#164 - Phantom's World in Retrospect

On August 25 2016 a new concept was released by Frew called "Phantom's World" which consisted of stories from around the world never previously published by Frew (and in many cases English). Four years later the series has stopped and we look at the series in retrospect.

Frew #1761 was the first Phantom's World issue and along with issues #1770 and #1771 it was part of the regular Frew series. Middle of 2017 with an influx of Frew's own created stories it made sense for the Phantom's World concept to be ran as a separate series. That separate series stopped in 2020 with Phantom's World #12. 

In total 15 Phantom's World issues were released we saw in total 43 stories majority of the readers had never seen before. This includes counting multi part stories like "The Queen of Saba" which had three parts. A further breakdown of these stories are:

• 31 stories in total were previously published stories
• 29 are Fratelli Spada stories
• 2 other stories published by RGE (Brazil) and Charlton (USA)
• 12 stories are new never previously published stories
• This includes four stories that were previously created for other companies but where not printed. These are "Expedition in the Jungle Pt1 & Pt2" and "The Honglong Kidnapping Pt1 & Pt2".
• "Expedition in the Jungle Pt1" was completed and planned as a sequel in 1973-74 but Ferri stopped working on the Phantom. Around 2000, Ferri and Felmang completed the story and the second part.

One of things that many loved about the series was the range of writers and artists many Frew readers have never seen before. Unfortunately many of the creators are unnamed but some of the creators Frew readers had never seen prior included:

• Angelo Todarao
• Osvaldo Grassetti
• Giovanni Fiorentini
• Senio Pratesi
• Antonio Sciotti
• Raul Buzzelli
• Mario Pedrazzi
• Raul Buzzelli
• Santo D'Amico
• Dino Leonetti
• Frank Verola
• Giorgio Cambiotti
• Annibale Casabianca
• José Menezes
• Walmir Amaral
• Wanderley Mayhé
• Joe Gill
• Pat Boyette

This list does not include Felmang, Germano Ferri and Pidde Andersson who had previously published Phantom stories.

We go over the stories, the issues, our positives and negatives with the series. Did you enjoy the series? Let us know your favourite covers, issues and stories...