What’s Going On In The Phantom (Sundays)? Why is that guy on a typewriter in the strip? August – November 2023

Show some respect, little one. That guy with the typewriter is Lee Falk, the creator of The Phantom and its sister strip Mandrake the Magician. Legend in the serial adventure comic business. Falk died in 1999, but his name remains in the credit box on the comic strips, I assume out of sentiment rather than because he had Bob Kane as his agent.

For some time now Tony DePaul has used Lee Falk as narrator, providing recaps and transitions and background material to readers who joined us late. I’m charmed by it. This story’s seen more of Lee Falk The Character than usual, including his speaking to the reader as though he weren’t sure what the story was. Tony DePaul has never been shy about discussing what he’s attempting in a story, as anyone reading his blog knows. So it can’t be DePaul wanting to find some way to talk about his writing process. The story as it’s told is about The Phantom himself creating a story, his audience being the Jungle Patrol. I imagine as we see more of it we’ll see some thematic echoes between Falk deciding how the story works and The Phantom working on his plans.

And that story we’ll see — well, I should pause a moment. The weekday Phantom, as well as Judge Parker, are going to be looking different for a while. Mike Manley, the regular artist, is ill and it looks like an extended absence, says The Daily Cartoonist. Bret Blevins (with lettering by Scott Cohn) have been filling in for a couple weeks on The Phantom, as they did for a while last year too. Jeff Weigel, who does the Sunday strips, is supposed to take over the weekday strips for the duration starting from later this month. Blevins has also taken on drawing Judge Parker, and I don’t know how long that’s to last.

Anyway if more news about the comic strip breaks, or you want to know about the weekday continuity, or you live in the year 2024 or later and want a more up-to-date plot recap for Tony DePaul and Jeff Weigel’s The Phantom, try this link. What do you have to lose? Now on with the Sunday show.

The Sunday Phantom.

13 August – 5 November 2023.

Last time we were just started a new story, with The Phantom turning up at Jungle Patrol headquarters as “John X”, the Jungle Patrolman he became during a bout of amnesia a decade or so back. When he regained his memory he had John X taken off for special duty by the Unknown Commander of the Jungle Patrol, whom he happens to be. But during the raid on Gravelines he discovered Jungle Patrol is getting all weird about John X. It’s like the Unknown Commander can’t even scoop people up into his Mysterious Department of Magic without people asking questions. Such as, hey, wouldn’t that interlude and the phone calls from the Gravelines raid make sense if John X were the Unknown Commander?

This story, by the way, is set some time after the conclusion of the story going on in the weekday strips. This gets neatly teased when Jungle Patrol folks as John X for more information about Gravelines, and he says that story’s not yet over. I’m amused.

Tony DePaul and Jeff Weigel’s The Phantom for the 3rd of September, 2023. This is not the best one-strip summary of things. But it does very well at showing the most interesting part here, the icon of Lee Falk pondering the writing process. It does make me wonder if the story was created by Tony DePaul thinking it would be interesting if John X told tales about the Unknown Commander, and then went about thinking how that would make sense. Also, I learn from Wikipedia that Lee Falk did look kinda like Mandrake the Magician. I suppose it’s really the other way around — Falk designed his character around himself — but it’s surprising to see and also to learn that he was a playwright and directed on stage Marlon Brando, Charlton Heston, Paul Newman, Chico Marx, and Ethel Waters. Right? That was my expression.

Somehow, The Phantom sees an angle to prove John X isn’t the Unknown Commander, and maybe burnish the Unknown Commander’s legend some, since after a couple centuries not being seen even experienced Jungle Patrollers start asking questions like “how does this work exactly?” So we learn, from flashback conversations with Diana, that he’s been going into Mawitaan and meeting people with Ajabu Engineering (“You Imagine It, We Build It”). And he’s readying some spectacle for the Jungle Patrol’s benefit.

