chief is furious about the casino owner "Honest" John's defying act to openly advertise the illegal casino. Actually the crook has devised a foolproof plan to decieve the police and the legal authorities. Police chief finds himself in a helpless condition. Time for Mandrake to act and manage the situation, a job which he executes to perfection.

One more thing, this is NOT the post I was talking about in my previous post. That surprise is coming shortly on this blog. Till then, enjoy this classic Mandrake tale.

Download Mandrake Sunday Strip 072

"The Casino"

Classic Phantom Daily Strip by Ray Moore and Lee Falk (D006 - Adventure in Algiers) in full colours.

2010-06-11T15:00:00.006+05:30

Phantom punishing a young girl old school style

Presenting another classic phantom tale here in this post, one from the earliest adventures penned by Lee Falk and illustrated by the original Phantom artist Ray Moore. The story was published as far back as 1938.

For Indian readers this is unread in coloured form (for most even in any form) as it was not published in indrajal comics. In fact they never published any of the Moore's strips. It seems a curious case as to why they overlooked some of the best phantom stories while giving space for some non-Falkian stories from franchisees from american publishing houses e.g. charlton etc.

I had actually completed the colouring work on this project a month ago but wanted to post translated version (into hindi) together with this original english version, so was waiting for that. Busy work schedule compelled me to defer the working on hindi version. Finally just posting the english one here. Hope to present the hindi translation soon for the hindi readers.

Diana with mother

Talking about the story, it is one of those early adventure where the story revolve around misunderstandings and feelings of insecurities between young couple in love, i.e., Phantom and Diana. Phantom on his way to meet Diana in Paris is forced to miss his ship in Algiers by some small town thugs. All his attempts to reach Diana in time are proved futile. Madam Lily (Diana's mother) is not particularly happy about her daughter being engaged with a mysterious jungle man whom she doesn't like or believe at all. In her effort to "save" Diana from infatuation towards this strange maskedman, she adopts every method to deter the meeting between the two youngsters.

It's a well knitted plot, embedded with crispy dialogues and dynamic sequences. The writer was in his thirtees at the time of writing this one and the energy of this master creator can be felt coming out and touching the heart of the reader.

With this project I have personally achieved another milestone of bringing to colour the works of all three major Phantom artists. First it was Sy Barry's masterful work in S136, then Wilson McCoy in D060 and in S040 and now Ray Moore himself in this one, D006. Next on agenda is to finish the pending work on Mandrake adventure D017 - The Deep South, which I had taken some time ago and is waiting to be completed. That art is from one more brilliant but underappreciated artist Phil Davis.

I would also like to announce another project. This one is one of its kind, never ever thought by anyone. Won't disclose the details at the moment but it will be here in front of you all very soon, sooner than you expect.

Enjoy friends.

Download Phantom Strip D006 (Year 1938)

Adventure in Algiers (Coloured)

Pinki covers from diamond comics india

2010-03-26T05:00:00.008+05:30

Exams are over, the new session on the verge of beginning. The two odd weeks in between are being utilised in watching cartoon channels all day long. It's time to indulge in TV shows which were put on hold due to exams. Extra efforts are required to clear the backlog.

I am talking about my kid's current daily routine. TV and computer have hogged all the available time from younger generation's daily life. The most severe beating has been received by the reading habits, I mean light readings.

As a parent, I feel worried about the condition. Watching too much of television is surely going to have a negative impact on the young mind. It's a proven fact that TV viewing beyond certain limit makes the mind dull and affects reasoning abilities.

The first thing that comes to my mind to counter the situation is to provide her with more options. In an attempt, I took her with me to the book shop and bought few comics for her. Mostly some usual child stuff like Pinki comics from diamond comics.

Some covers are here. Fortunately I got some old titles which are still there in my own memory blocks. Haven't read any Pinki comic for last two decades at least but having a look at the covers from Pran is refreshing.

You can download these covers from here.

She looks happy for time being and is busy completing the adventures of the little naughty nuisance called Pinki. I am hopeful that this should ignite a desire in her to read more. She hasn't given up TV completely, but at least has started spending time with books too.

But the most surprising and pleasing was to find one Diamond Phantom comic among the heaps of other diamond comics. It is a very early issue (number 5, published in 1990) in brand new condition, which is quite surprising. It contains two phantom stories (#D159 and #D160). I had none of them in print earlier, so it's a happy moment.

Scanning of some diamond mandrakes is due for a long time. I hope to start it soon. Some nice and unread stories are there which were published after Indrajal ceased their publication.

Phantom Daily Strip #060 (coloured) - The Wisdom of Solomon

2010-03-19T05:00:00.011+05:30

During its peak period, many newspapers world over were publishing Phantom's adventures in form of daily and sunday strips. Many magazines were also happy to find a space for this mysterious masked man on their precious pages. While many newspapers and most magazines carried coloured prints for sunday strips, the daily strips were still published in only black and white.

Indrajal comics in India published many daily strips in coloured format, but still there remain many a daily strips which were never published in Indrajal ever. For this reason, these stories are still not known to Indian comic lovers.

I decided to colour one such daily strip from the McCoy-Falk combo. This is a real classic from 1956. It is D060 - The Wisdom of Solomon.

