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Mandrake the Magician

Mandrake the Magician

Overview
Mandrake the Magician is a syndicated newspaper comic strip
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....

, created by Lee Falk
Lee Falk
Lee Falk, born Leon Harrison Gross , was an American writer, theater director, and producer, best known as the creator of the popular comic strip superheroes The Phantom and Mandrake the Magician, who at the height of their popularity attracted over a hundred million readers every day...

 (The Phantom), which began June 11, 1934. Phil Davis
Phil Davis (cartoonist)
Philip Davis , better known as Phil Davis, was an American artist who illustrated Mandrake the Magician, written by Lee Falk. Davis was born in St. Louis, Missouri....

 soon took over as the strip's illustrator, while Falk continued to script. The strip was distributed by King Features Syndicate
King Features Syndicate
King Features Syndicate, a print syndication company owned by The Hearst Corporation, distributes about 150 comic strips, newspaper columns, editorial cartoons, puzzles and games to nearly 5000 newspapers worldwide...

.
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Encyclopedia
Mandrake the Magician is a syndicated newspaper comic strip
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....

, created by Lee Falk
Lee Falk
Lee Falk, born Leon Harrison Gross , was an American writer, theater director, and producer, best known as the creator of the popular comic strip superheroes The Phantom and Mandrake the Magician, who at the height of their popularity attracted over a hundred million readers every day...

 (The Phantom), which began June 11, 1934. Phil Davis
Phil Davis (cartoonist)
Philip Davis , better known as Phil Davis, was an American artist who illustrated Mandrake the Magician, written by Lee Falk. Davis was born in St. Louis, Missouri....

 soon took over as the strip's illustrator, while Falk continued to script. The strip was distributed by King Features Syndicate
King Features Syndicate
King Features Syndicate, a print syndication company owned by The Hearst Corporation, distributes about 150 comic strips, newspaper columns, editorial cartoons, puzzles and games to nearly 5000 newspapers worldwide...

.

Davis worked on the strip until his death in 1964, when Falk recruited current artist Fred Fredericks. With Falk's death in 1999, Fredericks became both writer and artist.

Characters and story


Mandrake is a magician whose work is based on an unusually fast hypnotic
Hypnosis
Hypnosis is "a trance state characterized by extreme suggestibility, relaxation and heightened imagination."It is a mental state or imaginative role-enactment . It is usually induced by a procedure known as a hypnotic induction, which is commonly composed of a long series of preliminary...

 technique. As noted in captions, when Mandrake "gestures hypnotically", his subjects see illusions, and Mandrake has used this technique in his battles with a variety of gangsters, mad scientists, extraterrestrials and characters from other dimensions.

Mandrake and the Phantom Magician in Mel Graff's The Adventures of Patsy
The Adventures of Patsy
The Adventures of Patsy is a newspaper comic strip which ran from 1935 to 1954. Created by Mel Graff, it was syndicated by AP Newsfeatures....

are regarded by comics historians as the first superhero
Superhero
A superhero is a type of stock character, possessing "extraordinary or superhuman powers", dedicated to protecting the public. Since the debut of the prototypical superhero Superman in 1938, stories of superheroes — ranging from brief episodic adventures to continuing years-long sagas —...

es of comics. Comics historian Don Markstein
Don Markstein's Toonopedia
Don Markstein's Toonopedia was a web encyclopedia of print cartoons, comic strips and animation. Don D...

 writes, "Depending on how you define the term, Patsy's recurring rescuer, The Phantom Magician, may have been the first superhero in comics... Some people say Mandrake the Magician, who started in 1934, was comics' first superhero."

Supporting



Lothar is Mandrake's best friend and crime-fighting companion.
Mandrake first met Lothar during his travels in Africa. Lothar was then "Prince of the Seven Nations", a mighty federation of jungle tribes. He passed on the chance to become king and instead followed Mandrake on his world travels, fighting crime and villains from all over the world (and the rest of the universe as well). Lothar is often referred to as the strongest man in the world with the exception of perhaps Hojo — Mandrake's chef and secret chief of Inter Intel.