Meanwhile, what he tells Colonel Worubu and the Jungle Patrol staff is that he’s not sure but someone he thinks was the Unknown Commander died in a mission in Ivory Lana. And, sure enough, nobody’s been picking up the daily reports in the Unknown Commander’s vault, nor has the light signalling fresh orders turned on. As John X, he tells Colonel Worubu of how much the Unknown Commander depends on him and his expert judgement. And he scouts Jungle Patrol headquarters, looking for a good way he-as-John-X can vanish and set up whatever he-The-Phantom has in mind.

How will this all pan out? I don’t know. I imagine we’ll have some insight in twelve or thirteen weeks, whenever I get back to this strip. In the meanwhile …

Next Week!

Why are we watching infomercials in Terry Beatty’s Rex Morgan, M.D.? You’ll have to check back here to learn or catch up on the comics yourself. We’ll see what happens.

Statistics Saturday: Transformers I Can Still Recognize

This after watching every single episode of the 1980s Transformers cartoon too many times and then moving on to having other things to do since about 1990:

• Optimus Prime
• Starscream
• Girl Autobot [*]
• Megatron
• Blurr
• Grimlock

[*] Yes, I am aware that Girl Autobot’s name was not actually “Girl Autobot”. It was established in the 1986 Transformers: The Movie that her name was Autobelle.

Reference: Tilt: A Skewed History of the Tower of Pisa, Nicholas Shrady.

60s Popeye: Hair Cut-Ups, part of Seymour Kneitel-Mania here

Seymour Kneitel-Mania continues here at King Features Popeye review headquarters. 1960’s Hair Cut-Ups credits Max Fleischer’s son-in-law for story, direction, and production of this Paramount Cartoon Studios short. Let’s watch.

In form, this is another of the tell-Swee’Pea-a-story cartoons. It’s got a more interesting framing device, since it’s not Popeye reading from a book. The frame, of Swee’Pea being afraid of his first haircut, even has a thematic resonance with the story told. That story is some riff on the tale of Samson and Delilah, casting Popeye as Samson and Brutus as an unnamed bad guy who disguises himself as Delilah.

This kind of setup, Popeye recast as a figure of legend, they’ve done before. Greek Mirthology, from 1954, has Popeye cast himself as Hercules to talk his nephews into eating their spinach. The stories are different enough I can’t call this is a remake of that Isadore-Klein-written cartoon. It’s a variation, though, especially in how the Popeye-figure switches his source of might to spinach. 1948’s Popeye Meets Hercules has a similar “ancient origins” theme, but that Popeye is already hep to the spinach deal.

Now, if I were an actual critic, I’d have some thoughts about the cartoon having “Brutus” assume a — the — female role in the story. What does it signify that after years trying to beat Samson, “Brutus” is able to win when he abandons the male role altogether? And that his win is immediately destroyed when he sheds the Delilah persona, taking on his male identity again? No, I don’t believe Seymour Kneitel was thinking of investigating gender roles in the Popeye universe this way. But why did Kneitel feel it right to have “Brutus” shed his face covering and Delilah voice before punching out Popeye? Anyway, since I’m not a critic, I won’t think about that instead and will instead giggle about “Popeye” here loving his hair.

As I’d expect from the Paramount studios the cartoon’s competent, even efficient. The modern-day cast is as tiny as it could have, giving Brutus a rare non-antagonistic role so his double can be the villain. Ancient times have an even smaller population, only Samson and his rival fighting over who’s strongest. This opens to a couple of feats-of-strength jokes of the kind the Popeye animators could likely do in their sleep.

There’s a neat little bit when ‘Delilah’ invites Samson into the barber shop. Smoke from Samnson’s pipe threads underneath Delilah’s face covering. It seems like a good visual joke showing Samson’s attraction to Delilah. ‘Delilah’ sneezes, though, revealing that Brutus face. It explains the plan ‘Brutus’ concocted without him having to say it to the viewer. Good bit of work and I imagine a fair number of kids giggling as they worked it out. One strength of a Kneitel production is getting simple things like that done well. When the same element can serve two roles without drawing attention it’s doing well.