This story was never published in Indrajal Comics. But upon reading, I found it to be a fine story. A typical Falk tale which catches the reader quite early and keep the reader intrigued till very last. One can easily notice the characteristic Falk stamp put everywhere, on each panel.

Here is a glimpse of the story:

Once again there is a dispute between the two most powerful jungle tribes, Wambesi and Llongo. This time they are fighting over fishing rights in the river that flows dividing the two territories. It is a challenge for Phanotm to settle the matter peacefully between the two war hungry jungle clans, who are not ready to lose any opportunity to lock horns with each other.

Many a attempts go without proving successful. The Phantom credibility as peace settler is on trial as the whole jungle is keeping an eye on the matter. The stipulated time frame of lull before the storm is just about to be over when with a little luck and a simple word of advice from Guran, Phantom is finally able to find a resting solution just in the nick of time.

I found the story very interesting and enjoyable. Real classic indeed.

Download Phantom Daily Strip in Full Colour

D060 The Wisdom of Solomon (1955)

note: hindi version, translated by me, is also available for download here.

Phantom Sunday Strip #040 - The Gibs Brothers (In Full colours)

2010-03-14T14:05:00.008+05:30

Been extremely busy for some time, hence no posts. Posting today a short (only 5 pages) but classic phantom sunday strip from Lee Falk and Wilson Mccoy. This is #S040 - The Gibs Brothers, first published in 1955.

Set in a food joint in the coastal town of Bengali, it is one of those early tales which helped set the image of phantom as a tough and fearless crime fighter who maintains a whole world of secrecy about his sudden appearance and equally mysterious disappearance into the obscure surroundings of the streets full of mist.

The same act, with slight modifications, has been repeated in a number of other adventures (for example, in the phantom sunday strip posted earlier - #S136). But the original is original and has a solid effect on the reader, something that is found missing in the later repetitions.

I also found the story unique in the sense that Devil although accompany Phantom during the full length, never had to do any business whatsoever. He remains a silent spectator to the happenings. May be he is sure of his master's abilities to deal with the mean guys of the local town. Not feel like even barking at any stage. :-)

While coloring, I set my target on completing it with minimum of time. I wanted to check my speed with this Wilson Mccoy work. It came out quite satisfactory for me as the entire strip took about five to six hours spread over two days. That makes a single page on an average an hour. Not bad.

But I seriously doubt if this speed could be achieved with any of Sy Barry's Work also. Barry is a master is illustrating with delicacy and depth even the smallest of object appearing in the scene. Not to mention the landscapes and characters to which he pay extremely high attention.

For now you can enjoy this strip in full color.

Page 1 (B/W)

Page 1

Page 2

Page 3

Page 4

Page 5

Download Phantom Strip #S040
(The Gibs Brothers)

Preview of Mandrake Colored Strip (Currently Under Project)

2010-01-12T20:17:00.009+05:30

Completed first 20 pages of the mandrake strip I talked about in my previous post. It is a classic Falk-Davis strip from 1939, 'D017 The Deep South'. Just posting a slide-show for preview purpose.

As suggested by friends, the entire strip will be available to download only when it is completed. You may want to take a look at the pages, so I am just giving a link for small (400 px wide) version.

Download first 20 pages

(400 px wide, just 1.4 MB)

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Original Black and White scans courtesy Balaji. See this post.

Completed (Phantom Sunday Strip #136 Full)

2009-12-26T03:00:00.026+05:30

Hi friends!

Today I am feeling extremely happy and proud to present the complete Phantom Sunday strip #136, The Return of the Thuggees, in colour, for my esteemed readers and loving friends. It took much more time than I had initially expected, but at least I have able to produce it within this calendar year.

I thank all the visitors and downloaders of previous segments of the strip. Special thanks are due to all those who spared their time not only to write a comment and provided feedback, but also came up with valuable suggestions, which I undertook while moving on to next sections. All these wonderful people have kept the flame of desire burning constantly within me and have encouraged me to produce more, even though it was not easy for a novice like me to enter the field of comics colouring. Considering my (bad) nature of getting bored easily with new experiments and a tendency to leave it unfinished, personally I feel it is not a small achievement to finish a large comic comprising of none less than 65 pages for an amateur like me.

The opportunity has provided me some valuable experience in digital graphics art as I spent a lot of time with Photoshop. Most part of the strip was done with PS 6. It was after I purchased a new PC in October that I switched to PS CS4. Last quarter of the strip is being done with the newer version.

I would like to sum up the experience I had in some detail.

How the idea came:

I always wanted to do something like this, but was unaware of the process involved. Didn’t have any clue about which software to use for this purpose. So the ambition was not taking any shape. Then I came across few Phantom strips coloured by some comic enthusiasts (like one by Ivan Pederson). That was very beautifully done and that rekindled my desire. Why not somebody from India attempts to do a similar work, I wondered. We have many good artists associated with comics Industry, but why can't somebody who is just a comic lover and not professionally involved with media comes up with a similar work? There were definitely some gaps and I thought of filling some of those.

