Kari Leppänen


Kari Tapio Leppänen commenced work on his first Phantom story in 1978 for the Swedish magazine Fantomen, published by Semic Press (now Egmont). He has been a regular contributor of Phantom stories over the last 20 odd years, producing a total of 59 stories so far.

After receiving the script for a new story from Fantomen chief editor, Ulf Granberg, Kari has a very free hand to illustrate the story. During his 20 years with Semic / Egmont, he has met only one of the scriptwriters, Norman Worker, and has virtually no contact with any of the other writers. The scripts are usually written in English (Kari is Finnish and does not speak Swedish but can read it), and after reading through it once, Kari's first step is to plan the story in pages, deciding how many panels per page and their overall layout. He then begins with the first page, usually pencilling without the use of a rough. An example of a rough and a pencilled page is shown here. Once about 10 pencilled pages are completed, Kari then starts to ink them. This picture shows the types of pens and brushes that he uses for inking. In the past, the thinnest pen Kari used was 0.15 but this has now changed to 0.2, resulting in a noticeably heavier inking style. After the first 10 pages are completed, he then repeats the process until the whole story is finished. A Phantom story of 30 pages or so takes him about two months to complete. Kari typically works five hours per day, a little in the morning and then later at night, most days of the week. He can produce about one page per day, but there are times when deadlines are pressing and he can finish two pages per day. Despite this busy schedule, Kari has created several other adventure stories for Semic / Egmont, such as Xellana, Achilles Wiggen, and Death Game. He usually works on a couple of stories at the same time in order to make the deadlines and to maintain his interest.

Kari has taken on the role of scripting his own stories in recent times. The first story that he wrote entirely himself was The Ring of Death, published in late 1998. Some small changes to the script were made by Ulf Granberg, but it was essentially Leppänen's creation, and he is especially proud of his effort. Consequently, he was not too impressed when Frew did not give him credit for the script when they printed the story in #1211 and #1212. Obviously just a misunderstanding, but hopefully, Kari will not be too disheartened and will continue to script and illustrate Phantom stories in the future.

A complete index of all Kari Leppänen's Phantom stories is listed below in order of their first publication. The corresponding issue numbers for Fantomen (Sweden), Fantomet (Norway), and Frew's The Phantom (Australia) are included. Some stories have been reprinted in subsequent issues, but these details are not given. Story titles are translated from the original Swedish titles, and where different, the titles used by Frew are given in parentheses.

Many thanks to Kari Leppänen and Brian Jensen for their help with this research. Other sources of reference were Splasch Magazine (1997), Fantomet Serieindeks (1990), and the 50th Anniversary Frew Phantom Index (1998), in addition to my own collection.


