Facts: The Phantom
Created by American Lee Falk who called his hero “a Tarzan with a college degree”. Made its debut in the American daily press in 1936, which was before Superman, Spiderman and Batman. Also called The Wandering Ghost and is considered immortal. In fact, the Phantom role has been inherited from father to son since the 16th century and the historical adventures are depicted by the contemporary Phantom reading in the so-called Phantom Chronicle.
Lives in the fictional country of Bengali that the Swedish Team Phantom in the 1970s – unlike Lee Falk – relocated to the African East Coast as a former British colony.
Since the 1960s, newsrooms in countries such as Australia, Italy and Sweden have been licensed to make their own Phantom Adventures. The Swedish Team Fantomen included, among others, the screenwriters Janne Lundström, Magnus Granström and the editor-in-chief Ulf Granberg.
Counted in editions, the 1970s was the decade of the comics in Sweden and next to Kalle Anka, the Phantom was the largest. Each issue sold between 170,000 and 180,000 copies – to be compared with today’s 22,000. According to the then editor-in-chief Ulf Granberg, there were more people who read The Phantom than Expressen and the screenwriter Janne Lundström – later creator of his own hero Johan Vilde – has described the Phantom as the Bonnier Group’s dairy cow.
– The Phantom may have simply been the magazine that reached the most readers, given how extremely popular it was. There are few other places in the world where the Phantom sold as well, says Robert Aman.
Still, it was not an obvious release. In his book “How the Phantom became Swedish. The left’s worldview in tricot” Robert Aman quotes journalist Sigge Sigfridsson’s book about the Bonnier family. When Lukas Bonnier in the 1950s wants to start publishing The Phantom, he is met with skepticism from his father, the publisher Tor Bonnier:
“This family has given the Swedes Fröding, Karlfeldt and Harry Martinson – and now you’ll give them the Phantom. Well, it’s fine.”
“World police-clad jersey”
The American hero Lee Falk’s superhero was “a world-dressed policeman” with a civilization mission on the African continent, as Robert Aman describes it. In addition, he lived in the strange land of Bengali, with Falk a kind of fairytale land in the heart of darkness. How was it even possible that this deeply colonial figure in Sweden in particular emerged as a champion of democracy and the independence of the African countries?
As early as 1943, American researchers had established that the Phantom was racist with depictions of blacks as “ignorant” and “superstitious”. In Sweden, ABF’s newspaper, Fönstret, in 1969 stated that the Phantom was a fascist, and criticism also came from readers. The Swedish newspaper’s new editorial board first responded with “creative translations” that gave completely different perspectives on colonialism. Robert Aman exemplifies with an adventure where the Phantom tells his fiancée how his ancestor sailed with Kristoffer Columbus. “This is fantastic,” says Diana in the original.
In Swedish, Diana is attributed a completely different line: “Typically, huh? At that time, the Europeans – the whites, then – believed that they had a legal right to seize the lands of the colored peoples!”
– It is very bold, I do not know how they reasoned but I guess they thought it would not be discovered. At the same time, it would probably have been strange to leave certain things completely uncommented in the debate climate that prevailed at the time, says Robert Aman.
The Swedish Phantom of the 1970s was a result of the same spirit of the time that also characterized all-Swedish series such as Bamse and Johan Vilde. This is stated by Robert Aman, assistant professor of pedagogy at Linköping University, whose next book will be about the progressive series of the 1970s. Press image. Fight against apartheid
Team Fantomen called itself the Swedish editorial staff, who soon received a license to write and draw their own Phantom adventures, which was done according to their own convictions, often in line with the then social democratic foreign policy, sometimes as “Olof Palme’s spokesman” Aman points out. to 1980. The most radical Swedish addition is the country Rodia where the Phantom fights together with the armed guerrillas who have great similarities with the ANC.
– When the Swedish authors correspond with the readers, they emphasize that Lee Falk would never be so radical that he created this country and they use it as an example of how radical they themselves are. The phantom fights against injustices that they think are important. They also say that at this time there was no injustice greater than how blacks were treated on the African continent.
The environmental destruction and the atomic bomb were other issues that engaged the Swedish Phantom in the 1970s. Press image.
But even if the Swedish Phantom fights side by side with the indigenous people, it is just like with Lee Falk all the time the Phantom knows best. In neither the American nor the Swedish adventures does he have anything to learn from the African peoples.
– You have to remember that this is an adventure from the 1970s, and I think that if you look at studies where you use the various tools of postcolonial theory, there are many who have exposed this type of thinking in, for example, the time aid workers. You had an idea that you had “the good” with you. Behind the benevolence was this type of problem, perhaps unknowingly.
“Like a Tarzan with a college degree” – that’s how Lee Falk described his series hero. In 1977 he received an award from the Swedish Series Promotion. Stock Photography.
Team Fantomen met no resistance to speak of from the clients – their creations sold, at least in Sweden. Lee Falk did not object either. However, a reader complained after an adventure where the Phantom shows Diana their new home with the comment “your kitchen”. That particular series was Lee Falks and the Swedish editor-in-chief regretted that the line had not been washed away.
Inspired by Group 8
Instead, Magnus Knutsson wrote the adventure “Diana in the Jungle Patrol” with inspiration from Group 8 and the Swedish gender equality debate.
– But it is a single adventure, the scope and space are not as significant as the fight against apartheid.
Today then? During the waning left wind of the 1980s, the Phantom continued to walk the streets like an ordinary man but no longer with the same ideological compass, states Aman. However, that did not stop Henrik Sahlström from making a Swedish cover in 2018 where the Phantom knocks down Polish nationalists with the help of a rainbow flag. This time it is a Polish Pride Parade that he defends.
The impact of the phantom in Sweden is also reflected in art. Jan Håfström’s “Who is Mr Walker?” is close to Stockholm Central Station. Stock Photography.