It was about the same time that Comicrazee produced some masterpieces for Balaji’s blog. Seeing the hope I asked him about the needed software and he said he had used photoshop only. That inspired me to dig into the possibilities of using p/s and after some hard searching on net, finally got the hint. So began it all.

Selection of colours for main characters:

That was the beginning. The first question I faced was exactly which colour to choose for Phantom. OK, it is purple to which most of us are accustomed to, but even for purple, different shades appear in different publications. After testing few of those I finally decided to choose the colour used by some newspaper strip artists as the colouring scheme of those were the best. A quite different purple shade was used by Harvey Hits and that was equally appealing. But I decided to stick to newspaper strip. (But later I used Harvey colour for Phantom pistols).

Pigmies (that includes Guran) were also selected from the same strip. For Diana, I looked at Indrajal Comics colouring. They used blue to colour her hair and I liked the appearance. Rest characters were my own imagination.

Installments:

The overall process has taken some 10 months working irregularly. Between each installment I paused for some time and tried to look at more publications for directions. For example, second installment (page 11-20) was influenced by Wolf Publication of UK. But I couldn't copy the effects cleverly and it ended up with some average work. I am saying average because the colouring appeared darker than I had desired. For fifth installment (page 41-50) I experimented with brighter colours, but immediately recieved negative feedback from CW and Rafiq for that. That was a course correction and I kept it in mind during later work.

I personally feel that towards the last 10-15 pages the colouring work is better than the earlier work. May be I have gained some experience now which should be helpful in future.

Corrections and Modifications:

I also got useful hints from Rafiq on contrast of few colours when I first posted that part (bodyguard unit of President Luaga). Those were immediately corrected and from the next installment, the uniform colour was changed to something more soothing to the eyes.

Even after completing a page, I have constantly worked on some of the panels to keep the consistency and to improve the effects. For instance the body colour of Devil was brownish when first post was made. In later parts it was changed to greyish. some more changes were made from time to time.

The Complete Strip:

So now, the strip is ready for all comic lovers to download. For those who have been downloading the parts there are two options.

(i) Either they can download only the remaining 5 pages

or

(ii) They can download the strip in its entirety. This option is recommended for two reasons. One, as I mentioned earlier, all previous pages are retouched. Not a single page is left without check for consistency. Many pages have been improved. A more detailed work is done on Luaga and Bababu's appearances. Secondly, and more importantly, I am now posting a higher resolution version of 1500 px width. All earlier pages were 1100 px wide only. But even at 1500 px resolution the strip is only 36 MB in size (remember there are 65 pages).

A 1100 px wide full strip version is also being provided if someone is interested in that.

So friends, enjoy.

Higher Resolution Version (1500 px wide, 36 MB)

Normal Resolution Version (1100 px wide, 23 MB)

Or

Last Five Pages (61-65) 1100 px wide

Looking for your feedbacks, so that I can improve myself in future projects.

Previous posts in this series are here:
Page 1-10, page 11-20, page 21-30, page 31-40, page 41-50, page 51-55, page 56-60

Next Colouring Project:

Want to go for one Mandrake Strip next. Actually, I have already selected one, but not going to disclose the title now.

So dear friends, you can expect more here.

Heading towards completion (next set of pages from phantom #S136)

2009-12-13T18:59:00.012+05:30

Click on the above pic to see a much larger view

One of the more challenging tasks in coloring a comic book is to keep the consistency and continuity with the coloring patterns of those characters and places which occur intermittently. If some character reappears into picture after a few pages, then it is important to check what color that character was wearing when it last came along or what is the general presentation routine for some particualr topographical unit.

The process demands its share of patience and becomes time consuming for someone who believes in perfection of the work. That slows down the overall processes a bit. I have tried to device some techniques/tricks to overcome the hurdle by creating few image files with major characters in them. Everytime some particular character is required, these files are taken for reference. All regular characters are there, Phantom, Diana, Rex, Guran, Mozz and Devil of course. The super stallion Hero has been very supportive by not giving trouble for his coloring, being as white as milk.

But a long story encompasses a lot many characters than these. Everyone cannot be given a place in the reference file. And therfore many times it becomes inevitable to peek into the back pages for coloring clues.

Nevertheless, the strip is now heading towads completion, and I feel happy to contribute something original to the comic loving community.

Presenting today the next five pages (page 56 to 60). Now only 5 more remains after this. In all probability the entire strip will be available for download this month only, and if possible, withing a week's time. Hope you have enjoyed the work. I am thankful to all those who have commented about the quality of the work with their own suggestions. It has helped me to look out for more options and make the pages better. After finishing the remaining 5 pages, I'll work on corrections to the previous pages also. Still any suggestion regarding that work? Most welcome. Please convey your feeling how could it be improved further.

Will be making a detailed post with next (final) set. Till then you can enjoy the current pages. In the last three pages here, I have introduced something new again regarding the backgrounds. Let's see if you can notice that.

Enjoy friends.

Download Page 56-60

(Phantom Sunday Strip #S136)

The Return of the Thuggees

Previous pages are available here:
Page 1-10, page 11-20, page 21-30,

page 31-40, page 41-50, page 51-55

Download complete strip here: http://thephantomhead.blogspot.com/2009/12/completed-phantom-sunday-strip-136-full.html

Phantom Sunday Strip #136 - More Coloured Pages

2009-11-11T23:11:00.007+05:30

It is really a long strip, and I am slightly getting bored now with the repetitive job of coloring the same characters and same scenarios. Looking for something new. Still wonder, was it a mistake to select this long story as my first shot in coloring.

