• "The Curse of Djudju" - story by Claes Reimerthi and art by Felmang.

In this issue, our new adventure reunites us with the ‘Jungle Vampire’, otherwise known as the centuries-old Roman soldier, General Vladius. For those who just came in, General Vladius was introduced in Frew No 1625 published in February of this year. He was discovered by a previous Phantom to be living in a suspended state of life in a previously unexplored part of the Skull Cave.

In The Curse of Djudju, you are about to find out why and how General Vladius came to be sentenced to such an ‘existence’, why he is a vampire and most importantly, who was responsible for such a living death upon him. Enter Djudju, the jungle sorcerer (witch doctor if you prefer), who like Vladius, dates back to a time before the first Phantom and who came up with the fiendish idea.

Written by Claes Reimerthi and illustrated by Felmang and his speciality inking colleague Ferri, The Curse of Djudju is a riveting story! It falls into an unique Phantom adventure category somewhere between history and fantasy, a speciality area in which Reimerthi excels and a theme he obviously loves exploring and developing. Now for a confession…I decided to add a few continuity pointers to the original text used by our Scandinavian publishing colleagues.

Nothing too dramatic I hasten to add, but when helping translate the Swedish script to English, it struck me that a few panels jumped from the present time to centuries ago without warning. Hence, you will find a number of my additions to the original script—just to remind readers about time leaps. The striking covers for this edition have been rendered by Antonio Lemos. At the end of this story you may find yourself pondering whether Vladius will return, perhaps in some spirit form and for that matter, whether we have seen the last of Djudju the sorcerer.