Phantom-Heft (which translates to Phantom-Notebook) is a comic book series published in Germany by Aller Verlag from April 1952 until April 1955. The Aller Verlang publishing house was established by Walter Lehning Verlag in Hannoversch Münden, Germany in 1946. Over the 3 years that Phantom-Heft was published, 49 editions were released.
The Phantom-Heft series contained various comic book characters, including Blondie, Hopalong Cassidy, Prince Valiant, Mandrake the Magician, Rip Kirby, Felix and more. The Phantom featured heavily in the series, both on the cover and within each comic book.
Each edition contains parts of a story from various comic strip characters. Containing 32 pages in full color, each comic measures 18cm x 25cm.
The comic book numbering system reset each year, starting from number 1 in January. We see 10 editions published in 1952, 26 in 1953, 11 in 1954 and 2 in 1955 (the final year of publication).
1952
1953
1954
1955
The Phantom-Heft series was reprinted between 1993 and 1996, with the reprint series looking extremely similar to the original series from the 1950’s. Look out for the usual ‘aging’ indicators we see with comics from the 1950’s, such as aging staples, page spotting, page discoloration and the comic pages becoming brittle.
Another indictor between these two series (original and reprint) is found on the lower back cover. Where we find the publishers address and copy right information, on the reprint series, we see in red text the wording ‘Sammlerausgabe 1993 Norbert Hethke Verlag’, which translates from German to ‘1993 Collector’s Edition by Norbert Hethke Verlag’. An example is shown below, with the original at the top and the reprint at the bottom.
The Phantom 