Was only able to produce 5 pages this time. Wanted to make it 10 but it is taking more time now and I don't want to keep this unposted for long. So here is whatever I could. Only 10 more remains after this.

Download Page 51-55 Phantom Sunday Strip #136 "The Return of the Thuggees"

Previous pages are available here:
Page 1-10, page 11-20, page 21-30, page 31-40, page 41-50

Download complete strip here: http://thephantomhead.blogspot.com/2009/12/completed-phantom-sunday-strip-136-full.html
Meanwhile, I was taking a look at some classic Mandrake Strips from Magic Comics and I noticed they too were publishing the strips in highly edited form, though in color. Look at the pics here. These are from a daily from 1940 and by comparing with the unedited strip version you can see how many portions have been chopped off. Some sequences have been omitted entirely. Many a panels tasted the partial scissor cuts as well.

Notice that very first and very last panels of coloured and b/w pages are same.

So, Indrajal comics is not the only publication to blame for not serving us with complete stories. Relieved to know that. Diamond comics were better in this regard. At least they published unedited whatever created by Falk and teams.

Planning to scan a Mandrake from diamond comics. It's a strip from 90s, never published in Indrajal.

TPH #069: Phantom Daily Strip (D-208 "The Hit Men")

2009-11-04T02:05:00.024+05:30

Continuing the series on Phantom Daily Strips. Here comes another one, D-208, "The Hit Men".

Story

Cici, a young and innocent teenager, accidentally becomes an eye-witness to a murder order by a highly placed underworld agent. She is encouraged by her mother to stand by the truth and to testify in the court against the evils. Courageously she follows the advice and becomes star witness in the case.

Her testimony in the case could prove fatal for a number of high positions. So, A plan is carefully laid to get rid of her, but her death should not arise any doubts, so an accident is planned. She, along with few of her friends, is sent to Bangalla jungle in the name of a high adventure trip where two professional killers are in wait for her.

But two Jungle Patrolmen find some irregularities in the paper-work of the tour guides (who actually are killers in disguise). They report the matter to Patrol chief col Worobu, who pass it on to Phantom. Ghost Who Walks decides to keep an eye on the happenings.

A number of attempts are made by the killers to set stage for an accidental death for Cici, but every time Phantom saves her from the clutches of death. Events take shape in such a manner not to arise any suspicion in Phantom's mind. He considers the accidents as genuine untill he himself sees the rapt behaviour of the guards even in the crisis hours. That makes him realise the situation and finally, as one can expect, the two killers end up being tied near the monument to the unknown patrolmen. Another consignment for the patrolmen to pick.

Cici records her statement in the court. Phantom is there to watch the proceedings himself and is all praise for the young and courageous. Story heads for expected ending.

My View:

I found the story OK. Not a particularly interesting one, but not a bad one either. Some of the drawings, where Phantom picks up Cici on his horse (the sequence where she confronts with a tiger) are superbly drawn. The action looks real.

But the story does not justify with the image of Phantom solidified in the readers mind through different adventures for ages. It is not the same Phantom. He looks surprised by the events here, rather than throwing them on to the opponents. Hard to digest. But....its ok... as I said.

Download TPH #069: Phantom D-208, The Hit Men

More Phantom Dailies are here.

Trailer from the new Phantom series and The Veiled Lady (Adaptation of Lee Falk's original story in Novel Form)

2009-10-20T14:20:00.007+05:30

A new TV series on The Phantom by RHI entertainment (official website, wiki page) is about to be launched next year (i.e. in 2010). The miniseries will be aired on SyFy Channel (official website, wiki page) that specialises in science fiction, fantasy, horror, and paranormal programming.

A trailer has just been released. Watch it.

The film, based on the comic, tells the story of Kit Walker, the 21st Phantom, played by Ryan Carnes, with Isabella Rossellini as the villain, Lithia. Cameron Goodman will star as Walker’s love interest, Renny and Sandrine Holt as the Phantom’s trusted friend and advisor, Guran.

Producers, RHI Entertainment, have provided the following synopsis:

The legendary superhero returns in this modern-day and action packed miniseries event. When Kit Walker (Ryan Carnes) learns of his father’s death, the adventurous young man inherits the mantle of his superhero father. As the new Phantom, the 21st in the Walker line, Kit vows to uphold and honor his ancestors’ creed-to fight crime and injustice throughout the world.

The phantom costume will somewhat look like this. It is a big migration from the original and producers are trying to make it look more contemporary. But to me, it only appears funny at the best.

It seems the producers are spending some money this time to give the show a bigger dimension but how it goes with audiences, remains to be seen.

The Phantom will appear on SyFy in 2010 as a two-night, four-hour event.

Let us meet the main characters. Here comes The Phantom.

Phantom's girlfriend has been renamed Renny and the role is played by Cameron Goodman. Few pics of her.

