Welcome
To My
Skull Throne!
(A page in homage to a true hero!)

For those who came in late... 400 hundred years ago a lone survivor of a pirate raid was washed up on a remote Bengali beach. He had seen his father killed and his ship scuttled by Singh pirates during one of their raids. After finding his father's murderer washed up on the same beach, dead, he swore an oath to fight crime, on his skull: "I swear on the skull of my father's murderer to devote myself to the overthrow of the Singh pirates and to spend my life in the destruction of piracy, greed and cruelty". The man who swore this oath became the first Phantom. Generations followed him in line unbroken, from father to son, carrying on the sacred trust. With the Phantom's costume unchanged, their secret was never broken and so the legend of immortality grew. Many now believe the Phantom can not die. Natives believed it was always the same man. "The Ghost Who Walks," they said. In China it is said: "Man who looks on Phantom's naked face will surely die". And so the legend grew. The real truth about him men may never know except that he is good, clever, strong, and unafraid. A name whispered, loved, and feared... THE PHANTOM!

        In case your wondering, and this may surprise you, The Phantom is not, in the true sense, a superhero (nor is he any relation to the Phantom of the Opera!)! He doesn't have to rely on any super powers, high tech gadgetry, super-dooper weapons or have to call upon the strength of ancient gods; nor is he some mentally disturbed psycho who should be locked away in a looney bin!
        No, instead he is just your normal married mortal man who has sworn to fight evil, greed and piracy in all its forms. Using only his quick wit, two fists (to hit the baddies and mark them with the evil mark) and his two guns (used only very sparingly, only in life of death situations and only with the intent to disarm and not to kill. This way he can then hit the baddies and leave his trademark), he continues to fight against the forces of evil and help good triumph over evil.
        Compare this man with the out-of-space, indestructible, super-powered Superman, lavishly equipped Batman with his billionaire lifestyle, the merciless bounty hunter The Punisher and say, the brutish yet somehow pathetic The Hulk, a bullet-proof, accidental freak. Batman and The Punisher are human (The hulk only slightly so). Superman has unlimited super powers (if you ignore the most recent pathetic attempt to revamp him), The Hulk has his limitations but is far better equipped to handle sticky situations than The Phantom. Batman's warehouse of technology is easily the most advanced of any earth-bound hero. The Punisher has no apparent morality, leaving every page dripping with the gore of his victims in a fashion envied by even the frightening Judge Dredd.
        So, how can the Phantom, who is often depicted relaxing with his wife and family, his animals or pygmy friends, compete for international popularity with the above mentioned motley crew?
        The answer is simple, in their haste to capitalize on space exploration, science fiction, Rambo-like gun-totting trends and the explicitness which has infiltrated so many forms of entertainment, modern writers, artists and publishers have completely overlooked the obvious - that not everybody wants to be space transported or a witness to a continual carnage.
        With only a little tweak of the imagination, The Phantom is believable! "(He) is not super-human, he's super-humane," says Billy Zane, who portrayed the legendary character in the recent movie."He's not an acidic, angry hero. The Phantom is a naturalist hero - he doesn't have super-powers or a super-back account. He has super-decency, super-discretion. He's an uncommon hero. He really loves what he does...The Phantom is indeed the protector of the light."
        I guess these are some of the reasons that I like him so much and think that he is much better than wimps like Superman, Batman and Co.

        Officially, Lee Falk's The Phantom has been in existence since 17th February, 1936, the day the famous strip began its long run in daily newspapers. However, unofficially, it actually had it's first germ about 18 months before that.
        Due to the success of Lee Falk's Mandrake, King Features Syndicate ask Lee to write another comic. He was given no guidelines except to avoid duplicating other big comics from the era (eg, Little Orphan Annie (1924), Wash Tubbs (1924, later renamed to Captain Easy), Buck Rogers (1929), Tarzan (1929), Dick Tracy (1931), Secret Agent X9 (1933), Flash Gordon (1934) and Terry and the Pirates (1934). Lee had been working on one controversial idea (for the time) of an historically accurate Knights of the Round Table-orientated series, only to be told that the idea would be unappealing to American tastes. Filing his work away to go "back to the drawing board," never dreaming of the creation of the magnificent Prince Valiant strip. Having a great admiration for Tarzan and still liking his Knights theme, Lee thought up of a character who could project a Tarzan-like quality and nobility and be involved in adventures the like of which had not appeared in American newspapers.
        The Phantom originated very slowly but, as the enthusiasm in the project grew, Lee found that he had to give up providing layouts for Mandrake The Magician to give him more time to “develop a scenario for what he naturally hoped would be a long-running second success story.” He presented the storyline for The Phantom and pages of pencil roughs to syndicate executives of King Features, well before the end of ‘35, confident of acceptance; despite admitting later having a sinking feeling that the strip “wouldn’t last more than six months,” even after quite an enthusiastic reception.
        In the beginning, Lee handled not only writing the storyline, but also all layouts and pencilling, before handing over to Ray Moore for the inking. However this state of affairs was to continue for only a short time before circumstances, such writing the storyline for "Mandrake the Magician" and increased effort being put into writing stories for The Phantom, forced Lee to let Ray do all the pencilling, inking and take over doing the lettering as well (it is commonly believed that this occurred at the appearance of Jimmy Wells in the first story, The Singh Brotherhood).
        This team of Lee Falk, writing storylines, and Ray Moore, doing the artwork, began in 1936 and lasted until Ray was enlisted as a commissioned officer flying freighter aircraft for a volunteer branch of the American Army Air Force during World War 2. This period included some of the all time classic Phantom stories, such as The Diamond Hunters, The Sky Band, the Fire Goddess/Beachcomber/Saboteurs series and, of course, the great Singh Brotherhood). His assistant, Wilson M^cCoy, started to take over the job in 1942, but continued in the name of Ray (this occured during the production of The Phantom Goes To War). After the war, Ray had to discontinue his job of doing the artwork due to an injury sustained in the war and M^cCoy gradually took control of the artwork until, in 1947, when he was finally able to work alone, until his death in 1961.
        Wilson's early style was very similar to Moore's (there is no expert who is able to accurately determine where Moore stopped work and M^cCoy started!), but was to soon develop a style all of his own. Ray Moore's style was very simplistic, preferring to convey the mood of a scene by focusing on the action or on the speaker's facial expression. M^cCoy's style was softer and showed more attention to detail (especially with the background).
        Although he was only drawing the Phantom for six months, Bill Lignante is regarded as one of the "official" Phantom artists. He had a unique style is easy to recognize, especially as he often showed the Phantom's ears bulging from underneath his costume. Bill's biggest claim to fame (or infamy) with Phantom Phans was when working on the artwork of Queen Samaris XII, making a near-ultimate sin of drawing the Phantom's eyes. This, however, had nothing to do with the reason of Bill Lignante's short life as a Phantom Artist. The main reason was due to his unwillingness to work solely on the Phantom and not to work on any other comic artwork.
        After Lignante had departed in 1962, Sy Barry took over and he is still, after 30 years, the Phantom artist. Being the longest serving Phantom Artist, he has, understandably, changed his style much more than any previous artist. In the begining, portraying the Phantom in a style similar to M^cCoy but as time wore on, making him larger and more muscular.
(to be continued, references to be placed upon completion)

Phantastic Links!

The official Phantom movie site. Check it out for some great interactive stuff. Don't forget to join the Jungle Patrol and make sure you visit the radio room to hear some phantastic sounds from the movie:

Check out this definitive Phantom site run by a true Phan for all the latest on the Jungle vine!:

Here is another phantastic site (make sure you check out the list of Old Jungle Sayings!):

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