The best stories of Phantom illustrated by Kari T. Leppänen

 My best works as an illustrator in Phantom have unquestionably been those stories taking place in history. Working with  historical adventures is more 

challenging than those happening in modern times, especially after fifties.  They also offer a welcoming change to the modern stories,   which are too of-

ten dealing with some sort a bit dull criminals and, even worse - dealing with Diana and  the twins.  Many readers have critisized stories about those later

ones and the abundant number of the persons around the Phantom,  starting with the president Luaga.    By this fact the Phantom department was forced

to think radical changes in the storyline of our masked hero.    This happened in early -90 and by this the result  was that Luaga lost his  presidency  and

Diana was thrown to States with kids to make her career in UN.    Most of the persons created by Lee Falk disappeared from the coming adventures, or

were in those only occasionally.  But... I was going to handle my historical Phantom adventures.   So,  let us go...

          THE  FLOATING  COFFIN 

   The very first historical Phantom story that I did draw was a maritime adventure in 1979,  right after my first Phantom "The False Prince". It was pub-

lished in Swedish Fantomen-magazine  by name  "Under farornas segel"  ( Under the dangerous sails),   and later by FREW with a name  "The Floating

Coffin".  Of course I was very  fascinated when I had the manusscript  of this story in my hands.   It was more adventurous than the previous work I had

done and  which was mainly just a training test to draw Phantom.  There was also an extra curiosity to deal with - to draw sailing ships! Believe or not, but

I had hardly ever drawn ships before this occasion, and now I should do so for a real printed matter. I took it seriously and hurried to biggest warehouse

in Helsinki and bought a miniature model of a ship similar than in the story...

This work was actually my first serious experience to draw a history.   I had always been very fascinated of history and had read  Grimberg´s historical

volymes when I was some 10 years old, but in my homemade comic magazines I never tried to do a historical adventures. Obviously it seemed much too

laborous to do.  Before my professional career I draw my comics from my own head, never using any reference pictures. With my historical Phantom-

and my own printed works I became a regular library visitor and while working with a story. I have always have plenty of reference books handling of

the of the present work.

                                         The "Easter Dawn", the ship in the story "The Floating Coffin", drawn after miniature of famous Cutty Sark. 

                            This adventure was published by Frew Publications in 2004 in number 1997, and because it was one of my earliest Phantom

                            works, our hero doesn´t  look as good as in my later drawings.

                                            The script was written by Norman Worker, who became my favorite writer for years.  He died in 2005.

       THE  TREASURE  FROM  RHODES

                                My next historical Phantom in Finnish magazine in 1980. The cover was made by swedish artist Rolf Gohs.

 Like the previous historical Phantom that I illustrated  also this was written by Norman Worker. The drawing work was more interesting than in case of my first 

historical piece, because the story took its place during the 16th Century which is one of my favorite epoch in history.  This story which was published in Swedish

Fantomen in 1980 has not been printed in FREW`s Phantom until 2015 in number 1737.

                     LOST ON THE PHANTOM TRAIL    (The Diamonds of Death)

  My next historical Phantom illustration was this story, published by Swedish Semic in number 24/1982 and by FREW in number 838. It was a story

taking place during The 1st World War in Africa. It inspired me to do my best on that time, because of the period and the story itself. It was written

by a pseudonym "Pelerin", totally unknown to me. I used plenty of the grey screen in the pictures for shading to bring more strenght to the pictures.

I still think that this work is among the very best I´ve done with our masked hero. The cover is from the Finnish print and the first cover I have made

for The Phantom.   It took two years before I had in my hands the next historical Phantom adventure...

                                                                                    FREW Christmas edition 2001 number 1310 

                                                                THE  MALICIOUS  MESSENGER 

    The Malicious Messenger was again Norman Worker´s story. Not one of his best however. It was placed in Africa in 17th Century and the original

team of the Jungle Patrol was involved in the story. They resembled the Three Musketeer-team and in the story there was also a vicious crook like

Richelieu in the original Dumas´  story. The most interesting detail in this adventure was that it revealed the origin of the Good Sign of Phantom.