But the most surprising casting is of the lady below. Guess what role she is playing in the series.

She is in the role of Guran. Can you believe it?

And here are few pics from the series itself.

Here comes another of Phantom story in Novel's form. It is adapted from the classic phantom story of the same title. Book form conversion of the story has been done by Frank S. Shawn (which was a pseudonym of Ron Goulart)

Download Phantom Novel "The Veiled Lady"

Hope you enjoy this.

TPH Exclusive: Novel by Lee Falk - The Story of the Phantom

2009-10-13T03:00:00.030+05:30

Few phans know that between 1972 and 1975, Avon publications in USA had brought out a series of Phantom books (novels, not comics). Total 15 books were released in the series out of which some were written by Lee Falk himself and others were done by ghost writers for him. [Ghost writing on ghost who walks. Funny, isn't it? :-)]

The covers for the series were created by George Wilson, who was also attached with Gold Key publications and had previously illustrated several excellent Phantom covers for them.

While most of the books in this series are regarded as just average by the literary perspective, those written by Falk himself are considered better works.

A look at the covers.

01 The story of the Phantom	02 The Slave Market of Mucar	03 The Scorpia Menace
04 The Veiled Lady	05 The Golden Circle	06 The Myserious Ambassador
07 The Mystery of the Sea Horse	08 The Hydra Monster	09 Killer's Town
10 The Goggle-Eyed Pirates	11 The Swamp Rats	12 The Vampires and the Witch
13 The Island of Dogs	14 The Assasins	15 The Curse of the Two-Headed Bull

Of the above, No. 1, 6, 9, 12 and 15 are written by Lee Falk. Remaining are the works of Basil Copper (2, 3), Frank S. Shawn (4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11), Warren Shanahan (13) and Carson Bingham (14).

The name of Falk was so sellable in those days that all the books bore his name on their covers. A small difference, his own writing shows the caption 'by Lee Falk' while others do not show the names of the real authors but simply say 'Lee Falk original story'.

I got a few of these in electronic form at net. Someone had scanned and OCRed them but the formatting was not really good. So I had to spend some time in improving the readability of the works and to give them a proper shape. Now it is in the form of a 92 page PDF file at A4 page size. Those with a laser printer at their disposal may like to have a print copy. So, I am posting the first novel in the series here.

Download Lee Falk's Novel, The Story of the Phantom

About the book

(Taken from the wikipedia page for this book)

Plot:

The book tells the story about Kit Walker, son of the 20th Phantom, who will one day grow up to take over the mantle from his father and become the 21st Phantom.

The book starts with Kit's birth in the Skull Cave. Several chapters are dedicated to him growing up in the Bangalla jungle, where the readers get to see events and lessons that shape him to the man he will once become.

When Kit reaches the age of 12, he travels to Clarksville, USA, to receive a proper education (it is a tradition in the Phantom family that the children are sent away to their mother's homeland for education). Kit lives with his mother's sister and her husband in Clarksville.

Kit is a brilliant student, and receives excellent grades in every subject. Kit proves to be a talented sportsman, and is predicted to become the world champion of a number of different genres (he even knocks out the boxing champion of the world in a match when the champion visits Clarksville.

Kit also meets his future wife-to-be, Diana Palmer, on a Christmas party on his school.

Despite being able to choose practically any career he wants, Kit faithfully returns to Bengalla to take over the role of the Phantom when he receives word from his childhood friend Guran that his father, the 20th Phantom, is dying from wounds he received in a battle with pirates trying to rob a jungle hospital.

Inspirations:

Falk based the book of his own comic strip story "Childhood of the Phantom". Several flashbacks to the adventures of earlier Phantoms are also taken from comic strip stories.

TPH #068: The Albees (Phantom daily strip D-194)

2009-10-10T09:37:00.004+05:30

Today I am going to talk about another Phantom daily strip coming from Mr Lee Falk's own pen. While reading this story one thing which kept coming to my mind, and confirmed my believe, is that the magic of Falk was certainly on a decline during his last phase. He only appears as a shadow of himelf in the stories he created during the 90s. The special Falkian flavour which kept the readers glued to his creations for so long (almost 5 decades) is completely missing. It seems he was finding it difficult to cultivate new ideas and to develop them in some interesting manner, once Sy Barry bid a farewell to the illustration job. That's why we often get to see either the repetition of past events or long references to them. It's tolerable or even good upto some extent but when it overshadows the main storyline the things start to turn boring.

Story:

Phantom is on his annual tour of the vast forest land. He passes through many familiar sites before coming to meet the rope people, the residents of high rise trees. Here he comes to know about the concerns of jungle people regarding a new and somewhat unfamiliar race of Albees, residents at the edge of the jungle, living behind a high fortress. The Albees are preparing for a war against other jungle tribes, is the suspicion that is spreading throughout the jungle. All the tribes are living in a continuos state of tension which can lead to any disaster at any moment. Albees are known to prepare good spears and are masterful in creating other war equipments. They like to spend all their time behind the walls of their fortress and do not like to mix-up with others. That makes the other tribes all the more suspicious about their intentions and they are preparing to rage a war against them.

