You can never keep a good Phantom down. Lon Chaney’s iconic character from Phantom of the Opera is returning right in time for the official launch of Spooky Season, this time as a monstrous hardcover graphic novel from Legendary Comics. Now live on Kickstarter, the graphic novel is around 120 pages and features Chaney’s likeness as the horror stalwart.
It’s similar to the publisher’s arrangements with the Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff estates with their previous Dracula and Frankenstein entries. Since Universal has an active publishing deal with Skybound for its wildly popular Universal Monsters comics, Legendary has gotten creative with its releases. For this particular horror line, Legendary has made stories with public domain characters, giving them entirely new looks featuring the likeness of the actors who played the characters in live-action.
Ron Chaney, great-grandson of Lon and boss of Chaney Entertainment, says there’s just one man who should play the Phantom.
“I’m elated to be working with Legendary Comics on Gaston Leroux’s adaptation of “The Phantom of the Opera” graphic novel. I can’t imagine anyone but Lon Chaney’s personification of the Phantom. It’s perfect.”
Robert Napton, publisher of Legendary Comics — the publishing arm of Legendary Entertainment (Godzilla, Dune) — echoed the sentiment.
“The opportunity to celebrate 100 years of Lon Chaney as the Phantom of the Opera is a dream project. Chaney is the iconic Phantom, and a century on, his performance has never been rivaled. We are excited to bring him back in this new graphic novel adaptation of Leroux’s masterwork.”
With art by El Garing, Phantom of the Opera is currently funding on Kickstarter for its initial push to market before going through more traditional book and direct market channels. Although the covers will remain the same between releases, the Kickstarter includes several exclusives, including a reprinting of the original Phantom movie program and a replica copy of the first script draft of the movie itself.
It’s now funding through October 15th and as of this writing, has raised just over half of its $70,000 goal.
No mention of anyone on the creative team? It’s around 120 pages and spontaneously generated?
It’s been updated with the artist.
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