    The Finnish cover of the magazine   containing this story.  It was published by FREW in issue 1373 by the name "The Message".  

                                                      THE  FIRST  PHANTOM 

  This was not a normal Phantom adventure, but a kind of synopsis of the life of the 1st Phantom, beginning from the point when he was crawling

on the shore of Bengali after a pirate attack. Claes Reimerthi stitched together a chronology of the 1st Phantom from the stories published during

past years.  Most of those had been drawn by Jaime Vallve, and I made my own illustration after those. Not very interesting work, actually. The

Scandinavian magazine was wearing a cover painted by me, my second with the Phantoms.   The FREW Phantom is number 1051.

                                   The next two historical  Phantom-adventures are the most popular from all of  my Phantom works...

                                            Duel  in  Venice  -  Battle  of  Malta

                         Finnish covers for both parts of the story.                                                           FREW covers of the same. 

   With "The Treasure of Rhodes" from 1980 these two form a trilogy which ends in the Siege of Malta 1565 when Ottoman Empire invaded

that island of the Knights of St. John. And the Phantom,  himself a knight of the Order, took his part in the defence of the main fortress of

Malta, finally deadly wounded.  The story was one of the very best of Norman Worker and inspired the artist to do his best also. These two

stories have been reprinted more than any of my Phantom works.   First FREW prints were 937 and 938.

                             In 2005 the Swedish Egmont published a Norman Worker memorial-issue with these two stories in full colour. 

                                                                                                New covers for the reprints in 2015 

                                                                                               PIRATE  HUNT 

   Pirate Hunt was my first work of the pirates ever.  The story was again written by Norman Worker and the original Jungle Patrol team was

having its part in the story once more.  It wasn´t very inspiring, but there was interesting characters included and I had an opportunity to draw

ships of 17th Century - the most popular pirate century.  The story was published in Scandinavia in 1986.  By FREW in number 1437.

                                                                                        CLOUD  PIRATES 

    Also the next Phantom adventure was dealing with pirates, but not sailing in water. Instead these pirates attacked from air.  The story was

placed to happen in 1930- and I enjoyed to draw the aeroplanes of the period. The planes have always been one of my favorites. Norman had

made an interesting story that inspired me to do my best.  This Phantom story was also published in 1968, a good year of only historical works

for me.  FREW published this story in number 919.

                                                 In this story from 1930´s the Phantom learned to fly. Here, at the end of the story he makes

                                                 his good sign on the clouded sky.   The best part to me in this story was the lovely old pla-

                                                 nes  I had a chance  to draw.

                                                                            FOREST  OF  HORRORS 

   This Phantom adventure, naturally made by Norman Worker, was placed both in 70th Century and the time of Robin Hood. Its first publica-

tion was in Swedish Fantomen-magazine number 10/1987 and an English version by FREW Publications in number 924. It was a rather simple

story about witchcraft and a sorcerer with whos devilish creations our Phantom was fighting.  The best part of the story for me as an artist who

was turning the manus into pictures, were those devil-creatures that attacked Phantom.  Curiously there was in the same scandinavian magazi-

ne also another work of mine  -  a science fiction story called "The Demon Planet" and in that there were more demoniac creatures to draw.

That later you´ll find from my Raiden-page, if you´re interested.

                                                                             THE  KING  IS  DEAD 

   With this story Norman Worker involved The Phantom in the history of Sweden and the murder of king Gustav the Third. I worked with the

pictures of this story during my time in Canary Islands and the research for the referencies of Swedish history was totally impossible. So my boss

sent me by mail pictures and a Swedish-made TV-movie about this matter.  Illustration of this Phantom adventure was both good and bad, and  with

the last pages I was too hurry. The story was published in Sweden in 1987 and later by FREW in number 1032.

