November 30 - 2002
Meeting with guided tour of Egmonts new offices.
With: Janne Lundström and Magnus Knutsson

 

Tenth Event
November 30 2002 Stockholm
With Patron Ulf Granberg, Honorary members Mikael Jaatinen,
Janne Lundström, Magnus Knutsson, Hans Lindahl and
special friend Stefan Nagy


Attending members: Brian Jensen, Torbjörn Onegård, Jan-Ola Sjöberg, Bo Engberg, Bo Larsson, Ulf Benetter, Magnus Eriksson, Thomas Dufström, John M Pettersson, Christer Borg, Per Gudiksen, Rolf Svensson, Don Dahlgren, Patrik Axelsson, Henrik Bengtsson, Tommy Dahl, Mikael Lyck, Niklas Egeltun, Ulrik Lundin, Karin Gustavsson, Peter Gustavsson, Magnus Sondal, Per-Åke Sjögren, Lars Fagerstedt, Dick Ander and Krister Isberg.

For the third time in a row the meeting of the Scandinavian chapter broke the attendance record! This time we were 26 members, four honorary members, one special friend and our club patron attending. Members from all over Sweden were there and with member Krister Isberg from Finland attending this was our second real Scandinavian event. (The first was event 9 were Honorary member Knut Westad attended.)

We started before lunch at the Comic gallery and while the members was dropping in those who already arrived was quite busy looking at all the original drawings that was showed. You could see drawing and sketches from Nemi, Valhalla, Donald Duck, Herman Hedning and many, many more comics. One of them of course was the Phantom. Especially Felmang was well represented, both with sketches and inked drawings. Also pages by phantom artist Kari Leppänen were showed and sold. I don’t think even Brian knows how he did it but he managed to get us a pretty big discount on all that the chapter members bought that day!

Around 12 we left the gallery and were told to be at Egmont one hour later. We all knew that phantom author Magnus Knutsson were going to visit us at Egmont but some of us had not been able to bring anything to get signed. There was only one thing to do! Visit the nearby comic store and buy some Phantom magazines from the seventies with stories written by him.

After a short but pleasant lunch with some fellow members we all met up at Egmont and those members who hadn’t been with us earlier joined us here. Ulf Granberg welcomed us and told us about his history in comic publishing and we where able to se their brand new office.

Brian and Bosse showed us the plaque with all the names of all the members who had helped the Scandinavian chapter to buy an exclusive, and probably the only existing, mask from the fifties. It is supposed to be kept in the Phantomania display case at Egmont.

After this we all sat down in their lunchroom and everybody introduced themselves and those who had showed exclusive or just personal phantom things as it have become tradition in the chapter. Everything from »my first Phantom magazine« to a pen with a glowing skull and phantom art were among the things members wanted to show and all the time Ulf Granberg could tell fascinating stories about a magazine or an enclosure (“Hemliga sidor”) that the editor newer dared to tell Lee Falk they had published. It is simply amazing how much Mr. Granberg can tell and how much he can remember from the Scandinavian Phantom production!
After Magnus Knutsson got his diploma as an honorary member we all moved on to the conference room were he told us about his background and his work with comics. He also spoke about the most important parts in a hero story and similarity of all super heroes. Later Janne Lundström showed up and he told us all about his work with comics and how some of the editorial work was done in the seventies. He also red an example from one of his scripts.

The next event of the meeting was an auction of an original Phantom page by Kari Leppänen. After an exiting battle it finally was Patrik Axelsson who bought the treasure.

Even though we had a lot of time it felt like the time was going all to fast and around eight we all went to a nearby restaurant. There a secret guest was waiting and yes, it was long time phantom artist Hans Lindahl! He kindly answered all our questions and did not mind at all to sign all those chronicles that Brian and Bosse had brought so everybody at the dinner could get his autograph.

Once again it felt like the time went faster than it usually does and finally it was just a few of us left talking about the future of the Phantom with editor Mikael Jaatinen until at least I was tired and hardly could keep my eyes open after thirteen hours of phantom event!

Magnus Eriksson
Member 14