Frew published a total of 54 stories in 2005 (including the replica edition). Apart from the Annual Special, it was another fairly disappointing year for fans of Lee Falk's old newspaper strip stories. Reconstructed Falk classics accounted for only 19 of the stories (see table below), confined to only 4 issues (Annual Special in January and 100-page specials in April, June and August). Frustratingly, 6 of these stories were last printed less than 6 years ago and it seems that poor record keeping is at fault because there was no acknowledgement of those recent reprints. Considering the large stock of old Falk stories (345 dailies/Sundays) and the practice of reprinting around 20 Falk stories each year, Frew's average reprint cycle is normally around 17 years (once every new generation!). Thankfully, Frew this year passed the unique milestone of having published every Lee Falk story in complete form (there is some debate over the "completeness" of several stories). No other comic book publisher in the world can match this claim, and Frew deserve hearty applause for their commitment to Falk's stories. Sadly, the point seems to have been missed by the Frew staff who are yet to publicly recognise their achievement.
| Year | Code | Story Title | Artist | Issue # |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1946 | S15 | King of Beasts | Moore | 1423 |
| 1946/47 | S17 | The 12 Tasks | Moore/McCoy | 1405 |
| 1963 | S62 | Old Baldy | Barry | 1405 |
| 1965 | S65 | The Great Web of Spidera | Barry | 1405 |
| 1968 | S73 | The Little Ones | Barry | 1418 |
| 1970 | S79 | The Dolphins | Barry | 1405 |
| 1972 | S87 | The Massacre | Barry | 1405 |
| 1972 | D116 | The Witchman | Barry | 1423 |
| 1972/73 | D119 | The Giant of Kaluga | Barry | 1405 |
| 1972/73 | S89 | The Hawk Master | Barry | 1405 |
| 1973 | D121 | The Things | Barry | 1405 |
| 1975 | S97 | The Golden Beach | Barry | 1405 |
| 1976/77 | S101 | The Swamp Dragon | Barry | 1413 |
| 1977 | D133 | The Proposal | Barry | 1405 |
| 1977 | S102 | The Hunters | Barry | 1413 |
| 1980 | S112 | The Uninvited Visitors | Barry | 1423 |
| 1987/88 | S130 | The Irrondi and the Great Ones | Barry | 1405 |
| 1989 | S133 | Death from the Sky | Barry | 1405 |
| 1990 | S135 | The Eastern Dark at Janorra | Barry | 1405 |
Frew printed 24 new Team Fantomen stories created in the last year by Egmont, Scandinavia (including the slightly modified Gullique and the Double Rainbow story from 1995). All of Egmont's new feature stories from Fantomen Nr.26/2004 through to Nr.25/2005 were reproduced in Frew's Phantom comic. Egmont's 2005 could be described as the "Year of the Colon" on account of the number of multi-part, multi-titled stories. Firstly, the Phantom Year One series concluded with an unsatisfying whimper after the final three parts of the extended series (#1404, #1406, #1407). Then the Phantom drifted through a near-death experience for five issues (#1408-1412). Upon returning to health, the Phantom was submitted to the melodrama of Diana going missing over four episodes with a fifth yet to be published (#1414, #1415, #1425, #1428). Minerva Brooks returned to the scene in two stories (#1420, #1431). The quota of multi-part historical adventure was filled by the Son of the Pirate Queen (Kate Somerset) in a three issue series (#1422, #1426, #1427) and the first part of two about Jonathon Wild (#1433). And then for added absurdity, Kigali Lubanga (the former President of Bengali) returned for a three-part series called The Redeemer in which he created a fake religious order to further his schemes (#1424, #1429, #1430). That leaves 3 stand-alone stories to make up the remaining production for the year. As you can see, there were lots of multi-part stories in 2005, and looking ahead to 2006 it seems there will be more of the same. Unfortunately, both then and now, each thread has been interwoven with the others with some parts several months apart, instead of running together in sequence. This makes it difficult to follow all the different threads, and has been the cause of considerable criticism by Phans. These new stories were supplemented by 5 old stories that were created up to 22 years ago by Team Fantomen at Semic (now known as Egmont). None of these had ever before been published in Australia, and it was a real treat to see some of these Scandinavian classics. Full details of the publishing schedule are available here.
The 29 Semic/Egmont stories printed by Frew this year were created by 10 writers and 10 artists. Claes Reimerthi was by far the most prolific of the Egmont writers, once again, and he was followed by David Bishop. Two writers debuted on the Phantom this year (Nils Norberg and Magnus Steer) but contributed only one story each. It is becoming more apparent each year that Team Fantomen are in need of one or two reliable and prolific writers to help share the load and contribute fresh ideas, thus filling the gap left by recently deceased Norman Worker and Donne Avenell. Finland's Kari Leppänen was just ahead of Sweden's Hans Lindahl as the most prolific Semic/Egmont artist this year. There were no new artists on the Phantom this year. A summary of the contributions this year for all Semic/Egmont writers and artists is shown below.
| Writers | Artists | |||
| Claes Reimerthi |  13
| Kari Leppänen | 6
| |
| David Bishop | 6
| Hans Lindahl | 5
| |
| Tony De Paul | 3
| César Spadari | 4
| |
| Sverre Årnes | 1
| Romano Felmang | 4
| |
| Donne Avenell | 1
| Bob McLeod | 2.5
| |
| Dai Darell | 1
| Heiner Bade | 2
| |
| Falk/Granberg | 1
| Joan Boix | 2
| |
| Magnus Knutsson | 1
| Paul Ryan | 1.5
| |
| Nils Norberg | 1
| Carlos Cruz | 1
| |
| Magnus Seter | 1
| Alex Saviuk | 1
| |
Last but not least ... the covers. Jim Shepherd produced most of them once again. As all of Jim's covers are simply paste-ups of comic book panels, the lion's share of credit belongs to the corresponding Egmont artist for each issue. Accordingly, I've begun to list the credit for these covers as "by the photocopier" on the New@Frew page. Antonio Lemos was commissioned to produce 8 original covers, and Terry Welsby returned with half a dozen after an absence of four years. A rarity this year was the commissioning of a foreign artist for one cover (Alex Saviuk from the USA, Frew #1420).
| Cover Artists | |
| Jim Shepherd | 16
|
| Antonio Lemos | 8
|
| Terry Welsby (Tessa) | 6
|
| Alex Saviuk | 1
|
More Frew stuff ...
