#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.












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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.