                                                                                         CLEOPATRA´S  ASP 

  This Phantom adventure tells the story how our hero found the snake that Cleopatra used to poison herself. It was not written by my regular

scriptwriter Norman, but a new one called Michael Thierres ( nowadays better known by his real name Claes Reimerthi ) and the story began

when The Phantom was forced to be a soldier in Napoleon´s Egypt Campaign.  So the story takes place in Egypt in 18th Century and its main

storyline handles with the lost tomb of queen Cleopatra. Of course it was found and from here Phantom finds the asp that killed the queen.

There are a bunch of scoundrels involven in the story and it was so inspiring that I did my best with the drawings. Its first publication was in

Scandinavian Fantomen 25/1989 and the english version in FREW´s number 964. 

                                             THE  DOOMSDAY  WEAPON 

    The Doomsday Weapon was one of the weakest of Norman Worker´s stories and I remember hardly nothing of my work with it. A part of the

story happened in Venice, that has often inspired me, but this time it did not. But still an english version was made by Frew in the number 1010.

                                            THE  IBIS  MYSTERY  1 - 4

   The Ibis Mystery was a four-part long story about the fight of Phantom against a vicious Egyptian priest.  The name of the later was Chafi and he  

was embalmed alive as a punishment to have an affair with the wife of the Pharaoh. By his magical powers Chafi did not die, but became an immortal

villain who tried to find his lost beloved queen. 

  The four parts of this long adventure were published in Scandinavian magazines  21/1993,  22/1993,  23/1993  and  24/1993. The english versions

made by FREW were in Phantom numbers 1064 - "The Evil Paradise",   1065- "Kazcim Master of the Dumb",  1066- "Scarface",   1067- "At the

Edge of the Grave". Working with this Norman´s story was inspiring and I added a bit speciality in the drawings  -  in the 3rd part there was gangsters

from Chicago and I made them look like the most famous of the old actors in the ganster-movies - Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney and Edward G.

Robinson.

                                                             THE  GOLDEN  FALCON 

  The Golden Falcon was written by my regular historical Phantom´s writer Norman.  He had borrowed the idea from the old Humphrey Bogart-movie,

The Maltese Falcon and it was placed in the 16th Century when St. John´s knights sent a falcon like that to the king of Spain, who had given the island

of Malta to them as a refuge after the Turks had conquered their previous island, Rhodes.    I did like to draw a story taking place in that colorful cen-

tury, but the story wasn´t very inspiring. While working with this story I didn´t have any idea that it was going to be the last Norman Worker´s   manus-

cript I was working with.  Norman died in 2005 and left a gap behind him.  A gap that only Claes Reimerthi was able to fill, but I still miss the frankness

of Norman´s straightforward scripts, which were easy to turn into pictures. 

                                                                     The next Phantom historical was made by Claes... 

                                               THE  DEVIL´S  GENTLEMAN

  This story took its place in Victorian London and I´m still very satisfied about my drawings in this special story. I think that  the artwork is still on of

my best in this Reimerthi´s interesting adventure. Maybe because the Victorian Era has always fascinated me.

    While working with this Reimerthi´s story it was easy to grap the Whitechapel-like environment of old London, as well as the very dicken-

sian characters in the story. These examples of the printed pictures are from a finnish print, as many others have been. The english pages pub-

lished by FREW are not all available.  FREW published this story in number 1132 by the name "Public EnemyNumber One!".

                            SHIPWRECKER´S  TOWN        (The Sea  Jackals) 

   The FREW Publications published in the number 1138 a story called "The Sea Jackals".      This time the writer of the story was Donne

Avenell, and it was the only historical Phantom-work which I did from his script. Alltogother I illustrated seven stories from Donne´s works.

After this he wrote only six Phantom-stories before his death 1997.

                                      Finnish cover and pictures from the story.                                                                                                FREW  1138

   This adventure took its place on the coast of Cornwall, a historical site of sea jackals.  It was pleasant to draw as were all the sripts of Donne.

