YOU MAY remember H and his brother, M, the lads I wrote about in the spring. They follow the Phantom comic strips I write for King Features Syndicate.
Well, I get home from wandering around the U.S. and Canada, go through six weeks of mail, and here the boys were kind enough to send me cards they drew about the loss of my old pal Johnny Danger.
Here’s the cover from the card H sent, the classic Phantom mark that makes evildoers tremble in their boots.
The text he wrote inside…
Here’s the cover M drew… me wandering around out there in the trees…
M’s note inside…
This got me thinking of previous correspondence from H that I had meant to report here on the Nickels…
A note his teachers wrote to him when school let out for the summer…
He’s still carrying a notebook and a pencil everywhere he goes. In the spring that was the best advice I could give him on how to become a writer. Now, his notebook and pencil have become characters, Note Man and Pencil Dude… Is it possible that H already knows more about meta-narrative than I do?
And dig it, he’s got confidence! A sure sign of good parenting.
Speaking of parenting, the Phantom is having a rough go about now. He’s just a man, not a superhero, so he sometimes zigs when he ought to zag. That’s what I like most about writing him, his humanity.
He let the murderous Nomad get one step ahead of him. Now the Phantom’s nursing his wounds 7,000 miles away in Bangalla while the Nomad is in New York, out to murder Heloise Walker, the Phantom’s daughter.
This was yesterday’s strip—shocking to many readers!
To my knowledge it’s the only time a villain has hit a female with a closed fist since Lee Falk founded the strip in 1936. And Heloise is not quite 16, so… a mere babe in the woods when it comes to such villainy.
And yet… Heloise has the blood of 21 Phantoms in her veins. What do you think the odds are this is going to turn out really badly for the Nomad?
Tony DePaul, September 12, 2018, Cranston, Rhode Island, USA
Dear Mr. DePaul,
I enjoyed reading this blog, the whole thing not just about the Phantom.
It was my first exposure to your blog; I had been looking for it for a while.
The limitations you face with the lack of space, at most 40-50 words which really limits the amount of space Manley has, can’t be easy.
I have tried to explain this to commenters of Comics Kingdom to no avail. Mr. Manley recently added a comment of his own trying to explain things. What an uproar that turned out to be. I’m glad you don’t read them at all. You can imagine how that went over with that crowd when Manley mentioned it.
My take is, you’re the storyteller, and your medium is a newspaper which as noted keeps getting smaller and smaller. You do not have the space or time to fill in every detail. Nor can you go back to do so. I get it and don’t expect you to, not even here. Simply because no matter how you explain it to them, they simply will not accept it.
I have been gifted or cursed with an excellent imagination, If I must, I fill in the blanks as best I can, I might be wrong and most likely am, but at least I don’t blame you for their lack.
It’s a great story, and in spite of their complaints they keep reading and snarfing. I have blocked those that I simply can’t stand to read any longer.
I will keep following the Phantom as you and Manley present it. I will not stop trying to second guess you, it is fun finding out just how wrong I can be. It is the unpredictability that adds to the enjoyment.
A faithful and hopefully noncomplaining reader,
Allan
Thanks, Allan. Mike’s right, I haven’t looked at the comments section in ten years or more. It’s of no interest to me because it’s not about the comic. It’s about itself. It’s about the personalities drawn to it.
There’s nothing at Comics Kingdom that can make me a better writer. A good critic has to know the character, the universe, the lore, the craft, something about language, narrative, about visual literacy. The critic has to know what he or she is talking about.
Many times I tried to get the late Paul Ryan to stop reading because I could see how bad it was for his morale, and even his pride in his own work. For some reason, he just couldn’t resist tuning in for baseless punishment, doled out by people who seem to get out of bed angry every morning. Angry about a comic strip!
Occasionally one of them will try to migrate over here, too obtuse to notice that it’s a personal blog, not a commercial site; that there’s nothing to buy, which means I don’t need clicks, and don’t need to invite obnoxious behavior into my home. But it’s funny how slow some are to catch on.
The Nomad’s 3 days in New York have been stretched out to 4 weeks of story. And it’s a great one, you and Mike deserve a Pulitzer for this epic. I’m hungry for more development, which comes in a trickle, one drop per weekday. This elastic time reminds me of a time on LSD, where I had a run of fabulous thoughts that covered a huge amount of ground and time; but, when I happened to look at the clock, only 5 minutes had passed…..
Lee Falk had it made in the 30s with the wide open spaces, four panels a day. Four BIG panels!
Glad you’re enjoying the story, John. Mike keeps turning in great art. I like to give him those big one-panel days where he can really showcase it.
What a pleasure to read about these remarkable boys.
Thank you for posting these images.
One of my favorite posts of yours. Amazing kids