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- The Forest Giants
- Script: Lee Falk
- Art: Sy Barry
- 124th Sunday newspaper story; 16 Jun 1985 - 5 Jan 1986.
- Previous Frew appearance: #863A (1986)
- This story was previously known as The Rope People.
- Message from the Publisher:
Presenting - our first complete printing of the 1985-86 Lee Falk-Sy Barry classic, The Forest Giants!
The last time this adventure appeared in a Frew edition was in #863A, published in 1986. That time around, Frew gave the story the title The Rope People, possibly because nowhere in the text did Lee or Sy indicate the official title and after all, the Rope People tribe play an important role. The old Frew editors managed to cut the story back to 16 pages from the original length of 30 pages! That was achieved by deleting the first 13 pages and dropping a few more frames later in the story. It was a strange policy which the former Frew publishers adhered to for many years in their attempts to maintain a format of 32-page self cover issues and only occasionally, larger than standard editions. In this new presentation, we bring you for the first time, the complete story. If you have a copy of Frew #863A, you will be quite amazed to discover how much of the one and only former printing was left on the editor's floor!
Slowly, but surely, we are bringing back complete printings of every Lee Falk story and by the end of 2003 or in our 2004 Annual Special, we will publish a list of all stories which have been completely re-assembled and also list those stories which are still on the production schedule. Thankfully, there are not many still to be restored and published in their original entirety. (Thankfully, because it is a painstaking task, best described as a labour of love.)
Currently, to give you an idea of re-assembly work in progress, the Frew team is piecing together old Lee Falk stories such as The Monkey Mail (1960), Mystery of Wamba Falls lnn (1965), The Deadliest Animals in the Jungle (1984), The Tarashima Terrorists (1986-87), Zabadabah (1987-88) and The Man-Thing (1988).
[Comment from Guran: Jim seems to have forgotten that Frew have already reprinted The Monkey Mail in #1230 (1999) where it was claimed to be the "first complete presentation". Let's hope they don't print it again so soon after the last one.]
The Monkey Mail was one of artist Wilson McCoy's final Phantom stories. He drew only four more daily adventures before Sy Barry took over in 1961-62. McCoy retired from the Sunday strip in late 1961 and after a single story illustrated by Bill Lignante, Sy Barry took over in mid-1962 for what turned out to be an extended association. Some 33 years in fact!
The older stories are already scheduled for our 2003 Christmas Special and some of the others will appear in the 2004 Annual.
Covers for this complete presentation of The Forest Giants have been created by Antonio Lemos and Antonio will also produce the covers for our next issue - a new and modern adventure called The Bank Robbers, which has been written by Claes Reimerthi and illustrated by Felmang. The Bank Robbers will hit the newsstands on 27 June. Watch for this one! Absolutely brilliant!
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