"Fantom, Yu Pren Tru Bilong Mi"

A comic strip becomes a hot issue in the jungle

The spear-carrying tribesmen of Papua New Guinea—homeland of the cargo cults and of islanders who once regarded L.B.J. as a demigod—have a new Western hero to worship. No, not the Fonz or Jimmy Carter, but the masked comic-strip marvel who lives in the Skull Cave of Bangalla—namely, the Phantom.

Every Friday thousands of natives stream out of the jungle to buy copies of Wantok (literally, "One Talk," but meaning people who speak the same language), a weekly publication in pidgin distributed by Papua New Guinea's Protestant and Catholic churches. Until 1972, many of the natives bought such publications only for the paper, which they used to roll their pungent plug tobacco. But then Wantok began carrying the adventures of the Phantom translated into pidgin. (Sample dialogue: "Fantom, yu pren tru bilong mi. Inap yu ken helpim mi nau?" Meaning: "Phantom, you are a true friend of mine. Are you able to help me now?") Circulation of the paper began to climb. Illiterates bought their copies and then waited patiently for public readings of their hero's latest adventure. Taking advantage of the strip's popularity, the government hung posters of the Phantom in villages to drive home its pleas for tooth-brushing and the substitution of protein-rich peanuts for starch in diets (the natives swiped the posters for the walls of their huts).

Why has the Phantom caught on with the Papua New Guineans? Answers Alan Spanos, a former government nutritionist: "He succeeds here because his image strikes deep chords. He is big and strong and white, like the much-admired and envied Europeans. He is generous and fair and helps the weak, like the government in the colonial era. He has magical powers and is solitary and of mysterious origin, so he may well be really a returned ancestor."

The natives may have to do without their favorite unless a dispute over syndication rights to the strip is resolved. Local rights to The Phantom have long been owned by the nation's sole daily newspaper, the Post-Courier, which publishes The Phantom in English, not pidgin. This summer, after the fast-growing Wantok moved to a new and larger plant, the Australian-owned Post-Courier decided to assert its exclusive right to the comic strip, and the local distributor pulled The Phantom from Wan-tok. Says Father Frank Mihalic, editor of Wantok: "I don't see any conflict with the Post-Courier. Because of translation problems, we're always behind them." In Australia, the Religious Press Association charged the affair was "one more tragedy to add to Australia's use of post-colonial stewardship," and appealed on behalf of Wantok to Foreign Minister Andrew Peacock. He eventually decided that a comic strip did not justify Australia's intervention in another country's internal affairs.