Fantom-Hefte (which translates to ‘Phantom-Booklet’) is a comic book series published in Norway by Allers Forlag from 1952 thru until 1954. 20 editions were published containing a mix of comic book characters per edition, including Flash Gordon, Felix The Cat, Blondie, Mandrake the Magician, Prince Valiant, Rip Kirby and more.
The 5th edition in the series has a combined edition number of 5-6, so although we see an edition number 21, only 20 comic books make up the series.
Aller Press A/S was established by Carl Aller and his wife Laura Aller in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1873 as a publishing house. In the 1890s, Aller Press branched out to neighboring Nordic counties, Sweden and Norway, then to Finland in 1992.
It mainly published weekly lifestyle magazines, which also reported on celebrities and the royal family. Up to 34 magazine titles are published per month, with the standout being ‘Allers’, a woman’s lifestyle magazine.
Allers magazine started off under the title of ‘Illustreret Familie-Journal’ in Denmark in 1877. Although the title of the magazine changed over the years, to ‘Allers Family Journal’ then simply ‘Allers’, it was groundbreaking at the time as it introduced crosswords and comic strips into the magazine. Allers magazine is still in circulation in Norway, the longest running magazine published in the region.
In 2009, Aller Press A/S changed it’s name to Aller Media A/S, however it published under a variety of names since it was established in 1873, including Carl Allers Etablissement, Aller Press and Allers Forlag.
Aller Media A/S is still active to this day in the Nordic region of Europe, not only releasing new publications into new genres, but also buy other publishing houses and magazine titles.
Fantom-Hefte also featured the Phantom, appearing within 12 (edition numbers 1, 2, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 14, 17, 19, 20 and 21) of the 20 comic books. He is found on all 20 covers, either as a full page illustration or a profile image. The Phantom is published under his Norwegian title of Fantomet.
Fantom-Hefte are published in full color containing 32 pages and measure 18.7cm x 25.4cm. All text found in the comic books is in Norwegian. All 20 editions in the series can be seen below.
In 2009, Egmont Serieforlaget A/S, the Fantomet comic book publisher in Norway at the time, republished the Fantom-Hefte comic book series. Released over 3 album style hardcover comic books, the first 2 editions contain 240 pages with the third edition containing 208 pages all in full color, measuring 19.5cm x 26.6cm. The 3 albums can be seen below, with a ‘distressed ledger’ looking cover created by Egmont Serieforlaget A/S.
Fantomet edition number 7-8 published in 2010 contains an advertisement for the album series on the outside back cover. The 3 albums were either sold individually, or as a bundle of all 3 albums. As can be seen in the advertisement below, when sold as a bundle, a custom storage slip case was provided for the albums.
The cover illustration for the storage slip case can be seen below.
The Phantom 