New@FREW



Frew #1374
by Antonio Lemos
#1374
(this edition is the 1402nd actually printed)

Release Date: 16 January 2004

  • Pages: 36
  • Price: $2.20 inc. GST
  • Cover: Antonio Lemos
  • No Phantom Forum in this issue

Fantomen Nr.26/2003
by César Spadari & Peter Friman

  • The Pirate Queen
    • Script: David Bishop
    • Art: César Spadari
    • First published in Fantomen Nr.26/2003 by Egmont, Scandinavia. Original cover shown on the left, thanks to Brian Jensen.

  • Message from the Publisher:
    Back to sea again in this new adventure which brings back Kate Somerset, the sad and mysterious heroine from last year's story, The Pirate Queen and a much earlier story entitled Convent Island.
    If you have kept your collection intact, I suggest you refer to both stories before you start reading this issue. Convent Island was in Frew #1311 and The Pirate Queen in Frew #1354, published respectively in 2002 and 2003.
    The life story of Kate Somerset may seem a little confusing at first glance, because writer David Bishop has jumped back and forth in time to achieve a degree of mystery to counter-balance basic continuity. Hence, the three stories involving Kate also involve not one, but two Phantoms! Obviously, the two Phantoms meet Kate at different times during her eventful life and unless you backtrack over the two previous adventures mentioned above, you may think we have published them out of sequence. Not so! The story order is exactly how the Scandinavian publisher Egmont brought them to their readers and Frew has followed the same sequence.
    Artist César Spadari has handled the challenge in his usual exemplary fashion and will team with Bishop to create the next episode in the continuing saga. That fourth story will almost certainly tie up all the loose ends and take us to Kate's final days.
    Covers for this issue come from Antonio Lemos, who is a great fan of Spadari's work. Great fan? Actually, Antonio has now confessed that Spadari is his favourite Phantom illustrator of all the modern artists! That is a near-ultimate tribute from one accomplished artist to another. However, the more you study Spadari's techniques, the more you admire his incredible skill in achieving balance of frames, superb lighting and injection of just the right amount of movement into all his action scenes. Spadari, who obviously has a love of the sea, old pirate ships and all the weaponry involved, ranks with the very best of today's comic book artists.
    Doubtless there will be a stream of correspondence about the inclusion of previously untold revelations about the private life of The Phantom! Be as critical as you wish, but remember that these stories must be viewed as quite distinct from the official Phantom history created by Lee Falk. Lee Falk left so many gaps in his Phantom Chronicles that today's writers simply cannot resist injecting their own theories about so much of the untold history. Most of the theories are feasible, a few have been slightly far-fetched but still possible and a handful are best described as being so way out that even the imaginative Lee Falk would never have considered them!
    Our next issue will feature another new adventure called, The Psychiatrist. It is written by Lennart Moberg and illustrated by Romano Felmang and cover art once again is the work of Antonio Lemos. The Psychiatrist is a fast-moving piece of comics entertainment in which The Phantom learns a great deal about hypnosis and amnesia. So will you! It's a fascinating yarn, set largely in Morristown and completely in modern times. The Phantom has to battle some really fiendish roughnecks and I can guarantee you will enjoy all the action! This issue will be on sale on 30 January.

Jim Shepherd
Publisher


Future issues planned as of 14 January 2004 (subject to change without notice):

Check the New@Egmont, Frew Reprint Schedule, and The Missing Semic Stories pages for details of other upcoming stories.

My thanks to the staff of Frew Publications for providing this information.


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Bryan Shedden / guran@deepwoods.org
Last updated 14 January 2004