Garzanti Editore S.p.A.

The L’Uomo Mascherato comic books were published by Garzanti Editore S.p.A. in Italy from 1971 thru till 1974. The series contains 2 hardcover books which were released with a gloss finish dust jacket, featuring comic strip stories written by Lee Falk and illustrated by Ray Moore.

Garzanti Editore S.p.A. was established by Aldo Garzanti in Milan, Italy in 1936 following the acquisition of the publishing house Fratelli Treves Editori. Fratelli Treves Editori was established by Emilio Treves in Milan, Italy in 1879.

Garzanti Editore S.p.A. published an array of book themes, including dictionaries, poetry, encyclopedias, fiction, reference, textbooks, essays and more, written by both international and local authors. They also published the weekly L’Illustrazione Italiana magazine covering culture, politics and social life at the time, a popular magazine published from 1873 thru till 1962.

In 1995 Garzanti Editore S.p.A. was acquired by Unione Tipografico-Editrice Torinese, which would merge with the De Agostini Group in 2002.

The L’Uomo Mascherato hardcover comic books are published in landscape format containing 172 black and white pages measuring 36cm x 29cm in Italian text.

The first edition released in November 1971 contains the Phantom stories ‘The Singh Brotherhood’, ‘The Sky Band’ and ‘The Prisoner of the Himalayas’ whilst the second edition released in September 1974 contains Phantom stories ‘War in the Jungle’, ‘Little Toma’, ‘Adventure in Algiers’, ‘The Shark’s Nest’ and ‘Fishers of Pearls’, all written by Lee Falk and illustrated by Ray Moore.

Both editions can be seen below, with cover art by Ray Moore, edition number 1 seen on the left and edition number 2 seen on the right. The back of the duct jackets are void of illustrations or text, white in color.