The Phantom:
A Publishing History in England

From the early 1960s until about the early 1990s, a British publisher called Alan Class published thousands of black and white reprint comics which featured material from Atlas, Marvel, ACG, Charlton, Archie and occasionally other American publishers. Amongst these comics were reprints of the Phantom and Mandrake comics published by King Comics in the USA (Sep 1966 - Dec 1967), including the original cover art. Several different comic book titles included Phantom stories: Creepy Worlds, Secrets of the Unknown, Sinister Tales, Suspense, and Uncanny Tales. Each issue measured 235mm x 185mm (9 1/4" x 7 1/4"). The balance of each comic was made up with other comic book titles. During the late 1960s, each issue contained 68 pages and sold for one shilling. Sometime between 1968 and 1971, King Features Syndicate sued Alan Class over publishing rights. With the introduction of decimal currency in 1971, Alan Class began to issue reprints of the earlier issues, with cover prices ranging from 10p to 55p and pages from 48 to 100. These "reprints of reprints" had the same stories and covers as the earlier ones. In total, all of the Phantom stories from King's Phantom and Mandrake comics were reprinted by Alan Class, except for Phantom #28. An example of each of the Phantom and Mandrake covers is shown above.

(Thanks to Les Gray for providing information and scans)

© 2006 KING FEATURES SYNDICATE, INC. THE HEARST CORPORATION

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