# Story Title Pages Writer Fantomen Fantomet Frew
1 The False Prince 32 Worker 3/1979 12/1979 1351
2 Under the Flag of Perils (*** see note) 32 Worker 11/1979 20/1979  
3 The Flute of Death 32 Avenell 19/1979 3/1980  
4 The Treasure from Rhodes 32 Worker 6/1980 15/1980  
5 The Pirate Inheritance 32 Avenell 22/1980 4/1981 891A
6 The Fishing War 32 Worker 2/1981 11/1981  
7 The Circus Murderer 32 Avenell 22/1981 5/1982 891A
8 The Death's Head Mark 34 Worker 7/1982 16/1982  
9 Poisoned Dreams 32 Kharelli 15/1982 23/1982 1032
10 The Diamonds of Death (Lost on the Phantom Trail) 32 Pelerin 24/1982 6/1983 838
11 White Slavers 32 Darell 5/1983 14/1983  
12 The Ghost Comet 32 Kharelli 16/1983 26/1983  
13 Hero's Death Sentence 23 Darell 20/1983 4/1984 1032
14 The Malicious Messenger 36 Worker 4/1984 20/1984  
15 The Snake Ring 32 Darell 14/1984 2/1985  
16 The First Phantom 36 Tierres 25/1984 10/1985 1051
17 The Golden Snake (*** see note) 15 Kharelli/Redno 5-14/1985 4-19/1986  
18 The Temple Treasure (*** see note) 24 Granberg 9/1985 21/1985  
19 Return of The Scorpia (*** see note) 32 Worker 18/1985 3/1986 872A
20 Black Fagin 32 Tierres 23/1985 8/1986  
21 Duel in Venice 25 Worker 9/1986 20/1986 937
22 Battle on Malta 26 Worker 10/1986 21/1986 938
23 The Pirate Hunt 30 Worker 17/1986 3/1987  
24 Cloud Pirates 28 Worker 24/1986 10/1987 919
25 Touganda's Secret 30 Worker 1/1987 13/1987 921
26 Forest of Horrors 30 Worker 10/1987 22/1987 924
27 The Junky (*** see note) 28 Worker 20/1987 15/1989  
28 The King is Dead 45 Worker 26/1987 14/1988 1032
29 The Golden Rune Mystery Pt.1: Pirates of the Arctic 32 Worker 16/1988 1/1989 940
30 The Golden Rune Mystery Pt.2: The Garden of Death 32 Worker 17/1988 2/1989 941
31 The Raid in Sanloi 32 Tierres 24/1988 7/1989 948
32 The Secret of the Valley of Wamballa 32 Worker 5/1989 16/1989 958A
33 The Last Unicorn 32 Worker 9/1989 19/1989 961
34 Cleopatra's Asp 32 Tierres 25/1989 10/1990 964
35 Tirangi's Burial Ground 28 Borgnes 1/1990 12/1990 965A
36 The Test (*** see note) 25 Worker 5/1993 9/1993 1032
37 Death of a Patrolman Pt.1 28 Avenell 25/1990 5/1991 987
38 Death of a Patrolman Pt.2: Tracking the Killers 28 Avenell 6/1991 13/1991 988
39 The Doomsday Weapon 28 Worker 1/1992 5/1992 1010
40 Secret of the Colossus Pt.1 (Curse of the Granite God) (*** see note) 32 Goodall 13/1992 17/1992 1024
41 Secret of the Colossus Pt.2 (Curse of the Granite God) (*** see note) 32 Goodall 14/1992 18/1992 1025
42 The Witch Hunt 34 Goodall 20/1992 25/1992 1046
43 Mombutu - The Power of Evil 32 de Paul 4/1993 8/1993 1046
44 The Ibis Mystery Pt.1: The Evil Paradise 30 Worker 21/1993 26/1993 1064
45 The Ibis Mystery Pt.2: Kazcim Master of the Dumb 30 Worker 22/1993 1/1994 1065
46 The Ibis Mystery Pt.3: Scarface 30 Worker 23/1993 2/1994 1066
47 The Ibis Mystery Pt.4: At the Edge of the Grave 28 Worker 24/1993 3/1994 1067
48 The Doomsday Mountain (*** see note) 30 Moberg 3/1994 SP/1997 1077
49 Hunted! 36 Moberg 9/1994 14/1994 1084
50 The Commander is Dead 33 Avenell 16/1994 22/1994 1091
51 Murder in Mind 30 de Paul 25/1994 5/1995  
52 The Golden Falcon 33 Worker 11/1995 17/1995 1121
53 Gullique - The Island of Doom (*** see note) 24 Falk 17/1995 SP/1996 1127
54 The Devil's Gentleman (Public Enemy Number One) 30 Reimerthi 24/1995 SP/1997 1132
55 Shipwreckers' Town (The Sea Jackals) 30 Avenell 3/1996 3/1996 1138
56 The Devil's Library Pt.4: The Secret Chamber 30 Reimerthi 26/1996 26/1996 1160
57 The Ghostly Ruins 28 Reimerthi 8/1997 8/1997 1173
58 The Ring of Death Pt.1 28 Leppänen/Granberg 17/1998 17/1998 1211
59 The Ring of Death Pt.2 24 Leppänen/Granberg 19/1998 19/1998 1212
60 The Witches of Bedburg Pt 1 28 Moberg 3/2000 3/2000 1253
61 The Witches of Bedburg Pt 2 29 Moberg 4/2000 4/2000 1255
62 The Tomb of Tzaka 30 Jönsson 18/2000 18/2000 1272
63 The Shuttle (The Terrorists) 31 de Paul 17/2001 17/2001 1300
64 The Treasure of Bengali River 25 de Paul 3/2003 3/2003  
65 The Boy from San Diablo 25 Nolan 10/2003 10/2003  

