History of FREW!!
Frew Publications began in 1948 with four men throwing in 500 Australian pounds each, and funding their own publication house. The four founding members were Ron Forsyth, Jim Richardson, Jack Eisen and Peter Watson. The first letter of each man's surname was used to create the company name -- FREW. Unfortunately, before the very first comic was produced, Jack Eisen and Peter Watson withdrew from the company, and Ron Forsyth and Jim Richardson were left to go it alone -- which they did for the next 40 years!

The first comic title picked up by Frew was The Phantom. The Phantom became available as a monthly publication on the understanding that stories published would be well removed from the then current schedule of the Australian Woman's Mirror. Ron and Jim were obviously uncertain of how successful their publication would be because the first two Phantom comics were not numbered.

Through the years FREW has published comic strips in form of books, heavily edited and sometimes censored, but in later years we have seen changes and now FREW is widely known as a reliable source for complete publishing of Phantom classics by Lee Falk!

In November 1981 came a breakthrough -- the publication of the first Swedish-produced Phantom story in Frew's comic book. These stories came from the Semic organization who had faced the same problem of shortage of new stories and who had obtained permission from copyright holders, King Features Syndicate, to write and draw Phantom adventures. Semic began producing their own Phantom stories in 1972, and they had a style quite divorced from the traditional Lee Falk adventures. Most readers of Semic's Phantom comics (Fantomen) were boys in the 12-16 year age group, and these new stories were obviously aimed to please this demographic. The first Semic story run in Frew's Phantom comic, was The Ghost (#730). This was followed with two more stories The Devil's Triangle (#731) and The Man with the White Mask (#732). Frew then sat back for almost a year to await market reaction, before running any more Semic stories.

Today every new Egmont is published in English by FREW!!

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