December 1 - 2001
Meeting and fieldtrip at Egmont. At Egmont we met new editor Michael Jaatinen. At the dinner we where joined by cover artist Rolf Gohs and Patron Ulf Granberg.

Sixth Event

December 1 2001

With Rolf Gohs, Michael Jaatinen and Ulf Granberg

 

Michael JaatinenAs it have become a tradition the SC members gathered at the entrance of Brunnsgatan 6-8 home of the Egmont office. The doorbell needed a bit of coaxing but once we got the hang of it Michael Jaatinen editor since august 2001 let us in. Once rid of our coats, gloves etc, it was a cold day in December! We went on a guided tour by Michael trough the offices of Egmont. Interestingly most of the offices had some kind of Phantom art and or memorabilia on the walls even those where no Phantom work are done. To the right a picture fromGranberg with a little artistic license from Hans Lindahl Mr- Granbergs office where in deed a lot of Phantom work is done! One of the most appreciated sights by our members is a huge glass cabinet filed to the brim with Phantom memorabilia. Even objects not produced by Egmont have found its way to that cabinet.
The very tasty Fantomen cakeHalfway trough the tour we where, also tradition, treated to a piece of cake. The cake of course has the stripes recognized from the Phantom’s pants and is crowned with a huge scull mark in marzipan. I tell you it is delicious! As there where many new faces Bosse and I now decided it would be a good idea if we all introduced ourselves to each other. Previous years there unfortunately hasn’t been time to this so it was real nice to get to know the fellow members much better this time. When all of us, including Michael, had told our little story’s about where we live, work and how we started to collect the Phantom, collection goals etc. I told the others about the start of the Scandinavian Chapter, how it’s organized, the goodiebag, how we elect Honorary members etc. It felt real good that we had the time to do this, as it is my hope that this will be a good bases for more active members i.e. a more enjoyable chapter. It was probably also good that Michael heard it as his understanding of the chapter and how we can help one and another now is much better. In future we will try plan it so that these introductions if necessary will be a regular feature. Once all of this where done it was time to go upstairs, which is where must of the work with the Phantom magazine is done.

Sneak preview of the new layoutWhen all of us had made the climb we where told by Michael that in issue 3/2001 there will be a feature on the Scandinavian Chapter! We where also invited to see designs on upcoming issues, the artwork for the covers to issues 5 and 6 2002. Here we got a little scoop (and the permission to tell it), from issue 1/2002 the whole design of the magazine will be different, and a more consistent feel to the design of the editorial pages will be implemented. For example will all headlines such as “Fantomen talar” now have a variation of the classical “striped triangle design”. Here Michael also spoke of the hardship of being the editor, the questions to “Fantomen talar” is tough! As Michael is roughly my age it was fun to hear that he uses the same method as I when in search of an answer, the Internet! He spoke with joy about an incident when he needed an index of all the Falk stories and when asking around the office for oneGohs cover he mostly got “I think there’s an old typed one somewhere” not real satisfied whit that he turned to the net and got one done and ready and fully up to speed! Personal friendship forbids my to plug the site where he found what he wanted but which one do you think it is? We had a great time exploring the art in Ulf Granbergs office; we even found a huge stack of old and new cover artwork in someone’s bookcase. It was fun to realize that for the one sitting there it was a pile of work to be done, for us it was a treasure! The time always flies on these fieldtrips and Bosse and I now had to take the subway to the restaurant to meet up with our special guest Rolf Gohs, the others would meet up with us there a little later.

 

Rolf GohsWe meet up with Mr. Gohs as agreed outside the restaurant and when we got inside we to our surprise found out that the private room we had booked now was filled with a wedding party! We had gotten the same raw deal from the restaurant last year so we had made all kinds of precautions, we had the private room booking confirmed at several occasions, the last to days ahead of our dinner! Deeply unsatisfied with our seating arrangement in narrow alcove right next to the cloakroom with guest constantly checking in there coats and not more than ten meters from the bar and directly under a speaker dishing out Italian love songs, yours truly had a bit of a tantrum! In the end the only think we could do was to take our places and try to make the most of it, the only consession made was that the music where turned down a bit. We tried our best to have a good and rewarding dinner with good discussions and judging from the e-mails I got after the dinner we succeeded! Ulf was his usual jovial self always willing to discuss the future of the magazine and ideas for future releases. For Mr. Gohs it was the first time but he seamed to like to discuss his work with a room full of fans and graciously agreed to sign anything we put in front him. We could however see that he sometime had a hard time to find a good spot for his autograph, he is a perfectionist!

Seved Malm, Martin Dahlström, Michael Jaatinen and Ulf Bennetter


It was with deep regret that the evening wasn’t longer when we after about 5 hours disbanded to go home. Here a thought goes out to Seved Malm from Kristianstad, he indeed had a bit of travelling ahead of him! Kristianstad isn’t exactly within spitting distance from Stockholm, pardon my expression!

Date and place for our next dinner is at writing moment not decided but I hope to see all of you and more at that time!

Best regards
Brian
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