Fantomen Nr.2/2005
by Paul Ryan & Tom Smith
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- Gullique and the Double Rainbow
- Script: Lee Falk & Ulf Granberg
- Art: Kari Leppänen
- First published in Fantomen Nr.2/2005 by Egmont, Scandinavia. Original cover shown on the left, thanks to Ulf Granberg. The story is a slightly modified version of Gullique - The Doomed Island, first published in Fantomen Nr.17/1995 by Semic (Frew #1127), which was itself a remake of the Falk/McCoy classic The Belt (S37, 1954 Sundays, Frew #1219).
- Message from the Publisher:
We enter a strange time warp in this issue with the re-presentation of the saga of the Island of Gullique.
The story featured - Gullique and the Double Rainbow - previously appeared in Frew #1127 in 1996 as, Gulllique - The Island of Doom. That story was illustrated by Kari Leppänen and was almost entirely based on Lee Falk's original script.
This time around, the story has been slightly modified, the art subjected to some minor layout changes and the title changed.
Elsewhere in this edition, a special editorial feature explains everything about the story, but to refresh your memory, Lee Falk's original story about Gullique and the double rainbow appeared as a Sunday story back in 1954. It was entitled simply, The Belt and illustrated by Wilson McCoy. In this new presentation, Ulf Granberg has slightly adapted his own and Lee Falk's original script, Kari Leppänen has rendered the art and the covers are from Terry Welsby ("Tessa"),
who, as coincidence would have it, also produced the cover art for Gullique - The Island of Doom. All the major characters from Lee's original script are retained and little of the continuity has been subjected to change. So - this edition is something of a collector's gem, because it is one of the few Phantom adventures to have been published three times - and each time with a new title, (slightly) different scripts and in this latest version, with slightly rearranged artistic layouts!
Obviously, you will have to pull Frew #1127 from the files to spot the modifications to the art. Basically, these revolve around layout changes and you will have no difficulty finding them. The problem now facing Frew (and all really keen collectors) is how to include this edition in Frew's publishing chronology! It falls into a most unusual category, because it is still essentially a reprint of the basic Gullique - the Island of Doom, but with the mentioned changes to script, title and art presentation. Best, I feel, to make special mention in the 2006 Annual Special, which always lists Frew's entire Phantom publishing output for the previous 12 months. This issue brings to an end the long-running "Year One" series, which appears to have been enormously popular.
For a complete change of pace, our next edition, while heavily featuring the Singh Brotherhood, is located in the jungle and also features such notable characters as Lamanda Luaga, Dr Axel, Diana and the children and of course, Guran. Our working title for the time being, is The Grim Reaper Begins his Harvest, but we will almost certainly shorten that to The Grim Reaper. The story is such a blockbuster, all we'll tell you for the moment is that it has been scripted by Claes Reimerthi and illustrated by Paul Ryan. I guarantee you will be unable to put down the story. It is simply that amazing!
As you will discover, the story is designed to spill over at least two editions, because at the end of the first episode there are many loose ends as The Phantom attempts to unravel an unbelievable series of events that will leave you spellbound! Claes Reimerthi's script is incredibly imaginative and Paul Ryan's art is quite brilliant!
Following that issue, we will bring you a short run of old Scandinavian adventures with art by some of the greats ... César Spadari, Carlos Cruz, Felmang and Hans Lindahl!
Finally, apologies to those Sydney fans who had difficulty finding a copy of the 2004 Christmas Special. It went on sale late due to a distribution hiccup which was out of our control. Sorry!
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