The Phantom The Complete Series: The Gold Key Years Volume 1 [Hardcover]

(I)Gold Key Series?

'For Those Who came in Late',... The Phantom originated as Newspaper strips and typical of comic strips, they were published in black and white Dailies, and color Sundays.

There were several attempts at bringing out comic book version of these strips. Most of them were reprints. with exception of some adaptations.

In 1962,KK publications decided to bring out comic book versions of this famous strip. It began under the label Gold Key. The stories in these series were neither new stories, nor reprints of the already published strips. But were completely re-scripted and re-drawn versions of selected Dailies and Sundays. The artwork for these were done more liesurly and hence more detailed and colorful. But one cannot really judge whether they are actually better than the original. There certainly is a charm to the originals as they appeared in the strips day after day.

Bill Lignante did the art work inside and George Wilson painted the covers for this series. One can tell that they were talented artists.

So, what we have in this book, are collections of the very early exclusively 'comic book' format of The Phantom.

(II) Book quality

This collection is a nice hardbound edition, with dust jacket.The stories are printed on nice thick high quality paper. The print quality itself is not extraordinary, but pretty good. the glossy paper coming in the way of enjoying the fine art work. But probably the original books were the only sources, and so this can be summed up as a good quality photocopy at the best. Still 5 stars? absolutely. I think this book has more value than just the production quality.

(III) What does it contain

This particular collection contains the books #1 through #8 from the Gold Key series. These are replicas of the orginal books, including the colorful covers of each of the book.
The stories in these books are adaptations from the Dailies and Sundays from the late fifties and were originally drawn by the talented Wilson McCoy.

#1 Nov 1962
The Game (Original details: Daily #52: Ragon's Game)

#2 Feb 1963
The Rattle (Sunday #46: The Rattle)
The Test (Sunday #42: The Horned Star Demons)

#3 May 1963
The Diamond Cup (Sunday #39: Alexander's Cup)
The Crybaby (Daily #71: The Crybaby)

#4 Aug 1963
Ooogooru (Daily #75: Oogooru and the Witchmen)
The Goggle-Eye Pirates (Sunday #56 : The Goggle-Eye Pirates)

#5 Nov 1963
The Swamp Rats (Daily #74: The Swamp Rats)
The Phantom's Boyhood (Sunday #53: The Childhood of the Phantom)

#6 Feb 1964
The Lady From Nowhere (Daily #49, The Lady From Nowhere)
The Phantom's Boyhood: Diana (Sunday #53: The Childhood of the Phantom)

#7 May 1964
The Super Apes ( Daily #51, The Super Apes)
The Phantom's Boyhood: School (Sunday #53: The Childhood of the Phantom)

#8 Aug 1964
The Belt (Sunday #37, The Belt)

This is certainly a collectors item for Phantom fans, since this series collects the beginnings of interesting adaptation in the comic book format.

This long-overdue collection of Gold Key Phantom comic books from the '60s is outstanding. The look and feel of the book is top-notch - sewn pages, glossy bright reproductions of the comics, and the cover (on the book and the dustjacket) is the great first-issue painting by George Wilson. The painted covers were a big draw for Gold Key comics, and all of the Wilson painted covers are included, and are reproduced full-sized. A tiny bit of fine detail is lost in the story drawings, but is more than made up for with clear vibrant colors and premium production values. I will definitely get the next volume. Well done (again) Hermes Press.

This book is just fantastic collection of first 8 stories of Gold Key series
It has enlarged cover with enhanced colors!!!!!!!! SWEET!!!

The interior art is excellent. The pages have not only been recreated with rich glossy colors but also enlarged.

This book is slightly more in both width and thickness compared to any regular hardcovers that come out these days. However the length is a bit shorter than regular HCs. It is also bit heavier.

Unlike the other hardcovers, the art is there both on the dust jacket as well as the hard cover. So in case you loose the dust jacket, the book still has the exact same art printed on the hard sides!

It comes with an introduction to the legend, The Phantom in the beginning and an illustration of a couple of important art pieces. It has a sample old page - how it looked before and how it has been now enlarged - so that you get an idea on how this has been actually recreated.

Each story has the same art as Gold Key and starts with respective issue cover. Art is also exactly same as original gold key books but as I said is enhanced.

This is an excellent collectible book. Although the cover price seems on the higher side, $49.99 but you can get it cheap here in Amazon or elsewhere if you can grab it on deals/ offers.

Hope this is helpful for those thinking of buying this book. If you are a Phantom fan this would be a nice addition to your nostalgic collection.

Going with 4.5 out of 5. The 0.5 is due to the high cost - but that can definitely be overcome ;)