The Phantom (incl. English language information about Mustanaamio in Finland)

[delboj]

Thanks for informations. I've found info that the Phantom has appeared in Seura at least since 1959.

[Sampsa Kuukasjärvi]

I've found info that the Phantom has appeared in Seura at least since 1959.

I believe the Phantom arrived when Ratsupoliisi King (King of the Royal Mounted), which was in Seura already in the 1930s, ran out of new material after the middle 1950s. However, King came pretty soon back to Seura as readers demanded it, and since that he has been published as reprints in the magazine.

Maybe Lurker knows the starting year of the Phantom in Seura? He knows about Seura’s old comic strips and has a blog about old popular culture. His Populaari blog says that already Seura 45/1950 had a cover where the Phantom appeared! The cover text says: “A thrilling moment”. The Phantom was known in some Finnish newspapers already in the 1940s.

Seura has always been a big magazine. Circulation is still about 150 000 copies.

I have collected some Seura’s strips. Here is an old Sunday strip around 1966. It is the beginning of the story “Wamba Falls Inn”. Colours are modest.

[delboj]

Thanks for info. Can you ask Lurker about that?

And from which Seura issues is this page in attachment?

[Sampsa Kuukasjärvi]

He is an active member of this forum. I’m sure that he sees this discussion.

Unfortunately, I don’t know the issue. I didn’t write it down when I clipped the page years ago. That’s why I wrote “around 1966”. Originally the strip is from 1965. There was not a big delay between American and Finnish publications.

EDIT. If Lurker won’t answer, I’ll find out the exact starting date during the summer. I am anyway going to university library to read old magazines and newspapers. I am myself interested to know.

You can always ask anything about Finnish Mustanaamio. We try to help if we can. Maybe I'll join PhantomWiki some day and write some info about newspapers stories there.

[delboj]

Ok. If you can find informations about a few older stories, maybe then we could calculate for other issues and get complete list of stories published in Seura. But I am not sure.

[Sampsa Kuukasjärvi]

I thought the same. But the problem in counting is, that Seura doesn’t come out every week. There are two or three double issues a year (like, for example, 25-26/2010). And sometimes there are 52 and sometimes 53 issues a year, according to number of weeks. And I don’t know how it was decades ago. We could count something, but the results would become a little unexact.

I do know some stories. For example, this story, Woduro’s Secret, was published in Seura from issue 2001-38 to 2002-18. I collected it because it was Graham Nolan’s first adventure and wrote down the issues.

[delboj]

Then that's problem. Thanks for informations, I will add that to list.

When the Phantom first time appeared in Finnish newspapers? In 1940s?

[Sampsa Kuukasjärvi]

We can be sure that he has appeared here at least since the 1940s. The Finnish Wikipedia says that the Phantom started in Karjalainen already in the late 1930s. I doubt it. Maybe it is just a guess. Wikipedia’s source is Karjalainen in 1996. I think Karjalainen’s article would have told the exact date if it had known about the first strip.

It is not difficult to look at Karjalainen’s old issues from micro films. I shall do it when I have time and shall scan the first strip. . Maybe after two weeks or something. Many people say Karjalainen was the first Finnish newspaper with the Phantom.

Many Finnish newspapers have written their histories as books where they tell also about their comic strips. The problem is that comic strip fans have not picked that information.

[delboj]

Thanks for info. It would be nice if there are more free online newspapers archive, like for some American and Canadian newspapers. Norwegian Aftenposten has really good archive. I've also created some lists using free archive for recent years.

Of course, informations there was Sundays Karjalainen and Keskisuomalainen could be wrong.

[delboj]

Does anyone who have old Mustanaamio issues can scan pages with the results of these votes http://www.schapter.org/wiki/Best_Mustanaamio_cover

And best cover posters, like this one http://www.schapter.org/wiki/File:Bestmustanaamio1984.jpg