BENGALI Phantom Sunday-Strip Pages(Batch 2)

Enjoy some more of the old unedited Aranayadev aka Phantom sunday pages from the Desh magazine of '80s,and this time starting with the colored sundays! If we compare with the Indrajal's inking with these pages,of course they fell short,and moreover,these are in original format with all of the 8 panels(per sunday) while Indrajal versions were always edited to fit in their restricted page-format!
In this batch,following sundays have been attached:
Indrajal Sundays( #2):

• S122 - Alexander's Diamond Cup
• S124 - The Forest Giants
• S125 - Phantom Head Peak
• S126 - Sunken Treasure
• S130 - The Irrondi and the Great Ones

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BENGALI Phantom Sunday-Strip Pages(Batch 1)

Continuing from the previous post on the Bengali version Phantom's original Sunday pages,from now onwards,I'll keep posting several strip pages published in those two magazines,Desh & Anandamela.
As majority of the Indian Phans are primarily Indrajal fans,so let's split these strips in the three following categories(according to their publication history):

• Indrajal Sundays(upto S133)
• Post-Indrajal Falk Sundays(S134 - S150)
• Post-Falk Sundays(S151 onwards)

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Indrajal Sundays(#1):
Enjoy some of the old unedited b/w sunday pages published way back in '80s and '90s.I've kept the original scans(books are 15-25 years old).More will be added in the upcoming posts,and from the next one,all strips will be colored! :-)
Strips from the following Sundays have been covered in this post....

• S060 - Treasure of the Skull Cave
• S066 - Mystery of Wamba Falls Inn
• S087 - The Massacre
• S115 - Kit and the Little People
• S119 - The Eastern Dark

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Publication History of Phantom & Mandrake Sunday Strips in the BENGALI Newspaper & Magazines

In the previous post,I was talking about the Dailies in the Bengali newspaper.Now,let's talk about the sunday strips of the both Falk heroes.
While Mandrake Sundays were published only in the ABP's newspaper,Phantom Sundays were published in the two magazines,Desh & Anandamela, which are under the same publication house:ABP.
Now first,if we look at the MTM sundays,there's sadly not much infos are available currently.All I can say that those were published in the special ABP sunday-page:Rabibasorio in the b/w format with all 6 panels/strip. I used to read the late '80s Kraken series(specifically from the S158 - Young Prince) and while couldn't follow those regularly,I still remember reading pieces of a story where the first meeting of Mandrake & Lothar was discussed!Only recently I figured out that's from a '95 sunday(S172 - Revolution In Lotharton)[attaching one Swedish strip-page where you can view the sequence of their first meeting!].Soon after few months or so ABP stopped publishing the MTM sunday pages.So might be S172 was the last strip,but not sure!

So,if we summaries....

• Mandrake Sundays(By ABP):
• Year of Publication & Title of the First Strip: The Astro pirates(S099) on probably 1967-8(the earliest know strip at ABP till date..)
• Year of Publication & Title of the Last Strip: On/After '95 & might be Revolution In Lotharton(S172)

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Now,unlike Mandrake,informations regarding the Phantom aka Aranyadev Sundays are pretty rich,specifically those published from the '80s to till date, which covers the last 3 decades! :-) GWW was introduced in the weekly magazine Desh(exact year is not known) and published in the b/w format until '85.Then ABP started publishing those strips in colored version and it should be mentioned that,inking as well as the page quality were really superior.However from '93 Phantom was omitted from Desh and added in the ABP's teen-mag called Anandamela(AM) and that continued till the early part of 2004 when the publisher decided to end the sunday pages.But after 4 years,since 2008, Phantom strips were once again added in the AM and since then our beloved ghost's sunday adventures are regularly appearing in the Bengali version in full-color! :-)
Besides regular issues,some selected sundays (from the various era) were published in the special Annual issue(Sarodiya) of AM,from the '90s to early 2000s.However all strips were in the b/w format,unlike the colored counter-part of the regular issues. [Once again,if any older reader of Desh/ABP paper is reading these posts(this one & the previous),please come forward with any valuable informations you have either here or in the Phorum article!:-)]
So,at a glance:
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• Phantom Sundays(by ABP):
• In the Desh Magazine:
• (Only)Regular Issues:

In my knowledge the earliest available issue carrying the Phantom strips is from the 1984 and since then all the strips between "S118(Mysterious Karapura) to S136(Return of the Thuggees)" were published till Feb/1993. However,the first colored strip was S122(Alexander's Diamond Cup).