But, as I´ve told on another site, I was quite upset when I found out that my work later suffered a plagiarism. In the year 2000 there was a memo-

rypublication for past Donne Avenell and that was just my work redrawn. Claes Reimerthi made a new script, George Olesen scetched the pa-

ges straight from my original pictures and Fred Fredericks made the inking. More info and pictures.... KLIK

   I do not understand the nonchalance of the persons included in this matter, because no one told me that my artwork was going to be redrawn.

Worst of all,  the artwork of Olesen and Fredericks was very rude and didn´t really honor Donne´s script.  FREW published this version in 2001

in number 1280 by the name  "The Shipwreckers".

                                              THE  RING  OF  DEATH   1 - 2 

   This two-part story is the only Phantom-adventure both written and illustrated by Kari T. Leppänen. Because I have handled the story earlier

in my Phantompage, I do not go further with the story itself. 

                       The FREW covers for my only Phantom-arventure.                                                Pictures from swedish Fantomen.

   For certain unhappy reason reason I have not being interested to make more Phantom stories of my own.  I had few more ideas of the stories,

but when the first part of Ring of Dead was published and I found to my disappointment that my boss Ulf Granberg, who has translated my Eng-

liswritten manuscript, has put his name on the Fantomen magazine, my interest to go on with my own stories vanished. Granberg, who has edited

the text while translating it like he did all Phantom scripts from various scriptwriters, posed himself as rewriter of the manus - and when it was

published in Australian Phantom he was misinterpretly turned as scriptwriter.  Thus my egosentric boss for the first time walked over me which

he later did more seriously with my Achilles Wiggen-serial. 

                                      THE  WITCHES  OF  BEDBURG    1 - 2

   Also this my next historical piece of the Phantom history was in two parts.  The writer was Lennart  Moberg, who has not made any Phantom

stories for years. I never liked very much about his scripts, and this was one of those. I actually illustrated only three stories written by him.

My lack of interest may be seen in the pages of this story. FREW has published both parts in numbers 1253 and 1255.

                                                                          THE  GRAVE  ROBBERS 

   The next historical Phantom draama was written by a new writer in the Phantom Team of Egmont - David Bishop. He is living in Edinburg and maybe

that inspired him to use his present hometown ( he is from New Zealand) history as the base of this adventure.

   The FREW cover for the story.                Hans Lindahl´s excellent cover for Swede-Finnish edition.            Boris Karloff as the Bodysnatcher in

                                                                                                                                                                     the old movie by same name.

  The Bishop´s story is adapted mainly from two old movies, telling about the early 18 Century "bodysnatchers" in Edinburgh´s notorious ceme-

tery - Greyfriars Kirk.  The grave robbers and even anatomists stole fresh bodies from their graves.  In the story there is also adaption from Fran-

kenstein movies - using electricity to bring dead bodies back into life.  In my drawings I used both those movies and made the main "bodysnatcher

to look like Boris Karloff.  One stupid curiosity occurren in this story  -  beside the Phantom was buried alive, he was THRICE hit in his poor head!

By a  shovel, sandbag and lantern...

                                                                                           THE  PEST 

   Also the next of my historical Phantom-works  was made by Bishop, and again he had adapted his idea from a movie.  This time James Clavell´s

movie "The Last Valley".  Bishop´s story told about a small, remote village just like in the movie, and during the hard times of The Thirty Years

War in Europe.    In Bishop´s version the Phantom is in a feaver,   and is out of action for a while.    His companion Suran takes an impotant

part in the fight against the bunch of mercenaries, who threat to raid the village.  The story wasn´t very inspiring, but still I enjoyed to draw it.

                           The bunch of mercenaries attacking to the village.                                                               Suran was the real hero in this story.

