Fantomen Nr.9/2004
by Hans Lindahl
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- Forbidden Gold
- Script: Hans Lindahl
- Art: César Spadari
- First published in Fantomen Nr.9/2004 with the title The Cursed Gold by Egmont, Scandinavia (22 Apr 2004). Original cover shown on the left, thanks to Brian Jensen.
- Message from the Publisher:
Back to the jungle and a gripping, new adventure, Forbidden Gold, written by Hans Lindahl and illustrated by César Spadari! For the record, when this story was published in Scandinavia earlier this year, the title translated into the slightly clumsy, The Cursed Gold. We decided on the name change to tighten the description.
Forbidden Gold has it all glimpses of fast, modern life in a Bengali city to drama in the jungle, a flashback to a previous Phantom, native tribes, plenty of villainous roughnecks and a dramatic conclusion. It's a traditional Phantom adventure theme, but one which Lindahl has embellished with his usual flair and one in which Spadari goes to immense trouble to capture the eeriness and dangers of the deep jungle. All the top Phantom artists are just so good at depicting jungle scenes, but Spadari always goes to extreme lengths to inject exquisite detail into all his scenes.
In our next edition, which goes on sale on 7 May, we will bring you another new adventure entitled The Hood, written by Claes Reimerthi and illustrated by Joan Boix. The Hood is an historical story which so many fans seem to enjoy because it is always interesting to see an earlier Phantom in olden days.
That issue will be followed by a 100-page special which will be published on 21 May. We will reveal more about the 100-page edition in our next issue and suffice for the moment to tell you it will be another mix of old and new stories. To follow in Frew #1385 (on sale on 28 May), we will present another new adventure entitled, The Mysterious Commander, written by Lennart Moberg and drawn by Bob McLeod.
It now appears that veteran Phantom scripter Norman Worker of England has hung up his keyboard after creating an astonishing 127 Phantom adventures. His work last appeared in Frew #1379, The Horn of Roland, published earlier this year. Frew first published a Norman Worker story in 1983 (The Ghost Pirates). Norman wrote so many wonderful Phantom stories, including The Test, The Unknown Commander, The Mystery of the Golden Rune, The Ibis Mystery, The Ghost Who Died Twice and The Battle on Malta. His many Australian followers will, however, best remember his famous two-part adventure which Frew first published in 1989. In that story, most of the action took place in Australia and featured the 14th and the 21st Phantom. It was a remarkable effort by Worker and artist Carlos Cruz, because the story started in Australia in convict days and ended in modern times. I use the word "remarkable" deliberately, because neither Norman or Carlos had ever visited Australia and to ensure authenticity, studied every travel brochure, movie video and history book available! For the record, the two parts of that adventure were entitled Worubu's Secret and The Black Fire. Our last printing of that mini epic was in our 1996 Annual Special (Frew #1125). Norman recently celebrated his 76th birthday, so a gentle slide into retirement is probably well overdue. Norman left behind a treasure trove of Phantom stories and I know will be greatly missed by his fans.
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