Mustanaamio

    (Semic, 1966-1998)

Mustanaamio literally “The Black Mask” was Finland’s long-running comic book series dedicated to Lee Falk’s The Phantom, published from 1966 to 1998 by Semic Press Oy. The magazine became one of Finland’s most iconic adventure titles, releasing over 700 issues during this period. It featured a mix of classic American Phantom newspaper strips, Swedish Fantomen stories, and eventually original Nordic-produced adventures. Printed in a 17×25.5 cm magazine format, the series delivered serialized jungle action, crime-fighting, and mythic lore surrounding the 21st Phantom, a masked hero believed by his enemies to be immortal.

Throughout the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, Mustanaamio evolved into a cultural institution, shaping Finland’s adventure comic landscape. By the 1990s, the magazine increasingly shared content with Sweden’s Fantomen and Norway’s Fantomet, reflecting a coordinated Nordic production pipeline. Despite declining publication frequency in the late 1990s, the series maintained a loyal readership and transitioned smoothly into a new numbering run under Egmont in 1998. For Finnish readers, Mustanaamio wasn’t just a translation, it was the definitive Phantom experience, blending international storytelling with a distinctly Nordic editorial voice.
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