so why is The Phantom not popular in America?

He's most popular in Australia (being its highest selling comic book).
I think him being in black and white and the fact that in America Superman, Batman etc dominate the market. That said, he is relatively well known there. It's also he's had a lack of stable publishers as well.

This video goes some way towards explaining it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx0oDBaQnE8

In Australia and The Nordic, The Phantom's two biggest markets bar none, The Phantom has his own regurlar magazine for for more than half a century. That, more than anything else, is what has built and sustained the audience there.

In the US however, The Phantom has always been de facto limited to the newspaper strip. That's it. There have at times been various comicbook magazines in the US, but always licensed, never the original stories, and only for very limited periods of time and - none have lasted as much as 30 issues straight.

To put things into context, between Marvel cancelling Phantom 2040 and Moonstone starting to put out new Phantom trades on an irregular schedule, there was a period of almost a decade with no new Phantom comics, trade paperbacks or collections released in the US. I'll say it again, almost a fkn decade with no Phantom available in US comicbook stores.

That's why.
In the Nordic and Australia, Egmont and Frew respectively have made sure the people are exposed to the Phantom. In the US, Phantom owner King Features don't do squat with it unless someone asks for a license.

That's why.

"The Phantom" started being extremely popular here in the U.S. with kids in the 30's and 40's in comic strip and serials mostly but with the over-saturation of comic book heroes in the 50's through the 70's he is nearly forgotten by today's kids. I grew up being raised by my grandparents in the late 60" s through the mid 80"s so my love of the character was passed onto me. It's like if you walk up to a kid today and say "The Shadow knows!", they would look at you like you were crazy. Albeit corny, I like the 1996 " The Phantom" movie with Billy Zane. The film was beautifully shot but didn't go for comic book overkill like the "Dick Tracy" movie did. The Phantom costume looked great and authentic and I loved Treat Williams chewing the scenery as the villain "Drax".

It was massive in Australia. My Dad was a huge fan and he introduced me to the comic strip. I used to collect the the 3 panel prints in the newspaper.


You're move, creep

The Phantom was massively popular in the 30s and 40s, during the golden age of the adventure strips, in newspapers. That spawned a popular movie serial, from Columbia, with Tom Tyler (who also starred in The Adventures of Captain Marvel). The strips continued to be a successinto the 50s and there was a pilot for a tv series in the early 60s, with Lon Chaney jr as a thug. However, by that point, he was overshadowed by characters like batman, who stole some of his thunder. Meanwhile, American newspapers began struggling more and more with costs and competition from tv news. Space on the comics page was squeezed for advertising and other elements. The humor strips, with more simplistic art, could better adapt to this. The adventure strips began dying off, throughout the 70s. The few that survived appeared in fewer and fewer papers. It wasn't just the Phantom that was affected; but, also long standing characters like Tarzan, Flash Gordon, Prince Valiant, Steve Canyon and more.

In comic books, the Phantom apepared at Dell and Gold Key; but, they didn't exactly put a lot of money into their licensed books. They did better with things like the Disney ducks and Looney Tunes characters, aiming at a younger audience. They had success with adventure books through the 50s and 60s; but, by the 70s, they were overshadowed by DC and Marvel. Marvel had pushed more dynamic art, from people like Jack Kirby and DC had to up their game a bit. Gold Key was far more in the vein of the more staid newspaper strips and they looked even more out of date. Gold Key was the first to do a Phantom regular comic, with spectacular painted covers; but boring interior art. The license ended and went to Charlton, who also struggled with it, except for work by Jim Aparo (who used it as a resume to get work at DC, which led to a long association with Batman) and Don Newton (ditto).

In the US, the Phantom became overshadowed by more flamboyant costumed heroes and lost almost all of his uniqueness. he came to be seen as a quaint relic of the past, especially in light of the growing global culture. A white hero in the jungles had certain racial problems, even though the Phantom was never quite as racist as Tarzan and other Burroughs material got. He just got old. This was the first real attempt (apart from Defenders of the Earth) to try to respark the character. DC Comics had the best luck with the hero, in a miniseries and a comic that ran for just under 2 years. marvel got a couple of issues out of him and Moonstone barely had distribution to comic shops.

In the rest of the world, The Phantom was something more unique and had fewer imitators against which to compete. His stories were produced locally, in places like Australia and Scandanavia, while other American heroes were mostly imports, if seen at all. Those countries also published him in comic books, rather than sandwiched on the comic page, between horoscopes and Ziggy.

Pretty much all of the great adventure strip heroes lost popularity in the US when the strips were squeezed out of papers. Loss of that popularity made them unattractive to other media, so there was nothing to carry the torch. it didn't help that most weren't adapted well in the past, though people who have seen the Phantom serial tended to praise it.

Fortunately, Ah keep mah feathers numbered for just such an emergency!