Lou Manna is a well know US based artist, with his illustrations commonly appearing in comic books and in our social feeds, a professional artist for almost 40 years.
Lou has a long career within the comic book industry, working for a variety of well known publishing houses including Marvel, DC, Heroic Publishing, Full Mag, Asta and JC Comics on titles such as All Star Squadron, What Ifs, The House of Secrets, The Unexpected, The House of Mystery, Young All Stars, Who’s Who, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, Icicle, Burma Sky, Salem St. James and many more.
Besides his work as an illustrator, Lou has also branched out and worked on other creative projects throughout his career, including Storyboards, Posters, Concepts, Spot Illustrations, Toy Designs, Character Creation and more.
Lou has worked on the Phantom with a variety of publishers, including Moonstone Books in the US, Shakti Comics in India and Frew Publications in Australia. His work on the Phantom has appeared as both comic book cover art and within comic book as comic strip art.
Lou’s work on the cover of Phantom comic books can be seen below (with colors completed by other artists).
Lou’s comic strip art can be found within Moonstone Books, illustrating Phantom comic strips for stories titled ‘The Hunt‘ (a graphic novel published in 2003, story written by Ben Raab) and ‘Valley of the Golden Men‘ (a graphic novel published in 2004, story written by Tom DeFalco).
For Frew Publications, Lou’s Phantom artwork not only appeared on the front covers of editions 1776 and 1777 (as seen above), but he both wrote and illustrated the comic strip story within, a two part story titled ‘Full Circle‘.
A sample of Lou Manna’s art featuring the Phantom can be seen below.
In an interview conducted by Shield G-Man Club Fanzine, Lou Manna is asked about his work on the Phantom:
SGMC: You also worked on the Phantom for Joe Gentile’s Moonstone Publishing. Were you a fan of the Phantom?
Lou: Again, it was Greg Scott, he told me that Moonstone was looking for a Phantom artist and he thought I would be good for it. I did maybe 3 pages of pinups and sent it out to him, he called and offered me a 48-page graphic novel which I drew and inked, He liked it enough to give me another one inked by Art Nichols, the paper they used really muted the colors and a lot of his nice inking got lost in the colors but if you see the black and white art I thought it came out very nice. After that, Moonstone shifted formats and I did not do more for them except for a Phantom variant cover.
SGMC: Did you enjoy your time on the Phantom?
Lou: Yes, very much the first one was written by Ben Rabb, former X-Men writer and producer of Arrow, the second by Tom DeFalco (small world after all). After Moonstone I drew on spec a Phantom 2-part story just to keep myself busy and sharp. Someone saw some of the pages and I got an email from Glenn Ford at Frew in Australia, He asked to see the pages. He liked them and asked if he could buy it and use it in the title overseas. I said sure and reworked a few pages and that was that. I wrote it drew lettered and inked it as well. I did another one for them that they have on file and 3 more in my files in case one day they might see print. Currently, I am working on something Phantom related and we will see where that goes. I also do Phantom Commissions and I put out a Phantom Sketchbook each year as well as some sketch cards and Prints. I really enjoy the character and it has been about 20 years now since I first got involved with working on him on and off.
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