Graduate Student, Department of English, Communications and Performance Studies
PhD Candidate
School of English, Communications and Performance Studies
Thesis Title: The Ghost Who Walks: A Cultural History of The Phantom Comic Book in Australia, India and Sweden
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Dr. Simone Murray (2010-2011)
Dr. Andy Ruddock (2012) |
About
The Phantom, conceived as a newspaper comic strip in 1936, was the forerunner of the comic book superhero genre that today underpins vast, multi-billion dollar franchises that span publishing, audio-visual entertainment and licensed merchandise.
Yet despite the character’s American provenance, The Phantom has enjoyed consistently greater popularity amongst international audiences, most notably in Australia, India and Sweden. The paradox of The Phantom, whereby its domestic commercial failure in the US was offset by its phenomenal success in these culturally distinct foreign markets, forms the basis for a fascinating case study that can provide fresh insights into the production, dissemination and consumption of popular media.
Charting the publication of The Phantom comic book across international markets since the mid-1930s creates an opportunity for delving into the largely unexplored ‘pre-history’ of modern media licensing industries. Examining the myriad political, economic and temporal factors that have influenced The Phantom’s popularity in Australia, India and Sweden will provide a more nuanced means for studying the complex cultural flow of media properties.
Surveying attitudes towards The Phantom amongst Australian, Indian and Swedish audiences brings a new, non-English-speaking dimension to the study of comic fandom that will enrich the existing body of audience reception literature, which, to date, has been confined to a largely Anglo-American focus.
By intertwining critical political economy with media history, coupled with the use of audience studies and textual analysis, the cultural history of The Phantom comic book in Australia, India and Sweden adopts theoretical frameworks and methodologies rarely brought to bear in the study of comic books, in the hopes of demonstrating a more varied, critical approach to the burgeoning field of comics’ studies.