                                                  JONATHAN  WILD   1 - 2 

   After the story of Bishop I had my hands again one of Claes Reimerthi´s manuscript - two-part story that told exceptionally about a real historical

person.  Jonathan Wild, the most notorious english villain from early 18th Century. He lived a double-life, working as a "thief-catcher" he was actual-

ly a leader of a thief-gang and was hanged for his crimes in 1725 in "Tyburn Tree" ( famous gallows in London during the epoch). From the part of the

story above you can see, that also the Phantom was hanged there.  He survived of course and went after Jonathan Wild, who was responsible of his

threatment as a criminal.  FREW publications were 1433 and 1439.

                                                         THE  SHADOW 

   This Reimerthi´s story happened in Italy, but began in England where the Phantom buried his wife. Mourning deeply he decided to visit the small italian

town, where he spent the honeymoon with his wife.  This story is a bit unusual as a Phantom-story. It is more like a drama with the haunting of Phantom´s

dead wife, and an embittered servant who plans to steal his master´s personality.  He is an adaptation of Stevenson´s Jekyll and Hyde person.

                                                  THE  KING  OF  BEGGARS 

   This Phantom adventure is the 2nd part of the four-parted story about the "Philosopher´s Stone". In this part the Phantom was in 16th Century Paris

struggling against the evil arch-villain of the serie. This man lived centuries using magical powers from  "the stone". I enjoyed drawing miserable beg-

gars and the details and environment of the epoch.  I also illustrated the final part of this serie. It took its place in Tibet during our time.

FREW published this story in the number 1452.

                                                                          MY  SWEDISH  ENEMY 

    "My Swedish Enemy" is the first one of the two stories I have drawn after the manus of scriptwriter Janne Lundström. Both landed for me to handle because the

scripts were written in swedish.  Janne Lundström is a swedish longtime writer, who years ago made many manuscripts for Fantomen magazine, and now suddenly

returned with two scripts. He is also the worst what could happen to a professional artist, because he wants to dictate everything and even bother to make page-

layout for the artist.  Beside that he uses pages which are too crowded with pictures and packs sometimes even 10 pictures in one page.  The normal practice with

the Phantom-page is seven pictures per page.  So I didn´t enjoy very much while working with his two scripts. The presence of the main character, the Phantom, is

not so important in Lundström´s stories. This story concentrates on his son, who is forced to do a man´s work fighting against his enemy.

                                       THE  SECRET  OF  THE  LEECH  POND  

                                                            The malevolent worker of the drug shop used the pond to hide his murdered victims. 

   The original idea of this Phantom adventure came from the brains of Ulf Granberg. The department of Phantom-magazine moved to another address in Stock-

holm by a street called Leechpond Street. There was an old story about that pond and Ulf was enthusiastic to use it in a Phantom story. So Claes Reimerthi was

forced to put together a 18th Century Stockholm-story and involve the mysterious leech pond into the story.  I´m not quite sure if his story was a good, but it was

interesting to draw. I had plenty of referencies from the old Stockholm, because the enthusiastic Ulf Granberg raided all the Stockholm´s museums and librarys.

The result was, as you may guess, that the whole story looked like a historical document of 18th Century Stockholm.  Anyway, I liked to do it...

                                 THE PHANTOM  CRUSADER      parts  1 - 2 - 3 

   The trilogy "The Phantom Crusader" does not tell an adventure of our masked hero, but his ancestor from middle age France, a young

noble who goes to the Holy Land as a crusader to find his father. Still, I believe that these three continuous stories are the very best in my

Phantom career considering the artwork.  The script, a very good one, was written by Claes Reimerthi, and I was very inspired having re-

cently seen Ridley Scott´s movie from the same period.  I was only disappointed that Reimerthi  hadn´t added the two main battles of that

time in his manuscript - The Battle of Hattin and  The Siege of Jerusalem... Anyway, I heard that the trilogy was very popular among the

swedish readers.  The absence of the Phantom didn´t seem to trouble them, as it has troubled the most serious of Phantom fans. The trilo-

gy opened a new idea that the swedish Phantom department had in mind  -  to go further into the past of the Phantom line, mainly to find

one more area to create more stories.  The next of this sort came later  -  The Trilogy of Ancient Rome ( The Phantom Gladiator )...