And here something strange occurs in the story. A tribal warrior actually comes closer to Phantom and does something unimaginable. He almost warns phantom not to indulge in their affairs. The tone of his threatening voice together with daring looks might surprise many a readers. An absolute shocker. But Phantom listens to him quietly because situation here is getting out of control. War preparations are in full swing. Some good intelligence and hard effort is required on Phantom's part to avoid the danger of war which is looming in front of the jungle peace. Children of the both warring fractions are his only hope and he is not disappointed on this front. The crisis is over.

My say:

As I mentioned earlier, the story references so often the past events that begins to bore the readers and he starts believing that the writer is trying to hide the emptiness of a dull storyline behind the old familiar events in order to arouse the nostalgic feelings in the reader. I don't remember any other story where so many past events are referenced in the same story. You may wish to count. Lets start here:

The story begins with those familiar images and dialogues which tells that new modern cities are developing on the verge of the forest (1) Then the Wambesi and Llongo tribes get another mention (2). Here come the rope people residing over the tall trees and the giants living in the in the foot areas below (3). Phantom's castle in the air again finds a mention and quite in detail. (4)

Eden is next on the list (5). While passing through dense forests of Spidera (6) he saves a panther who is entangled in the sticky nets. Headhunters of Tirangi are also there (7). All those events where phantom encountered the rope people to save a father-daughter duo from the clutches of cannibals (one rope people were like this) are again there to greet the reader. (8)

In more ways than one, the plot is lacklustre. Events occur on a flat pattern without offering much surprises which could have put the reader into guesswork. Another flaw in the story is that when Phantom collects the children in his effort to avoid the war, he seems to know in advance that there be children in the other clans who are as willing to meet the children from jungle tribes. Hard to digest. Poorly rendered.

Overall, not a particularly interesting story. But still it's a Phantom tale, so you can't afford to miss it.

Download Phantom Daily Strip D-194 "The Albees"

More than eight years ago, I had purchased my first desktop pc, a pentium-3. Last week I got another one, the most advanced I could think of, with core 2 duo processor and 4 GB ram. And funny is that I had to spent only half the amount than what I had spent previous time. :-)

TPH #67: Phantom daily strip by Lee Falk (D-193, The Dakk Pirates)

2009-10-07T12:59:00.001+05:30

A repeatitive theme in Phantom stories is 'the eastern dark' and the evildoers belonging to that land. For centuries phantoms have been fighting a constant battle against the ever upsurging crime-waves from the lands of dark. Lee Falk created at least four different stories on this topic.

One of the titles that Phantom holds declares him "the guardian of the eastern dark". The age old rivalry between the pirates/thugs of eastern dark and phantoms have provided Phantom lovers with some great stuff to read. The last of these (from Falk's pen) was the daily strip number 193, "The Dakk Pirates". This is presented in the current post.

Story:

The old pirate kingdom of Dakk has now transformed itself into an ultra modern city that provides the tourists all sorts of comfort of a rich luxurious life. It has become a major attraction for people who come here in search for pleasures of life. All sorts of drugs are easily available here in open market for the needfuls. The place is also like a heaven for terrorists as different kinds of weapons can be purchased easily and openly, if one is ready to pay the price in cash. The ruler of the land, 'Dar' is a descendent of old pirates. He himself is in charge of all these illegal activities taking place inside his kingdom.

The terrorist activities taking place around the world, when traced, mostly points to the Dakk. President Luaga of Bangalla, asks for Phantom's help in the matter. Phantom reaches the city of Dakk, takes a stroll and evaluate the situation. Then he directly approaches Dar, the ruler of Dakk. A closed room discussion with Dar proves fruitful and he is able to apply some 'Phantomish methods' to persuade Dar into closing all illegal trades. Drugs, weapon on display are destroyed.

My view:

Many friends believe that post Falk stories are far inferior to those created by Lee Falk himself. This is true if we compare the new strips with old Falkian strips, created by Falk during his heydays. But this story suggests that towards his ending phase, Mr Lee Falk was also generating some average stories. His work in the 90s is not of the same level what he did during 60s and 70s. So, it can be assumed that the decline in the story content was the result of some external factors also.

With the rising popularity of television worldover (and in third world countries in particular), and at the same time subsiding public interest in reading, forced creators to bring about some new themes in the stories. To survive in the fast changing world, one has to keep changing according to the public taste. The old Phantom lovers had to bear the brunt of the situation. They find difficult to adjust to the new themes and miss the old adventures. But that is understandable.

Now about the present story. No real action in the tale from Phantom. At so many places references to old events are presented to remind the reader of previously read tales and to add some nostalgic elements to the story. This is ok when previous encounters of Phantom against the dark land are referenced. But the mention of Phantom wedding makes no sense here. Just a filler which adds nothing to the storyline.

Some discrepancies are also observed. When Phantom reaches Dakk, a panel says his ancestors would be happy that the current Phantom is also continuing the battle on the lines of some of his forefathers. 'Now it is your turn', they are showering blessing on him. But actually this is not the first time 21st Phantom is in the land of eastern dark. He has been here before and has competently performed his duties.

In a heavily guarded palace, Phantom is able to enter the room of Dar. And not by his normal way, through the window. But this time he is in by doorway. Quite unusual and unbelievable. Isn't it?

