The Phantom:
A Publishing History in the U.S.A.

The first ever reprint of the Phantom comic strip was in a Big Little Book. The term designated a series of prose adaptation books published by Whitman Publishing Company of Racine, Wisconsin, beginning in the early 1930's. Further information about Big Little Books is available at the official Big Little Books Club Web Site.

The first Phantom edition in this series was published before the end of the first story, The Singh Brotherhood, and only covered the first 16 weeks out of a final total of 38. Each book was approximately 4 1/2" by 3 1/2" and generally thick (352 or 432 pages) with many illustrations, usually one illustration opposing each page of text. In 1938, Whitman changed the term to Better Little Books. There were a total of six Phantom titles reprinting the daily adventures in black and white. Only three of books contained complete stories - the others finishing or starting midway through the continuity (refer table below). Books #1421 and #1489 each had an animated picture in the top-right corner which was viewed by flipping the pages quickly with your thumb.

For the scanned book covers shown above, note that the Phantom's costume is red for the first two books. These were published before the Sunday strip was started, and consequently there was some indecision about the colour of the costume. Refer to A Purple Phantom? for further details.

© 1999 KING FEATURES SYNDICATE, INC. THE HEARST CORPORATION

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