September 27-28 - 2003
Meeting in Gothenburg coinsiding with the comicfair.
With: Patron Ulf Granberg

 

Fourteenth Event
September 27-28 2003
With Club Patron Ulf Granberg.

Attending members: Brian Jensen, Torbjörn Onegård, Jan-Ola Sjöberg, Bo Engberg, Björn Harnby, Andreas Eriksson, Ulf Benetter, Magnus Eriksson, Simon Treschow, Björn Ekman, Lars-Olof Hansson, Per Gudiksen, Seved Malm, Pierre Sund, Henrik Bengtsson, Mikael Lyck, Ulrik Lundin, Per-Åke Sjögren, Susanne Johansson, Daniel Lekman and Johan Ekman.
 

Once a year there is a book and comic fair in Gothenburg and were there are comics, especially Phantom comics, you could be quite sure there are members of The Scandinavian Chapter of the Lee Falk Memorial Explorers Club around! So early Saturday morning the jungle express, in form of a train from Stockholm, started with some members of the Scandinavian Chapter on board, all of them full of expectations. Member Per Gudiksen joined us on the way but the train was so crowded that we couldn’t sit together. Mickael Lyck who travelled without a seat reservation had to jump around a bit.

When we arrived to Gothenburg we was a little bit in a hurry but without getting lost we found our way thru the town to Hotel Aveny Turist where the meeting soon was about to start with members from all over Sweden, from the north to the south, and from Denmark, long time member but first time on a meeting, Simon Treschow.

The meeting started and as usual all members and attending guest introduced themselves and those who had brought something from there own collections showed it to the rest. Some members even told a fascinating story about their object. Ice cream paper from Australia, socks and Phantom comics from all over the world were presented. Pierre Sund that resently came home from Spain showed us some books that he brought from there and Björn Harnby had a plastic Action Man - Phantom model from the sixties. Before he also had the companion piece, a plastic medicine man but that one had melted when the models was standing to close to a lamp! Obviously the Phantom is unmeltable?!

Some great sketches drawn by artist Sy Barry and given to Brian was the prices in a lottery for attending members only. The first price was even colored by Mr. Barry. The winner of this piece was Susanne Johansson. The next event at the meeting was the goodiebag. We all knew that it would contain something extra so the excitement increased with the temperature in the room the minutes before the bag was delivered. The big surprise was the first part in a series of Phantom DVDs and the latest number of the American fanzine Friends of the Phantom!

After the bag the discussion went on about the finances in the club and how to make more members come to the meetings. The discussion went on until editor Ulf Granberg arrived and told us about the future of the Phantom magazine and a bit of the latest editor turbulence. We all gave him ideas of what new comics we want to read along with the Phantom in the magazine and what comics we don`t want to read.

The meeting could have went on forever if we didn’t had to go to the restaurant where tables was waiting for us. More members than expected went on to a common dinner so we all couldn’t sit together but all got a seat anyway even thou the restaurant was full. A huge surprise and compliment to us was that Ulf Granberg joined us even thou he had other plans. After the restaurant the trip went on to a bar nearby for further phantom talk. We also managed to persuade Ulf Granberg to join us even to the bar, he apparently like our company! The door guard, who was a Donald Duck fan and quite soon understood we wasn't duckies, did let us in anyway. The hour’s rushed by and Jan-Ola managed to disappear somewhere between our table and the toilet. When he safely had returned we decided to go back to the hotel. Before bedtime some midnight trading took place. It´s never to late to buy new Phantom magazines!

The Sunday morning started with a great breakfast and some of the members who stayed at the hotel went away home to Björn Harnby who invited Scandinavian Chapter to see his collection while the others went to visit the book and comic fair that had a comic Sunday along with all the books.

It was Mickael Lyck, Torbjörn Onegård and Seved Malm who decided to go to Björn. It's very fun and interesting to se other people’s collections, almost everybody has different approach to collecting. There is so much more to collect than just the comic magazine and that was something that was even clearer after the visit at Björns place. It was a great occasion to step into Björns office and see the multitude of magazines, books and figures. Some of the highlights were a handmade Phantom figure from Bali and an original strip by Wilson McCoy. The time was to short to see more than a tiny part of all the magazines, books, trading cards, poster’s and signed drawings he has.
Big thanks to Björn who invited us to see his collection

After the visit in Västra Frölunda the trip went on to a nostalgia fair in Eriksberg. It was quite exiting to walk thru the fair that was dominated by old toys and model railways. Not as much comics and even less with phantom related objects but definitely worth a visit.

The first stop at the book and comic fair was the Egmont stand where, as usually, one of the new phantom books where sold out but a couple of other books where added to the collection anyway. Busy visiting all other comic related stands we nearly forgot to see the presentation of the Adamsson award that this year went to Martin Kellerman for his comic Rocky. Chris Ware got the price for foreign comic artists and Peter Nilsson got the journalist diploma. The radio profile Kjell Alinge was awarded for »bringing carton expression into radio language«.

After the award-ceremony we went around on the fair shopping, mostly comics, and collecting autographs among others by Claes Reimerthi who signed our new Phantom books. We got a lot of exercise walking between the comic stands and the scene with comic related seminars in the other end of the building!! Lise Myhre, with here comic Nemi, seemed to be the most popular artist attending. Her seminar was more crowded than the award-ceremony and the queue to her signing desk was enormous but if you had the patience to wait you could get her autograph too.

At the Egmont stand we met the pop artist/ actor/ writer Niklas Wahlgren signing books for children with Phantom rings on his fingers. He had not put the scull ring on the wrong hand he is left-handed! He told us he’s a big fan of the Phantom and that he always tries to put a Phantom picture in his books. We all hope that he soon will be a member of the Scandinavian Chapter. A press photographer from Aftonbladet saw all our beautiful caps and took some pictures but unfortunately it didn’t make the paper.

Brian told us the news that Bulls Press sold phantom printing plates and with help of Mickael Lyck we found our way to there stand. Other members’ followed and faster than anyone can say Lamanda Luaga, Bulls had sold a lot of printing plates…

The clock was ticking and some of us had to rush away to take care of our trip back to Stockholm. After a short stop at the Bandar Burger Bar we had six hours in a buss to spend. Luckily we had a lot to read!

Magnus Eriksson #14 (with help of Seved Malm #32)