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Sunday, October 4, 2009

TPH #066: Another Phantom Daily Strip (D-222, The New Recruits)

Another phantom daily strip. This time one created by Tony DePaul and Paul Ryan.

Story:

Jungle Patrol second in command, Colonel Worobu, is facing a unique situation. T wo young ladies from Mawitaan (capital city of Bangalla), tired of their boring routine work life, one working as a policewoman and the other a waitress in a restaurant, want to join the famed organisation, patroling the borders of 7 countries.


The girls are fed up with their current jobs and are in search for some stiff challenges and excitement in their lives. The two happened to be friends of Diana, from whom they get to know about the strange history of the only guarding unit of 1000 miles spreading jungle.
The work as a jungle patrolperson would not be easy, Diana warns, only the best from the world over are selected for the job. Besides, there are no woman in the patrol, only a hundred something young and lonely cadets. The expression on the faces of ladies says it all. :-) They waste no time in packing their bags and head for the Jungle Patrol headquarters

They reach the headquarters. Colonel is not particularly interested in giving them an appointment letter right away, but the girls are stubborn and well determined to get the job. They offer to show their capabilities to Colonel by catching a notorious arms dealer whose picture is hanging on the wanted display board of JP. Colonel cannot deny them an opportunity as he wouldn't want to be tagged as biased against women. So he agrees to this, understanding that the person is no more in Bangalla. "Dreamers", he pronounce them, but isn't he mistaken here?

The girls are intelligent. They have not selected their target (arms dealer) just on random basis, instead the cop girl has some idea about the man. But being courageous is not enough to catch a notorious criminal.

Phantom is impressed by the brave and fearless duo and decides to follow them doing their effort and also help them at occasions. A recommendation from the unknown commander is worth recognition for the good colonel, at last.

The dreamers are successful, but a new dream is opening its wings. Now a part of the organisation, they want to unearth the mysterious supreme commander. A task even more difficult, Diana has to keep herself cool on the thought. :-)

I'd say:

The plot is original in that never before this, the question of woman longing to be a part of the jungle patrol has surfaced. Credit should be given to the writers to work on such lines. Phantom shadows the two enthusiasts throughout their adventure and help them when needed. In this way it is one of those tales where he works behind the cover. Suitable for his mysterious identity.

What attracted me at the first glance is the very different coloring style in this strip. The white has been used superbly. Dark objects against utlra light background bulge out nicely.

One of the deviations from Falk is seen in the story. The face of phantom is shown without any coverings (ignoring the sunglasses). Something which the artists of Falk's original teams always avoided.




Sometime ago, I had expressed my disappointment that mediafire is no longer displaying the number of downloads in free accounts. It seems that they have succumbed to the pressure from the users and now the feature has been restored. :-)

So mediafire zindabad.

4 comments:

  1. "The New Recruits" not available at the given link.

    ReplyDelete
  2. @ hrishikes: seems to be temporary problem. many downloads already done from same link. if trouble persists, will upload again. thanks for informing.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thank u, I got it after many trials.

    ReplyDelete
  4. @hrishikes: Welcome. There was some problem with this particular server of mediafire (where this file is residing). Now its working fine since yesterday. Thanks for taking time and conveying the message.

    ReplyDelete