Notes:
  1. Under the Flag of Perils (#2) was titled The Death Ship in the Norwegian edition.
  2. The Golden Snake (#17) was first published in Fantomen as a miniseries from 5/1985 to 14/1985. These issues had an extra inner cover with two pages of the story. Issue 5/1985 also had a collector's album to mount the pages in. The idea was to cut the pages out and keep them in the separate album. A novel concept, but it was widely criticised and never repeated. The story was reprinted as a special 3D story (the only one of its kind for The Phantom) in Fantomen Nr.16/1989 and Fantomet Nr.17/1989. The 3D effect was achieved with the aid of a set of red/green tinted glasses.
  3. The Temple Treasure (#18) was adapted by Ulf Granberg and Kari Leppänen from a Swedish musical about The Phantom written by Peter Falck and Urban Wrethagen (1985). The musical was officially sanctioned and commended by Lee Falk.
  4. Return of The Scorpia (#19) was mistakenly titled Return of the Scorpion in Frew's printing -- presumably a mix-up in the translation. The story featured The Scorpia gang from Lee Falk's 1957/58 classic.
  5. The Junky (#27) was titled For Dear Life (På livet løs) in Norway.
  6. The Test (#36) was first published in 1990 in a separate edition called Krönika över en vandrande vålnad (Chronicle of the Ghost Who Walks), and was subsequently reprinted in Fantomen. It appears in the list according to the order of first printing, ie. between Fantomen 1/1990 and 25/1990.
  7. Secret of the Colossus (#40 and #41) was also printed in Wolf Phantom comic #7 and #8.
  8. The Doomsday Mountain (#48) was largely rewritten by Kari Leppänen when he drew the story. The giant carniverous plants in the story were originally intended to be dinosaurs! This story was not printed in the Norwegian Fantomet magazine. It appeared later in a special edition magazine published in 1997.
  9. Gullique - The Island of Doom (#53) was an adaptation of Lee Falk's classic story The Belt. The reworked script was created by Kari Leppänen.
  10. Gullique - The Island of Doom (#53) and The Devil's Gentleman (#54) were not printed in the Norwegian Fantomet magazine. They were skipped when the schedule for the Norwegian edition was matched with the Swedish schedule, commencing with 1/1996. These stories appeared later in special edition magazines published in 1996 (Gullique - The Island of Doom) and 1997 (The Devil's Gentleman), amongst other stories.
  11. Kari was the cover artist for a handful of Fantomen issues (two of these had stories he did not create, as shown in italics). The corresponding Fantomet edition is shown in parentheses (note the cover for Norwegian 9/1992 preceeded the Swedish version in 5/1993):
    • 15/1982 (23/1982)
    • 24/1982 (6/1983)
    • 25/1984 (10/1985)
    • 18/1985 (3/1986)
    • 20/1990
    • 25/1990 (5/1991)
    • 5/1993 (9/1992)
  12. Although few in number, Kari's covers have been very popular in Norway. They were voted the best covers of the year in 1985 (10/1985) and 1992 (9/1992). His other placings were second for 3/1986, third for 23/1982, and sixth for 5/1991. Impressive!



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Bryan Shedden / guran@deepwoods.org
Last updated 7 April 2003