The Phantom daily strip began appearing in Australian newspapers long before the Sundays. The first was the Central Western Daily at Orange (published by Rural Press), which began running The Phantom dailies on 11 August 1957 - and is still carrying it today! It appears that this paper holds the record for the longest unbroken run of The Phantom dailies in Australia.A few other provincial newspapers started the strip in 1957, one of these being the Illawarra Mercury (established in 1855, and published by John Fairfax Ltd). The Illawarra Mercury commenced running The Phantom on 16 December 1957 after expanding the comics page from two to four strips only a couple years earlier. The Phantom initially appeared alongside Elsworth, Dr Guy Bennett and Judge Parker, which in subsequent years were replaced at various times by BC, Smidgeons, James Bond, Flash Gordon, Crock, Spiderman, Swamp, Chadwick, High Tide, and several others. The Phantom dailies are still appearing in the Illawarra Mercury today alongside Ginger Meggs, Zits, Garfield, Insanity Streak, Calvin & Hobbes (reprints), Pooch Cafe and Hagar the Horrible. This means that The Phantom is the longest surviving strip for this newspaper and the 50th anniversary is not very far away! A complete list of the Phantom stories published in the Illawarra Mercury during the first 14 years is shown below (to be expanded after further research). This includes the publication date for the start of each story in the magazine, the story title and code (as per the daily story list), the original US newspaper starting date for each story, and the number of days of "lag" (ie. Mercury date minus US newspaper date)
Illawarra Mercury
Publication
Start DateStory Title Code Original
Start DateDays Lag 16 Dec 1957 Wambo the Gambler D65 14 Jan 1957 336 25 Feb 1958 The White Princess D66 1 Apr 1957 330 27 May 1958 The Valley of No Return D67 1 Jul 1957 330 18 Aug 1958 The Heavyweight Champion D64 19 Nov 1956 637 11 Oct 1958 Captain Kidder's Treasure D57 23 May 1955 1237 23 Dec 1958 Dr Axel and the Witchmen D58 1 Aug 1955 1240 3 Mar 1959 Queen Sansamor and the Sixth Man D59 10 Oct 1955 1240 18 Jun 1959 U-Town D61 27 Feb 1956 1207 10 Sep 1959 The Crown Jewels of Corba D68 23 Sep 1957 717 10 Dec 1959 The Scorpia D69 23 Dec 1957 717 23 Apr 1960 The Carlyle's Good Mark D70 5 May 1958 719 13 Aug 1960 The Crybaby D71 25 Aug 1958 719 22 Oct 1960 The Underwater Diamond Thieves D72 3 Nov 1958 719 27 Feb 1961 The Betrothal D73 9 Mar 1959 721 7 Jun 1961 The Swamp Rats D74 15 Jun 1959 723 23 Sep 1961 Oogooru and the Witchmen D75 5 Oct 1959 719 23 Dec 1961 The Reporter D76 18 Jan 1960 705 13 Mar 1962 The 50th Wife D79 31 Oct 1960 498 11 Jul 1962 The Iron Dragon D80 27 Feb 1961 499 26 Sep 1962 The Epidemic D83 12 Feb 1962 226 1 Feb 1963 The Wharf Rats D84 18 Jun 1962 228 2 Jun 1963 The Mysterious Ambassador D85 15 Oct 1962 230 20 Jan 1964 The Mystery of the Island of Dogs D86 3 Jun 1963 231 4 Aug 1964 The Drummer of Timpenni D87 16 Dec 1963 232 5 Nov 1964 The Reef D88 26 Mar 1964 224 9 Feb 1965 The Adventures of Lucy Cary D89 29 Jun 1964 225 28 Jul 1965 The Bad Ones D90 14 Dec 1964 226 3 Dec 1965 The Hanta Witch D91 19 Apr 1965 228 19 Feb 1966 Prince Hali and the White Stallion D92 2 Aug 1965 201 25 Jul 1966 Bullets' Town D93 3 Jan 1966 203 19 Dec 1966 The Killer D94 30 May 1966 203 5 Apr 1967 The Sea God D95 12 Sep 1966 205 19 Jul 1967 The Satchel D96 26 Dec 1966 205 11 Oct 1967 The Crime School D97 20 Mar 1967 205 11 Jan 1968 Deadman's Point D98 26 Jun 1967 199 15 Apr 1968 The Rogue Elephant D99 2 Oct 1967 196 5 Aug 1968 Rex and the Trophy Thieves D100 22 Jan 1968 196 19 Nov 1968 The Frame-Up D101 6 May 1968 197 28 Jan 1969 The Hydra D102 8 Jul 1968 204 7 May 1969 The Art Thieves D103 14 Oct 1968 205 3 Sep 1969 The Masked Ball D104 10 Feb 1969 205 15 Oct 1969 The Jungle Home D105 24 Mar 1969 205 14 Jan 1970 Rex, The Missing Heir D106 23 Jun 1969 205 1 May 1970 The Gladiator D107 6 Oct 1969 207 14 Aug 1970 The Missing Daddy D108 19 Jan 1970 207 10 Nov 1970 Luaga's Undercover Tour D109 20 Apr 1970 204 17 Feb 1971 The Mission D110 27 Jul 1970 205 1 Jul 1971 The Heir D111 7 Dec 1970 206 9 Sep 1971 The Fence D112 15 Feb 1971 206 3 Dec 1971 The Mysterious Passenger D113 10 May 1971 207 ... to be continued Note: The Illawarra Mercury did not publish The Wisdom of Solomon (D60), The Grove of the Sleeping Giant (D62) or The Shoplifters (D63) during the first few years of mixed up stories. Later they also skipped over The Monkey Mail (D77), The Gurk Twins (D78), The Werewolf (D81) and The Slave Market of Mucar (D82).
The Townsville Bulletin was running the dailies by 1978 (not sure when it commenced), and the new Brisbane Daily Sun started in about 1984. The Townsville Bulletin dropped the Phantom strip at the end of 1985; this provoked a minor uproar by fans, and the Phantom returned in early 1986, but with vintage Phantom strips starting with The Prisoner of the Himalayas through to The Phantom Goes to War. The war story proved too much for readers and it was dropped in favour of a return to the current stories.
With the demise of Everybody's Magazine, The Phantom Sundays started to appear in Australian newspapers around 1971 at the latest. Brisbane's Sunday Sun is known to have started carrying the Phantom Sunday strips in about August 1971, while The Canberra Times added the Phantom Sundays on 22 Apr 1979 when they launched their new comics liftout (but never ran the daily strip). It is possible that the Phantom Sundays may have been picked up by newspapers a few years earlier than 1971.
The history of The Phantom in Australian newspapers requires further research.
Thanks to Barry Stubberfield for sharing his research on Queensland's newspapers.