One of the first black crimefighting heroes ever to appear in comics, Lothar made his first appearance alongside Mandrake in 1934 in the inaugural daily strip. In the beginning, Lothar was little more than Mandrake's servant. He spoke poor English, wore a fez, short pants and a leopard skin. His muscles far exceeded his mental abilities. When artist Fred Fredericks took over in 1965 (after original artist Phil Davis had died), Lothar was modernized; he began to speak correct English, and his clothing changed, although he still often wears shirts with leopard-skin patterns.

Narda is of royal blood; she is Princess of the European nation Cockaigne
Cockaigne
Cockaigne or Cockayne is a medieval mythical land of plenty, an imaginary place of extreme luxury and ease where physical comforts and pleasures are always immediately at hand and where the harshness of medieval peasant life does not exist...

 (today ruled by her brother Segrid). She made her first appearance in the second Mandrake story. Although she and Mandrake were infatuated with one another from first sight, they didn't marry until 1997, when it was an extravagant triple wedding ceremony—at Mandrake's home of Xanadu, Narda's home country Cockaigne and Mandrake's father Theron's College of Magic (Collegium Magikos) in the Himalayas.

Theron is Mandrake's father, although this was a secret to Mandrake for a long time. Mandrake's mother died shortly after she gave birth to Mandrake and his twin brother Derek. Theron is the headmaster of the College of Magic (Collegium Magikos) somewhere in the Himalayas. Theron is hundreds of years old, probably due to the energy of the powerful Mind Crystal of which he is the guardian.

Hojo is Mandrake's chef at his home of Xanadu. However, he is also the secret Chief of the international crimefighting organization Inter-Intel, in addition to being a superb martial arts expert. As such, he has used Mandrake's help with many cases. Hojo's assistant at Inter-Intel is Jed.

The Police Chief is named Bradley but mostly just called "Chief" and has been aided by Mandrake on several occasions. He created the "S.S.D." (Silly Stuff Dept.) for absurd and unbelievable cases that only Mandrake could solve. He has a son, Chris.

Magnon is Mandrake's most powerful friend. He is the emperor of a million planets, but even he has sometimes needed Mandrake's help. Magnon and his wife Carola have a daughter, Nardraka, who is named after Mandrake and Narda and is their godchild.

Lenore is Mandrake's younger half-sister. She is a world-renowned explorer.

Karma is Lothar's girlfriend, an African princess, who works as a model.

Xanadu, Mandrake's high-tech residence, has one of the world's best security with all electronic gadgets like closed circuit TV, sectional road which divides from half, dropping iron gates.

Villains


The Cobra is Mandrake's most evil and dangerous foe. He made his first appearance in the very first Mandrake story. In a story from 1937, the Cobra was apparently defeated; however, he returned with a vengeance in a story from 1965. This time hiding his face (scarred and disfigured in battle with Mandrake) behind a menacing silver mask. The Cobra's main goal is to acquire one of the two powerful Crystal Cubes which increase mental energy. These are guarded by Mandrake and his father Theron. Mandrake learned that The Cobra's true identity was Luciphor, Theron's oldest son — thus making The Cobra Mandrake's half-brother. He stole one of the two mind crystals from the College of Magic and hence is very powerful. In later years, the Cobra abandoned his silver mask as his face had been reconstructed through surgery. The Cobra is sometimes accompanied by his assistant Ud.

Derek is Mandrake's twin brother, and although similar to his brother in appearance, is totally different when it comes to morals and ethics. Derek is only after money and women and gladly uses his magical powers (that almost rival Mandrake's) to achieve his own personal goals. Mandrake has many times tried to remove Derek's knowledge of magic through mental battles, although it has always been only temporary solutions. Derek has a son, Eric (mother unknown), who so far has shown no signs of following in his father's footsteps.

The Clay Camel, real name Saki, is a master of disguises. He is able to mimic anyone and change his appearance in seconds. His name comes from the symbol he leaves at the scenes of his crimes, a small camel made of clay.

The Brass Monkey, daughter of The Clay Camel with a similar talent for disguises.

