The Phantom: The Complete Newspaper Dailies Volume 9 Hardcover – February 2, 2016

Volume Nine of The Phantom is from 1949 and 1950 and includes three storylines. This is a period in which the strip experimented with combining the Dailes and Sunday strips in to one merged continuity. This approach only last four storylines story lines before they returned to separate continuities. This volume collects the first three stories. The final merged continuity will appear at the start of Volume Ten.Now here is the part I felt an urgent need to correct. Amazon lists the Sundays as being in Black and White, that is not true, they are in full and glorious color. At no additional cost Hermes Press had reproduced the Sundays in color. As Publisher Daniel Herman explains they could not locate a full run of Half Page Sundays so Third Page Sundays are used when the Half Pages are not available. It really is not that distracting and the alternative was not to publish.The art of Wilson McCoy is kind of growing on me. At first I found his style to be too flat and cartoony for my taste. But now I am starting to see the charm in this simplified storytelling. Meanwhile Lee Falk continues to impress with his long meaty stories. The first two stories are quite long but then the third one is a monster lasting twice their length.The first story is called Fathers and Sons. I man named Styx comiited a gold robbery fourty years ago. He has served those fourty years in prison. But he has a souvenir to remind him of his captor, the deathhead mark given to him fourty years ago by the Phantom's ring. While it intialed seems a little silly that intaily no one can figure out this mystery, this is the first major storyline that really dealt with the whole legacy concept and the first time we get much mention of the Phantom's father.The second story called The Flirtatious Princess is a lighter story with some humorist touches. In a neighbouring country to the Phantoms a naive but beautiful Princess promises marriage to two equally powerful men. The country in on the verge of war when the Phantom must intercede. But after the Phantom rescues her from one of her suiters who has abducted her she decides now she wants to marry the Phantom.The final story The Thuggees starts out with some plot treads left over from the previous and The Phantom's jungle friends become obsessed with the Phantom getting married and try recruiting brides. After realizing he only is in love with Diane Palmer he flies to America. Diane in the meantime decides the same thing and she flies to see the Phantom in his jungle home. Unfornately Diane never makes it she is kidnapped by the evil Kali and taken to his remote island while they await a quarter million dollar ransom.This is another delightful book and makes me eager for the next volume. My Highest Recommendation.

Mine may not be the most objective critique as The Phantom is my all time favorite newspaper adventure strip.Falk's writing and flair for adventure, and even more importantly humor shines through in Volume 9 like never before. I breezed through this fabulous volume in almost no time.The writing is at its peak, the art is superb, and I continue to look forward to each volume avidly. Thanks Hermes Press. This is great stuff.

Undoubtably another fantastic collection of Phantom stories in a beautiful hardbound volume to ensure it's posterity in every collector's library !

Love it. This was my all time favorite comic strip.

smooth transaction. splendid

excelant

Sensational.

EXcellent!

I Like Aranyadeb or Betal or Phantom, from the days when I was a little child ewading these comics in Anandabazaar Patrika.Actually my father has had a fascination for good books and I developed the habit of reading newspapers and books since I was a child of six years.IN THOSE DAYS INDRAJAL COMICS WAS POPULAR.However the quality of the comics was not very high due to the ordinary paper used.One Indrajal comics cost Rs. 1 in 1980.Phantom was very popular then andI remember there was a major sensation when Phantom got marriedto Diana Palmer aroundthe same time when Diana Spencer married Prince Charles.The Indrajal comics stopped publication in the spring of 1990 andthe smaller but more compact Diamond comics entered the scene. However our thirst for Phantom continued and in all probability Phantom is still more popular in Eastern India than Spiderman or Batman.This collection has a nostalgic value for me as myself and my wife, along with my younger brother and sisters continue our quest for creating a library of good quality Phantom comics.

Una cuidada edición que permite recuperar un clásico del cómic que algunos conocimos hace muchos años en publicaciones de calidad muy inferior. Es cierto, como explica el editor, que no ha sido posible reproducir las páginas dominicales al tamaño original de media página por imposibilidad de encontrar el material adecuado, pero en conjunto al publicación es excelente.

Une de mes BD préférées. Celles dessinées par Wilson Mc Coy son les meilleures.Malheureusement on n'a pas le choix et elles sont melangées avec les autres dessinées précedemment par le premier dessinateur de la série.

Very nice stories, a very good collector's item, contains all which a phantom fan wants. WORTH BUYING IT.

La calidad de la edición en líneas generales es buena: tapa dura, sobrecubierta, papel óptimo, buena impresión, precio competitivo, etc.Pero no así la diversidad de formatos de las tiras: demasiado pequeñas (la inmensa mayoría), grandes, medianas.No es uniforme. Muy lejos del formato original de época.Incluso para leer el texto se queda pequeño.Con las páginas dominicales es peor incluso: se alteran formatos casi HALF (pues no llega al mismo) con formatos THIRD, muchos más pequeños que las páginas originales de época.Es el gran déficit de esta edición de HERMES PRESS:.el formato o tamaño de las Dailies Strips o de las Sundays.