Read it yourself and make your opinion.

One note, the first page is not very attractive in terms of looks but rest are nice. Enjoy.

Download Phantom Daily Strip D-193 "The Dakk Pirates"

TPH #066: Another Phantom Daily Strip (D-222, The New Recruits)

2009-10-04T21:20:00.008+05:30

Another phantom daily strip. This time one created by Tony DePaul and Paul Ryan.

Story:

Jungle Patrol second in command, Colonel Worobu, is facing a unique situation. T wo young ladies from Mawitaan (capital city of Bangalla), tired of their boring routine work life, one working as a policewoman and the other a waitress in a restaurant, want to join the famed organisation, patroling the borders of 7 countries.

The girls are fed up with their current jobs and are in search for some stiff challenges and excitement in their lives. The two happened to be friends of Diana, from whom they get to know about the strange history of the only guarding unit of 1000 miles spreading jungle.
The work as a jungle patrolperson would not be easy, Diana warns, only the best from the world over are selected for the job. Besides, there are no woman in the patrol, only a hundred something young and lonely cadets. The expression on the faces of ladies says it all. :-) They waste no time in packing their bags and head for the Jungle Patrol headquarters

They reach the headquarters. Colonel is not particularly interested in giving them an appointment letter right away, but the girls are stubborn and well determined to get the job. They offer to show their capabilities to Colonel by catching a notorious arms dealer whose picture is hanging on the wanted display board of JP. Colonel cannot deny them an opportunity as he wouldn't want to be tagged as biased against women. So he agrees to this, understanding that the person is no more in Bangalla. "Dreamers", he pronounce them, but isn't he mistaken here?

The girls are intelligent. They have not selected their target (arms dealer) just on random basis, instead the cop girl has some idea about the man. But being courageous is not enough to catch a notorious criminal.

Phantom is impressed by the brave and fearless duo and decides to follow them doing their effort and also help them at occasions. A recommendation from the unknown commander is worth recognition for the good colonel, at last.

The dreamers are successful, but a new dream is opening its wings. Now a part of the organisation, they want to unearth the mysterious supreme commander. A task even more difficult, Diana has to keep herself cool on the thought. :-)

I'd say:

The plot is original in that never before this, the question of woman longing to be a part of the jungle patrol has surfaced. Credit should be given to the writers to work on such lines. Phantom shadows the two enthusiasts throughout their adventure and help them when needed. In this way it is one of those tales where he works behind the cover. Suitable for his mysterious identity.

What attracted me at the first glance is the very different coloring style in this strip. The white has been used superbly. Dark objects against utlra light background bulge out nicely.

One of the deviations from Falk is seen in the story. The face of phantom is shown without any coverings (ignoring the sunglasses). Something which the artists of Falk's original teams always avoided.

Download Phantom D-222 "The New Recruits"

Sometime ago, I had expressed my disappointment that mediafire is no longer displaying the number of downloads in free accounts. It seems that they have succumbed to the pressure from the users and now the feature has been restored. :-)

So mediafire zindabad.

TPH #065: Now you can read it, actually (Phantom Daily Strip D-211, The Locust god)

2009-10-01T22:26:00.007+05:30

Presenting a Phantom Daily Strip from post-Falkian era.

Story:

Of late, Phantom and Diana are missing the warmth of love as they are routinely finding it difficult to spend enough time together alone. Diana is busy with her UN work assignments and phantom is involved in his jungle activities as ever. Finally they decide to go to walker's table for a two day journey where only two of them could be alone for some time.

Here on the top of the mesa, they meet a strange and mysterious person who calls himself "the locust god". he asks phantom to help him nab a fugitive murderer. phantom is amazed to see that the person is well aware of his ancestral trail and also knows about the myth of his immortality. but he promises to help him.

The murderer, together with his son and grandson is passing through the desert, as predicted by the locust god. Phantom and Diana are ready for them and finally got the good of the trio.

My Impression of the story:

the art work by Olesen and Williams is great. These artists once used to be a part of Sy Barry's team before the great man called it a day. The impression of Barry's work is easily visible in the pages. Actually George Olesen worked on the Phantom Strips for 40 years with Barry, but didnot get any credit until his senior was working. After the retirement of Barry in 1994, he got the recognition he deserved. Olesen also retired from Phantom strips in 2005.

The artwork is superb except that the facial expression are not very clearly done. It is here that we miss the great Barry, otherwise there is not much of a difference.

The coloring has been done intelligently, and differently. The scenes of fog and mist in the desert are amazingly drawn. One can actually feel it.

Overall an average story, which also reminds the reader the Falk adventure that took place at the same venue in which a whole village was destroyed in a massacre and phantom, intending to spend a good night on top of mesa, finds himself among the deads. Comparisons are inevitable and that generally proves fatal for post Falkian era stories, which are otherwise having their own charm.

Hope you like the effort. Any suggestions are welcomed.

Download Phantom Daily Strip D-211 "The Locust God"

Starting this daily strip I am beginning a series on those phantom daily strips, which are hitherto not available in good resolution and therefore are not easily readable. I have transformed the small strip pages into somewhat higher resolution, to make them legible and at the same time also converted them to comic book format.

