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In the beginning...
Frew was initially set up by four Sydney businessmen, Ron Forsyth, Jim Richardson, Jack Eisen and John Watson, who were interested in joining the booming comic book industry.  The word 'Frew' was created using the first letter of the surnames of these founding members although Eisen and Watson withdrew from the partnership well before business began.

Because the Phantom comic strip was still running in the Australian Woman's Mirror magazine and Phantom annuals, Frew was instructed to avoid duplication of those stories published by the Mirror.  Therefore Frew started with 'The Slave Traders' (Lee Falk's 9th daily story) which was released by Frew on September 9th, 1948.

Before television was introduced in Australia in 1958, comics were one of the main types of entertainment, especially for children.  This is one of the main reasons why the first Frew Phantom issue had a sell out of at least 50,000 issues and within twelve months, sales rose to almost 80,000.

To indicate the Phantom comic book was a relatively new product, newspaper advertising guru, Ron Forsyth decided to run the first issue under the title of 'Enter the Phantom'.  For some unknown reason, many other story titles were changed from the official Lee Falk story title, even up until the late 1980s.  Every effort is now used to publish these stories in their entirety and under the correct title.

Other Titles
After the initial success of the Phantom comic book, Frew began publishing other comic strips including 'Popeye' and the Australian created comic, 'Phantom Ranger'.

The Phantom comic strips were also being published in Frew's Giant Size Phantom and Super Yank comic books.  Three of Lee Falk's Phantom stories were also adapted into prose-type stories appearing in The Phantom Adventures. It appears that more recently, Frew decided to drop these other characters and comic books (perhaps due to costs and a drop in readers due to television) and continued with the Phantom.  Although, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Frew published a small run of larger		Frew Mandrake no. 9
sized Mandrake comic books - reprinting original Lee Falk/Phil Davis stories.

The Non-Falk Era
In November 1978, Frew published their first non-Lee Falk story, 'The Ghost' (issue no. 730).  This signified a new era of Scandinavian stories which became more popular as time went on.  The next European story, 'The Tiger from Rangoon' appeared in Frew issue no. 763 which was released in January 1983.  From that point (and continuing to this day) Frew regularly published Scandinavian stories.

Then finally the day came, the first fully Australian Phantom adventure was printed.  'Rumble in the Jungle' (written by Jim Shepherd with art by Keith Chatto) appeared in Frew issue no. 951A in 1990.  Since then, there have been three more Australian created stories:  'The Return of the Singh Brotherhood', 'The Kings Cross Connection' (both by Shepherd and Chatto) and 'The Search for Byron' (by Jim Shepherd and Glenn Ford).

Milestones
In 1991, Frew released their 1,000th issue, although the issue was printed as number 972!  This was because of the number of 'A' and to a lesser extent 'B' issues; and the fact that one issue was 'missing'.  This 300+ page issue was accompanied by a replica of Frew issue no. 1 (which was an instant hit and is now being sought after by collectors).

On year later, issue no. 1000 (confusing isn't it) was released.  This issue featured a fantastic cover by Glenn Ford which was the first computer art Phantom cover in the world.  This kind of artwork was also used for the cover of Frew issue no. 1041, 'The Phantom Goes to War'.

More recently, Frew reached their 50th anniversary - a milestone for any comic publisher.  With this, Frew released a 212 page comic (with cover art by Glenn Ford based on the 'Slam Evil' pose made famous by Billy Zane) and a reference guide to Frew's 50 years of Phantom comics.  Although this issue was only released on September 9th, 1998, it is sought after by collectors worldwide.

Lee Falk, Jim Shepherd, Judith Shepherd & Billy Zane on the set of the Phantom movie

The Future
At the present time, Frew is still going strong, distributing their Phantom comics (now in the 1200s) mainly to Australia and New Zealand, but also to America, Europe and parts of Asia.

If all goes according to plan, the 2,000th issue will be released somewhere around 2023.  Hopefully most of us will still be around to witness this almost unimaginable event.

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Thanks to Frew Publications

The Phantom � ™ 1999 King Features Syndicate Inc.
Last Updated:  October 10th, 1999.