The Phantom:
A Publishing History in Sweden

Fantomen Julalbum (1944-present)

(The Phantom Christmas Album)

1944
1994

(visit Phantom Kingdom for a complete archive of cover scans)

The publishing of the Swedish "Christmas albums" began in 1944, and continues to this day. This makes it the longest running Phantom publication in the world today, beating Frew's Phantom comic by 4 years and the Swedish Fantomen magazine by 6 years.
Over the years, the look and content of the albums varied considerably, although it mostly contained American newspaper stories. During some periods, the publication year was not printed on the cover, and sometimes the following year was shown on the cover. The reason was that since the books are released around Christmas time, they would appear old after only a few months if they showed the actual publication year. For over a decade now, the albums have returned to having the actual publishing year on the cover.
Christmas albums are traditionally sold by kids who go door to door and take up orders from people. In return they get a percentage of the profits and other things too, like bikes, CD-players etc. For many kids, selling Christmas albums is one of the first ways to earn their own money. The tradition of buying the Phantom Christmas Album every year seems to be strong enough to keep it going even today.
From the 1994 album and onwards, the album contains a replica of the album from 50 years before. The cover logo is also in gold foil since then.
When Bonniers sold their comic magazine business to Egmont in 1997, the deal did not include the album division. This means that the Christmas Albums (not only the Phantom, but all other comics too) are now published by Semic (which still exists, but only as a book company today) in cooperation with Egmont Kärnan (the editors of the Fantomen magazine that put together the contents of the Christmas albums).

Publishing Year	Year on cover	Stories	Pages	Format (mm x mm)	Cover artist
1944	None	D11	32	240 x 300	Ek
1945	None	S4, S5	32	240 x 300	Ek
1946	None	S7	32	240 x 300	Ek
1947	None	S8, S9	32	240 x 300	Ek
1948	None	S10	32	240 x 300	Ek
1949	None	D12	32	240 x 300	Ek
1950	None	S6	32	240 x 300	Ek
1951	1951	S1, S2	32	240 x 300	Camitz
1952	1952	S14, S16	32	240 x 300	Camitz
1953	1953	S17, S18	32	220 x 290	Camitz
1954	1954	S21	32	220 x 290	Camitz
1955	1955	S12, S13	32	220 x 290	Camitz
1956	1956	S19	32	220 x 290	Göransson
1957	1957	S24	32	220 x 290	Guhl
1958	None	S28	32	220 x 290	Guhl
1959	None	S20, S23	32	220 x 290	Gohs
1960	None	S15, S27	32	220 x 290	Gohs
1961	None	S11, S18	32	220 x 290	Gohs
1962	None	S31, S32	32	220 x 290	Gohs
1963	None	S33, S34	32	220 x 290	Gohs
1964	None	S38, S39	32	220 x 290	Gohs
1965	1966	S51	32	220 x 290	Gohs
1966	1967	S35, S43	32	220 x 290	Gohs
1967	1968	D44	32	190 x 260	Gohs
1968	1969	King #22, S66	32	190 x 260	Gohs
1969	1970	King #23, King #28, King #21 (both stories)	32	190 x 260	Gohs
1970	1971	Spada #?, Spada AA #97/69	32	190 x 260	Gohs
1971	1972	S77, S78	32	190 x 260	Gohs
1972	1973	S81, S82	32	190 x 260	Gohs
1973	1974	S62	32	190 x 260	Gohs
1974	1975	S3, S73, S88	48	220 x 290	Gohs
1975	1976	D89	48	220 x 290	Gohs
1976	1977	S44, S68	48	220 x 290	Gohs
1977	1978	D126, D128	48	220 x 290	Gohs
1978	1979	S71, S72, S76	48	220 x 290	Gohs
1979	1980	D101, D104, S106	48	210 x 280	Gohs
1980	1981	S64, S86	48	210 x 280	Gohs
1981	1982	S63, S112	48	210 x 280	Gohs
1982	1983	S75, S96, S115	48	210 x 280	Gohs
1983	1984	S94, S117	48	210 x 280	Gohs
1984	1985	S60, S65	48	210 x 280	Gohs
1985	1986	S24, S25, S26, S27	64	210 x 280	Majgren
1986	1987	S28, S29	64	220 x 295	Majgren
1987	None	S31, S32, S33	48	220 x 295	Majgren
1988	None	S128, S130	48	210 x 275	Gohs
1989	None	S131, S132	48	210 x 275	Majgren
1990	None	S98, S129, S133	48	220 x 295	Gohs
1991	None	F149, S135	48	210 x 275	Gohs
1992	1992	S61, D174	48	210 x 275	Gohs
1993	1993	S69, S70, S71	48	210 x 275	Gohs
1994	1994	D11, D179, S139	96	210 x 275	Gohs
1995	1995	D180, D181, S4, S5, S141	96	210 x 275	Gohs
1996	1996	D183, S7, S143	96	210 x 275	Gohs
1997	1997	D182, S8, S9, S145	96	210 x 275	Gohs
1998	1998	D185, D186, D189, S10	96	210 x 275	Gohs
1999	1999	F155, F296, D12	96	210 x 275	Gohs
2000	2000	F383, S6, S146	96	210 x 275	Gohs
2001	2001	F160, F302, S1, S2	96	210 x 275	Lindahl
2002	2002	F176, F318, S14, S16	96	210 x 275	Lindahl
2003	2003	F274, F312, S17, S18	96	210 x 275	Lindahl
2004	2004	F182, S157, S21	96	210 x 275	Lindahl

Notes: The 1978 album (marked 1979 on the cover) was reprinted and re-released in 1984 with no year on the cover (as a separate album, not a "Christmas album").

Thanks to Jan-Ola Sjöberg for providing further information.

Return to The Phantom in Sweden

Bryan Shedden / guran@deepwoods.org
Last updated 5 February 2005

The Phantom:A Publishing History in Sweden

Fantomen Julalbum (1944-present)

The Phantom:
A Publishing History in Sweden