                                                            THE  CASTAWAYS 

   The second illustration work that I did in Janne Lundström´s manuscript was this "The Castaways"-story.  It was even more workable than 

the previous one. The story told about a long sea journey and I did many pictures of the ships. It was interesting of course, but there was invol-

ved too many people crowded aboard the ship. 

                              Many pictures that I made about the ship were took plenty of time to do.  I was forced to change few things that were

                              not correct in the manus, although Janne Lundström was a specialist in the history of African coast. Here are two life-

                              boats, when the script spoke of only one.  Lundström thought that one lifeboat of the size used in a East Indiaman can

                              take a hundred people.

   The Phantom is not the main character of this Lundström´s story (again).  More important are his 8-years old son and his nurse. The later even

impersonate the Phantom at the end of the story, and there is another person who also do so. 

                      THE  PHANTOM  GLADIATOR     -    The Legends of Rome 

     Claes Reimerthi wrote the second trilogy of the ancient ancestors of the Phantom. This time he choose emperor Nero´s time Rome and created a celt warrior

as the ancestor of Phantom during that time  -  his name is Cernwulf Rover and he fough with the queen Boudicca against the Romans, who  had occupied their

land.  I liked to draw ancient romans, but the story wasn´t as interesting as the previous one about the crusaders.

                  The 1st and 2nd part of this trilogy takes it place in Britannia and Rome, the 3rd one in Mediterranian islands and Palestine.              

   The curiosity with these two Claes Reimerthi´s ancient Phantom ancestors trilogies is that the main character of the Phantom stories -

The Phantom himself wasn´t taking any acting part in the trilogies. He was merely a listener and appeared only in few pictures. This may

cause a disappointment with the fans of the Phantom. Still, the both trilogies are strong enough to entertain readers and I think that it may

be possible to take them as not the Phantom-stories, but just adventures of a french knight and a celtic warrior and the resemblance with

the Phantom is just coincidence, both the masquerade and the ring. I myself took the illustration with these stories that way, and enjoyed

very much handling adventureous work without having the certain rules of Phantom to stiffen my work.  I just wonder whether Claes can

now go further back to history with stories like these. It would be funny to have an ancestor of the Phantom in ancient Egypt or during the

times of the cavemen. But all is possible with the imagination load of the writer.  Anyway, the next story of these Phantom´s ancient an-

cestors is really on it´s way, from the pen of Claes Reimerthi, of course.  This coming trilogy takes its place in the ancient Egypt, as any-

one could expect. It is possible that the artist will be the same as those ancient trilogies before... We´ll see...

                                               THE GOVERNOR AND SCARFACE 

   The Governor and Scarface was a pirate-story from the late 19th Century, taking place at first in England, then in Bengali and on the open

sea outside its coast. The original name for the story was "Unholy Alliance" and that name was used in Swedish print. Because it sound a bit

vague and weak, it was changed in English FREW-print.  The story itself was a real Phantom-adventure and beside the cruel pirates, the go-

vernor of Bengali was involved in the criminal business.

    The story was made by Claes Reimerthi, as almost all historical stories which I had done for a long time. And like them all, also this script rai-

sed my inspiration and it was easy to plunge in the story and into the period where it happened. The Victorian Era has been my favorite among

many other periods of history, maybe one of the best favorites. And, best of all, I had another welcomed opportunity to draw ships again.

                                                    The opponent of the Phantom was a notorious private called Scarface. 

    This Phantom adventure was published by Swedish Egmont in issue 18-19 2010 and by FREW in issue 1578. 

                                                                              The cover of Swedish Fantomen.

