Wednesday, October 29, 2008

#Comic No.94:Phantom Strip and Madhumuskan

**First of all a very happy belated Deepawali to all of my friends and visitors.**

In late 70's and early 80's when i began to read Indrajal comics the Phantom strips were being drawn by the great Sy Barry.I grew up reading Barry's work though occasionally Indrajal also published Mc Coy strips but frankly speaking Mc Coy thin Phantom never appealed me up to the extent to match any of the standards set by Barry.
Indrajal comics published basically the strips of Barry and Mc Coy at a majority hence for many years i was unaware of the existence of another Phantom illustrator Ray Moore,who plays a pioneer importance in Phantom history. Alike many of Phantom phans i always considered Barry as the superlative artist among the trio thus paying not much attention over the other two artists,i.e. Moore and Mc Coy.Later on in recent past when i came across with more of Mc Coy and Moore work then my previous perception about Mc Coy was strengthened but my perception about Moore was totally changed or better to say 'reversed'.
After going through the very early strips of Phantom which were solely drawn by Moore i was forced to change my opinion about him.Friends Moore's work is of pioneer importance in history of Phantom popularity.Moore used to possesses a mysterious style of illustration which suits the character of Phantom best.Moore's specialties were his well depicted human expression with minimum of brush linings and shady background giving the desired impact on scene.
The strips of Moore's work are no doubt among the real classics of the Phantom stories,mainly because of Falk's brilliance,which was just to embezzle the world at that time but the importance of a fine illustrator can't be overlooked as a major ingredient in the success of a comic strip.Barry's strips certainly miss that sharp and bitter humor of the Phantom which was one of the specialty in the Moore's strips.Though Barry,very good in depicting jungle scenery,best in realistic illustration and witnessed the unmatched Phantom popularity,but for me the value of Moore's strip is something different which can't be matched and rated with Barry's work.
As an analogy Moore work is just like the initial movies of Amitabh Bachchan,i.e. Zanjeer,Anand,Namak Haraam,Deewar etc,which established a young lad of Allahabad as Amitabh Bachchan,whereas Barry's work is like of his later movies,i.e. Trishul,Kala Pathhar,
Shakti,Coolie
etc,which catapulted Amitabh to new heights of popularity and stardom.

So as a tribute to the superb artist Raymond Moore,here is presented one of his classic strip "The Phantom Treasure",D015 which ran from 14.7.41 to 31.1.42.
For making this strip available many thanks to ICC who is the source of this strip for me.












Download Strip


There is something also for my Hindi comic lovers and it is a comic article from MadhuMuskan.
This time kids were worried about the increasing price of comics and they bring their complain to Popat-Chaupat,now how the duo tackles the 'inflation' is worth to read...find out yourself.









































14 comments:

Ashish Pathak said...

Thanks Bro..
Nice strip and Popat Chopat As usual.
Appreciate your hard work in preservation of These Gems and eagerly waiting for next Gift from you.

Colonel Worobu said...

Thank you CW! Wish you and everyone here a happy Deepawali as well!

TPH said...

In an interview (during late eightees), Lee Falk said that out of the three main artists, Ray Moore drew the best Phantoms, capturing the essence of the mysterious background of the characters and landscape. I thing it's a bit exaggerated (and a little partial towards Mr. Barry, but nevertheless it conveys a point towards the importance of Moore who was with Falk when the Phantom stories were in their nappy pads.

Nice post. Good to see few humourous Madhu Muskan pages too.

Happy Deepawali.

Anonymous said...

Dear Comic World.
Wish you a belated Deepawali as well.
P/C were the main features of MM in its earlier stage. Then more importance was given to Harish M. Sudan's Daddyji. (Though Daddyji was also good but not as humourous as P/C were.) Great work by you. Post some Deewana features as well.

Anonymous said...

A belated Happy Diwali to you!

Thanks for posting a rare Phantom Strip, CW.

As we all grew up with Sy Barry Phantom, we all considered it to be the 'real thing'.

Comic World said...

Ashish: Thanks Ashish.Pls keep coming.

Comic World said...

Col.Worobu: Thanks Col. and same to you.

Comic World said...

TPH: Yeah,Falk always rated Moore more over Barry which is little partial towards Barry.
Barry no doubt claims the top position if only illustrations are taken into consideration,but if stories are also duly taken into account then Moore will certainly have a upper hand as those early stories by Falk crediting Moore as a artist were really classics,superb and unmatched in totality.
I was shocked a little when i read Barry's quoting Falk as a "Unpopular Boss" in an interview,where he was asked about his opinion about Falk on his(Barry) retirement.

Comic World said...

Wise Boy: Thanks buddy.The back bone of MM was Jagdish as his features like Popat-Chaupat,Sustram-Chustram,Bhootnath aur Jadui Tulika,Van Putra Shalu,Bharat Kumar,Super Raam etc were the most popular ones along with the features of Hussain Zamin also.
Though Harish M.Sudan's Daddyji was also humorous but was having its limitation.
Departure of Jagdish and H.I.Pasha from MM was the main reason behind its declination,though Harish Sudan tried hard to save and revive the magazine but all in vain.

Comic World said...

Deb: Thanks Deb.Keep coming pal.

Anonymous said...

Where one can get these old newspaper strips.

Abdul Qureshi said...

Wish you a happy belated Diwali. Thanks for uploading Madhumuskan, hope you will upload full comic soon.

Comic World said...

Wise Boy: Phantom and Mandrake for the very first time started being published as strips in newspapers in US on daily and weekly basis,thus referred as Dailies and Sundays.
In India Phantom was first published in 'Illustrated Weekly' in 1940.Later on from 1964 Times Of India published these strips as full feature in comics form namely "Indrajal Comics",during that time many other Indian papers and magazines were also publishing Phantom strips on weekly and daily basis such as Deewana etc.
Currently as far as my information is concerned Phantom strips at present are being published in paper "Indian Express" but those are new lifeless strips written by European writers.

Comic World said...

Abdul: Thanks and same to you pal.Yeah,i will certainly load full MM too as the download result of MM is quite encouraging,and which is not less than the no. of Indrajal downloads.

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