Mandrake the Magician began as a daily strip on June 11, 1934, and whether Lee Falk knew it as a sophomore at the University of Illinois, he was making history. The daily strip ended after a 79-year run, and the Sunday strip, which started in 1935, ran for 68 years. Any fan of comic strips is almost certainly familiar with Falk’s other creation, The Phantom, which started in 1936 and continues to this day. Mandrake the Magician whisked readers to exotic locales (often fictional amalgams of the Orient, the Middle East, India or Eastern Europe) and immersed them in extended narratives with memorable villains and a colorful support cast. The strips presented in this series of reprints feature two staple characters in addition to the master magician: Lothar and Princess Narda (princess of the mythical European kingdom Cockaigne). Lothar appears within the first few days (June 14, 1934), and Narda is introduced in Mandrake’s second adventure. Narda is similar to Flash Gordon’s Dale Arden: beautiful, constantly in need of rescue, and the love interest of our hero. A Prince of the Seven Nations of Africa, Lothar is Mandrake’s devoted servant, friend and companion. He is, “the strongest man in the world,” and decked out in a fez, shorts, and a leopard shirt. Comics historian Don Markstein commented that, “Some people say Mandrake the Magician... was comics’ first superhero,” and we at Hermes Press couldn’t agree more. Volume four presents: Mandrake in North Africa (September 4 - December 23, 1939); The Mountain Bandits (December 25, 1939 - January 20, 1940); The Museum Mystery (January 22 - May 4, 1940); The Octopus Ring (May 6 - December 21, 1940); and Dr. Griff's Invention (December 23, 1940 - April 5, 1941).