More are following.

Phantom Sunday Strip 136 in Color: page 41 - 50

2009-09-21T20:45:00.010+05:30

The next set of pages from the ongoing project (coloring the Phantom S136). Had promised an early delivery, but, better late than never. :-)

This time I have used even more brighter colors. Any suggestions/ideas would be most welcomed as they'll help me improving.

Meanwhile, I took the coloring job of few earliest phantom strips (Ray Moore era) and found that it is much more easy and time saving to color those dailies and sundays from late thirtees and early forties than the works of Sy Barry. It takes less than an hour to color one full page created by Moore. I have done few pages from those and going to print for myself. :-)

D-001	D-002
D-003	D-004
D-005	D-006
D-007	D-008
D-009	D-010
Download Phantom Sunday Strip S136 in Color (page 41-50 )

Previous Pages are here:
Page 1-10, page 11-20, page 21-30, page 31-40

Download complete strip here: http://thephantomhead.blogspot.com/2009/12/completed-phantom-sunday-strip-136-full.html

Today this blog has completed 2 years of its existence. I had created it on 21st of September, 2007 and the first comic was posted on it the very next day, i.e., on 22nd Sep. In this period I have posted 64 comics, more than 90% of which are my own scans. It has been a happy and satisfying journey, and I have enjoyed it.

TPH #064 Hatyara Dasyu Dal

2009-08-11T21:24:00.008+05:30

(top) First day page from phantom daily strip #074 "The Swamp Rats". Indrajal version of this story is being presented in this post.

I came to realise today that mediafire has disabled (to peek into) the number of download feature from its free account. Now to check how many downloads took place for any file, one has to grab a pro account ticket. That means spending a few bucks on a regular basis. Sorry, I am not interested in that at the moment.

But I am sad. Since a very few downloaders actually pay the courtesy to acknowledge the download through comment, now I am left with no option to judge the success of a particular post (or comic). It used to be a nice way to assess the popularity of a comic post by noting the number of downloads, and to take inspiration from that. That also suggests the trends in the readers taste, which eventually directs the blogger in the right direction. Sadly, it had to go.

Anyway...

I did something different on personal front this time. (obviously I am still talking about the comics, in case you want to start the guesswork) I took some printouts of the Phantom Sunday #136 (which I am coloring now a days). Normal Inkjet printer was used and, to my pleasant surprise, the results were outstanding. Take a look at the pics. Is it too costly? Nah, the refill job will make it highly cost-effective. I am ready with my color bottles. If you are suspicious about the quality of the refilled ink, let me say I have taken these using refilled only. Much satisfactory.

Finally, a comic post. A classic phantom story from 15 August, 1976 issue of Indrajal Comics and Originally a daily strip from 1959. English version was posted by TCP long ago. I am presenting the Hindi version. Had already posted it yesterday on My Hindi Indrajal Blog too.

Enjoy friends.

Download TPH #064 Hatyara Dasyu Dal

(32 pages, 1200 px wide, 9.95 MB)
.

Also I am planning to undertake a very ambitious project. Will disclose soon.

Continuing with the passion

2009-07-30T09:56:00.008+05:30

Hi friends, July is in passing phase and my personal busy period is soon going to be over (april to july is generally the time when I am at my busiest). So, here I am, ready with yet another set of colored pages from the Phantom Sunday Strip #136 "Return of the Thuggees".

It took me some time to adjust to the coloring work again and achieve the same speed of 2-3 hours per page. But now it's on the right track. Hopefully the complete story will be here in the month of August. What a mammoth story of full 65 pages this is, one of the longest running Phantom Sunday Tale.

It's a gripping story, as you must have realised too. Published in 1991, the very next year that the publication of Indrajal Comics stopped, as hence it is not available to majority of Phantom Phans in India. Hope I am able to provide few nice moments to them through this.

Enjoy friends.

Download Page 31-40

(Phantom Sunday Strip #S136, Return of the Thuggees)

Download complete strip here: http://thephantomhead.blogspot.com/2009/12/completed-phantom-sunday-strip-136-full.html

Previous Pages for Download

Download page 21-30: http://www.mediafire.com/?3n30jaw1zz4

Download page 11-20: http://www.mediafire.com/?mxwmmnczzyr

Download page 01-10: http://www.mediafire.com/?rnnyz0dnm2j

Colored Phantom Strip #S136 - Next Set of Pages

2009-03-18T10:58:00.001+05:30

Always admired Sy Barry's artwork on Phantom Comics but now as much I work on these black and white pages for coloring, I get a chance to look at his drawings in much more detail and I feel truly amazed at his ability to work on the intricacies and his willingness to draw the illustrations in so much detail. Quite unmatched.

Presenting the third set of pages (21 to 30) of this very interesting sunday strip.

Enjoy friends.

Download page 21-30

(Phantom Sunday Strip #S136, Return of the Thuggees)

Download page 01-10: http://www.mediafire.com/?rnnyz0dnm2j

Download page 11-20: http://www.mediafire.com/?mxwmmnczzyr

Download complete strip here: http://thephantomhead.blogspot.com/2009/12/completed-phantom-sunday-strip-136-full.html