http://www.newsarama.com/images/interviews/2006/arcade/PhantomCheckin.htmI love the Phantom, or I did at one point. Purple tights, rings that leave little skull imprints on punchees' faces, super-secret cave, pirates, legacy, whoopee!
Sadly, all I know is the DC version, from both the Joe Orlando 4-issue mini and the Mark Verheiden/Luke McDonnell 12-issue series. Haven't even seen the movie.
― Huk-L (Huk-L), Monday, 30 January 2006 19:07 (twenty years ago)
i remember when i moved from atlanta to athens as a kid being somewhat stoked that the athens paper had 'the phantom' and 'ripley's believe it or not' in the comics section.
― j blount (papa la bas), Monday, 30 January 2006 19:19 (twenty years ago)
I have the first 40 storylines' worth of Sundays (B&W scans). I could YSI some...
― truck-patch pixel farmer (my crop froze in the field) (Rock Hardy), Monday, 30 January 2006 19:27 (twenty years ago)
YSI seems to be having issues today. Working on 3rd attempt now.
― truck-patch pixel farmer (my crop froze in the field) (Rock Hardy), Monday, 30 January 2006 22:30 (twenty years ago)
one month passes...
So, last night I re-read (for the first time in about 15 years, AT LEAST, the 1988 DC Phantom mini-series. Was surprised to see it was written by Peter David (though is he the same as the ILC-appreciated Peter
A. David?). And the covers (by Joe Orlando, who also drew the interiors) inked by Dave Gibbons.
Was also suprised to learn that I could not have read this as it came out, since there's listing for the Watchmen Hardcover in the "This Week From DC" column, and I quite clearly remember my first reading of this being coloured by the recent reading of Watchmen, which I bought in paperback at age 12 or 13 (I won $50 in a school raffle, and immediately went to the comic shop and bought the $20 paperback, as well as some other stuff, like ice cream). So I think what happened was I bought the "ongoing" DC Phantom series as it came out (and thinking about it now, I remember my first impression of the Phantom qua something as AWESOME from the Luke McDonnell cover to #1 of that series). Specifically, the Black Freighter Story (which is credited to a fictional Joe Orlando in the Watchmen "liner notes", amirite?).
Anyway, read the first issue and half of the the second. I'm not sure what I think of Orlando's art. I think I'd read enough horror comics by him that I associate his salivating mouths with that genre, and sometimes his "young Kit Walker" looks disturbingly like Kelly Osbourne. There's a crudeness to it that I really dig, howev. Can't remember who inked the interiors, though it wasn't Dave Gibbons, who cleaned up some of the grotesquity on the covers.
Now I really want to read the McDonnell series again, which I remember more for the boffo art than anything special about the writing (by Smallville and future Superman/Batman scribe Mark Verheiden).
― Huk-L (Huk-L), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 14:40 (twenty years ago)
my friend steve assures me that lotsa of the joe orlando phantom artwork was actually ghosted by carmine infantino, fwiw
― Ward Fowler (Ward Fowler), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 16:04 (twenty years ago)
Naw. Dennis Janke (who inked Infantino on the latter-day Flash) inked Orlando on The Phantom, so that's probably where the similarities that might lead me to believe that story arise.
― Huk-L (Huk-L), Tuesday, 14 March 2006 16:13 (twenty years ago)