Independent comics publishers G-Man Comics and Sankofa Comics announced two remastered editions of Steve Perrin’s Black Phantom, described at the time as the first African American costumed superhero. Perrin first published the Black Phantom as a text story with incidental art by Ronn Foss in the amateur fan magazine, or “fanzine,” Mask & Cape #4 in the summer of 1964. Two years later, in September 1966, around the time Marvel Comics’ Black Panther first appeared in print, Perrin and Foss retold the Black Phantom’s origin as a 13-page story in another fanzine, Fantasy Illustrated #6.

Not long before his death in August 2021, Perrin met University of California, Riverside professor and Hugo Award-winning artist John Jennings, and the two were planning to revive the character. In the months following Perrin’s death, G-Man Comics Managing Editor Jim Burrows, an admirer of both Perrin and Foss’s work, contacted Jennings to learn whether he planned to continue with the project. The two agreed to republish the original stories and revive the character and his successors for further adventures. This led to the creation of Sankofa Comics and plans to include the remastered origins in G-Man Comics’ next Kickstarter campaign.

G-Man Comics published the origin stories in two editions: a remastered black-and-white 20-page comic and a full-color 24-page comic with added material. Professor Jennings provided a short essay on the Black Phantom’s role in Black comics and created art for both the cover and the Deluxe Color Edition. G-Man Comics artist David Ellis Leary colored the graphic origin and the full-page splash for the text story. The team contacted Perrin’s widow and Foss’s ex-wife and children, and the project received the approval and support of both families.

Both editions were offered as part of G-Man Comics’ Rise of the G-Men Kickstarter campaign, launched March 1, 2022.
View the Rise of the G-Men Kickstarter campaign

G-Man Comics is an independent publisher of comic books and fanzines. It takes its name from its premier character, Agent Simon N. Kirby, a costume-wearing FBI agent who assembles Mission: Impossible-style teams of superheroes in each issue of Simon N. Kirby: The Agent.

Sankofa Comics specializes in reprinting and reimagining characters and stories from comics history. It takes its name from a word in the Twi language of Ghana that is used to describe bringing what is good from the past into the present and using that knowledge to improve the future.