                                                                            THE RAHOTEP TRILOGY 

    This trilogy which is taking place in ancient Egypt is the third and presumably the last of Claes Reimerthi´s trilogies in his quest to present the ancient ancestors

 of our present Phantom. The main character is Rahotep, a son of an egyptian judge (although the term "judge" was unknown at the time of egyptian history). He

 is thrown into the middle of the bitter struggle for power in the court of the Pharaoh.  Claes has expectedly choosen the most known period of Akhenaten´s reign

 as the background of his story.  He has also presented in his story a golem-like clay creature, who is woken to life by a mysterious book written by god Thot and

 controlled by the Skull Ring.  Thus Claes goes on in his theory of  Phantom´s Skull Ring History.

                                The clay monster wakes up in the secret vault of the Amun´s temple in Karnak, and is controlled by the Skull Ring !!!

   Beside this curious clay creature this story of Claes has still more curious point, which surely disturbs the most fanatic Phantom-fans. THERE IS  NO

 PHANTOM IN THIS STORY !!!    His only appearance happens on the last page of the last part of the trilogy. For me as an artist of this story that

 has not bothered me. I have handled the illustration work of the script as it´s just a adventure-comic and I have enjoyed to draw the world of the an-

 cient Egypt, although this work has been most demanding in my career as a comic artist.  Somebody could go crazy to draw all the painted walls and

 hieroglyphs in the background of happenings, but it must have been done to make the right effect for the pictures.  Maybe the colorist of this story

 hates me after this, but anyway he (or she) has done a good job in the Fantomen-magazine.  The FREW´s Phantom is publishing the trilogy in black-

 and-white as usual.

                              Akhenaten giving to Nefertiti her famous blue headress and  proclaiming her a coregent of Egypt. 

                                              Rahotep meeting the abomidable clay monster for the first time in the trilogy´s last part. 

                                                                                          The covers of  FREW´s  Phantom 

                                                                                             u-118

    U-118  was a traditional Phantom adventure dealing with pirates, this time at the eve of 20s. The script was done by a Norwegian scriptwriter

living in States, Falco Pellerin ( a pen-name  of Terje Nordberg ).  I had worked only once with his manuscript long time ago , 1985  illustrating his

story Lost on the Phantom Trail and he then used a pen-name Th. Pelerin.   Also that story was place on the same time as U-118, the first during the

Great War and the second right after it.  The fact that the Imperial German Navy submarine U-118 wasn´t an invention of the writer, but a real

unterseeboot of the I WW, made the story more potential.  Terje had changed some details in its history, but the fact that it finally ran aground

on the shore of Hastings was there in the story. 

                         The German submarine was washed aground on the British beach just at the front of Queens Hotel in Hastings April 15th 1919.

                            It was very enjoyable to draw this story. I haven´t drawn submarines since 60s in my handmade magazines before

                            my professional career,  (Clik to see ) but the work with this Terje´s script was in many places quite challenging.

                            The story took it place in 1919, just before the 20s which was a decade from which there are vast abundance of

                            pictures to use referencies.  But 1919 was a different case. And because the sub was a real one and the need

                            of real pictures were mostly about the wreck on the beach, it was not so easy to go on with more detailed pic-

                            tures during the story.  Still it was interesting work and I hope that readers did like it.

                                                       The Phantom entering U-118 to deal with the pirates who had taken it. 

                                                                          The sub after broken from the towing destroyer. 

                                                             Swedish cover made by K.T.Leppänen                         FREW cover made by Antonio Lemos

                                          SAVE  JERUSALEM 

     Claes Reimerthi goes on his historical trilogies of the ancient ancestors of our Phantom. This time he returns the end of his first trilogy of the Crasaders.

 Young Christophe d´Errant is still in the Holy Land and is sent to a mission to Egypt and in this story we return to the temple of crocodile god where we last

 met Rahotep the Egyptian.  And where the hideous clay monster retreated.  This first part ends with the siege of  Jerusalem when Saladin´s army takes the

 the Holy City back to muslims.

                                              Assasins lurking d´Errant on his way to Egypt.                          Finally they arrived to the temple of Sebek.

                                                 When d´Errant returns from his mission the Holy City has fallen  into hands of Saladin.