The Phantom The Complete Series: The Gold Key Years Vol. 1' HCPublisher: Hermes Press
Release Date: December 2011
Price: $49.99
Creator(s): Bill Harris, Bill Lignante
Format: 256 pgs.; Full-Color; Hardcover
ISBN: 978-1-6134-5005-5
ICv2 Rating: 2 Stars out of 5
The Phantom The Complete Series: The Gold Key Years Volume One reprints digitally remastered issues #1-8 of the Gold Key Phantom series from the 1960’s featuring stories written by Bill Harris and drawn by Bill Lignante. It also includes all the painted covers done for the series by George Wilson as well an informative introduction by Ed Rhoades.
The production values are high and though the price is just as high it's not unreasonable for a hardcover book with a dustcover of this quality. Without question this is yet another attractive volume from Hermes Press and fits in nicely with the rest of their archival editions of comic book reprints. Unfortunately it will most likely only appeal to the hardcore fans of Lee Falk’s Ghost Who Walks because the comic books collected here are incredibly dull.
The stories, redrawn versions of continuities from The Phantom comic strip haven't aged well. And the new artwork by Bill Lignante, with it's clunky figures and static storytelling, is definitely not an improvement over the original comic strip art. It's not done any favors by the extreme color scheme chosen for the coloring which, intentionally or otherwise, makes many of the panels look more like 60's 'pop art' than actual examples of comic book art.
Sadly this is something that's strictly for Phantom completists, and given the high cost of the book it's going to be a hard sell to even some of them.
--Steve Bennett: Writer and retail services consultant