• In the Anandamela(AM) Magazine:
• Regular Issues:

From March/1993, strips were uninterruptedly published ,started with "S137(The Fourth Son) to S152(The Shipwreckers)" till 2003.Then finally with the "S157(The Snake Goddess's Island) & S158(Terror in Mawitaan)" publication was temporarily stopped on the Apr/2004(no informations are available for S153,S155 & S156). Then,after four years of without Aranyadev,once again strips are under publication in AM,since Apr/2008,started with "S167(Plutonium Pirates) to currently S172(The Dirty Half Dozen)" on Feb/2011(latest edition).

• Annual(Sarodiya) Issues:

From the '90s to the early 2000s,some selected sunday strips were added in the special annual issues and all were in the b/w format and sometimes bit edited.
The following strips were appeared in the annuals:
"S060(Treasure of the Skull Cave), S066(Mystery of Wamba Falls Inn), S079(The Dolphins), S080(The Beach), S087(The Massacre), S115(Kit and the Little People), S154(The Lion's Head Tamarine) & S159(The Sinbad Stone)".
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Now,for the Indrajal readers & fans,as all of you are very aware that the LAST Sunday strips in the Indrajal was S133(Death from the Sky ;Ijc Vol.26 No.41),so it can be said that the colored & unedited versions of allmost all of the Post-Indrajal strips (from S134 to currently S172) were published(and still under the publication!) only in the Desh & AM mags.
In the next few posts,I'll add few selected pages of the above mentioned strips.

Publication History of Phantom,Mandrake & Rip Kirby Daily Strips in the BENGALI Newspaper

When it comes to comics,Bengali readers have a rich history of both vintage western strips/books as well as own Indian heroes.Now,talking about the most popular western heroes ,specifically those who appeared in the Indrajal universe,the two obvious names are Phantom & Mandrake.In West Bengal,these two Falk-heroes were introduced by the Indian's one of the longest running paper,Ananda Bazar Patrika(ABP).Now in the Bengali version,while they kept the original name of the magician(they called him Jadukar Mandrake),our beloved ghost is known as Aranyadev(means Lord of the Jungle). There's another interesting Indrajal character that ABP introduced was Rip Kirby(aka Goyenda Rip).

I'm in a process to build an index which strips were appeared in ABP and for that I need only the first ever strips they published as whatever they published(or still publishing) are in pretty order of the original sequence.After a brief research,what I learnt that,Daily strips of Phantom(Aranyadev) are under publication since '50s but there's no particular information regarding Mandrake or Rip Kirby.Only thing I can confirm that,since '90s along with Phantom,I was reading Daily strips of Rip and after the end of RK series on 1999,Mandrake Dailies were added in that place(At that time,Mandrake's Sunday strips were published in the special sunday-page called 'Rabibasorio',which I'll come-up with in the next post).
But,which strips were published along with Phantom in the period of '50s to '80s?? Any idea??
If we summaries,it's like as follows:
(For readers' information,ABP publication date always 8-9 months behind of the original KFS date eg. todays'(2-21-2011) published strip is actually from 5-15-2010 and so on.)
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• Phantom Dailies(by ABP):

Year of Publication & Title of the First Strip: Probably in the '50s but title or any exact infos are unknown.
Year of Publication & Title of the Last Strip: Presently active i.e. Feb/2011 & Terror Cells in New York(D229)

• Mandrake Dailies(by ABP):

(First of all,there's some confusion on whether MTM dailies were earlier published,before Rip Kirby)
Year of Publication & Title of the First Strip: Latest batch: March/2000 & Perilous Crossover(D237)
Year of Publication & Title of the Last Strip: Latest Batch: Presently active i.e. Feb/2011 & The Return of Doctor Hi-5(D259)

• Rip Kirby Dailies(by ABP):

Year of Publication & Title of the First Strip: Completely unknown (but obviously from '80s if not earlier!)
Year of Publication & Title of the Last Strip: Feb/2000 & title is unknown.
(However,one can look at the LAST week's worth of Kirby Dailies, from 21-26 June/1999 which were subsequently published in ABP after 8-9 months from the original date.)
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Hopefully some older readers of ABP are reading this article and can come-up with the much needed infos either here or at the phorum article (I've sent few mails to ABP regarding informationsABP persons directly in order to access the old archive).

Now I'm attaching few scans of ABP's current strips.They are publishing colored strips since 2009.(B/W strips I've posted are from 2003 as I luckily got few old papers in my library.)