Aleena the Enchantress is a former friend of Mandrake's from the College of Magic, a much-married spoilt temptress, who now prefers to use her magic powers for her own benefit. This includes trying to win Mandrake's heart, but when that doesn't succeed, she tries to bring him trouble instead.

8 is an old and very powerful crime organization with roots to medieval times. Long thought to be dead and no more than a myth, Mandrake discovered that the organization is very much alive. They are known to often incorporate the number 8 in their crimes or leave the number 8 as a mark. They are organized like an octopus
Octopus
The octopus is a cephalopod mollusc of the order Octopoda. Octopuses have two eyes and four pairs of arms, and like other cephalopods they are bilaterally symmetric. An octopus has a hard beak, with its mouth at the center point of the arms...

 with eight arms (headquarters) spread out all over the world, and one head (the grim and mysterious leader Octon, only shown as a menacing image on a computer screen). Over the years, Mandrake has succeeded in destroying their headquarters one by one. In one of the stories the Octon of 8 is revealed as Cobra.

Ekardnam ('Mandrake' backwards) is Mandrake's "evil twin", who exists on the other side of the mirror. Like his world (where the government is run by the "Private of the Armies", and generals do menial work like running the elevators), Ekardnam is an exact opposite, i.e., evil and treacherous, and uses his "evil eye" powers to work his magic. He was seen when Narda was drawn into the mirror, an adventure that may have been only a bad dream.

The Deleter is one of the most unusual of Mandrake's foes. He is an extraterrestrial contract killer who will "delete" anyone for the right price. However, he does have a code-of-honor and will seek justice for anyone who tries to cheat him out of his contract fee.


Comic books


Mandrake had a prominent role in Magic Comics and Big Little Books of the 1930s and 1940s. Dell Comics
Dell Comics
Dell Comics was the comic book publishing arm of Dell Publishing, which got its start in pulp magazines. It published comics from 1929 to 1973. At its peak, it was the most prominent and successful American company in the medium...

 published a Mandrake the Magician issue in their Four Color
Four Color
Four Color, also known as Four Color Comics and One Shots, was a long-running American comic book anthology series published by Dell Comics between 1939 and 1962...

 comic series with various main characters. The Mandrake issue was #752 and featured original stories by Stan Campell and written by Paul Newman.

In 1966-67, King Comics
King Comics
King Comics, a short-lived comic book imprint of King Features Syndicate, was an attempt by King Features to publish comics of its own characters, rather than through other publishers. The line ran for approximately a year-and-a-half, with its series cover-dated from August 1966 to December 1967...

 published ten issues of a Mandrake the Magician comic book. Most of the stories were remakes of past newspaper strip stories and featured art by André LeBlanc, Ray Bailey
Ray Bailey
Raymond Frederick Bailey is a former member of the Tasmanian Legislative Council. He was first elected to the now abolished Division of Cornwall on the 26 May 1990...

 and others. Mandrake stories also ran as back-up features in other King titles.

Italian publisher Fratelli Spada produced a considerable amount of original Mandrake comic book stories in the 1960s and 1970s. A few of these were even published in the American Mandrake comic book mentioned above.

Marvel
Marvel Comics
Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...

 released a Mandrake mini-series in 1995, written by Mike W. Barr
Mike W. Barr
Mike W. Barr is an American writer of comic books, and mystery, and science fiction novels.-Biography:Barr's debut as a comics professional came in DC Comics' Detective Comics #444 , for which he wrote an 8-page back-up mystery feature starring the Elongated Man...

 and with painted art by Rob Ortaleza. However, only two of three planned issues were published.

Mandrake has also enjoyed great success in comic books published in Britain, Australia, Brazil, India, France, Spain, Italy, Yugoslavia, Germany, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Turkey and Sweden (although in the case of the Nordic countries, most often as a backup feature in The Phantom
The Phantom
The Phantom is an American adventure comic strip created by Lee Falk, also creator of Mandrake the Magician. A popular feature adapted into many media, including television, film and video games, it stars a costumed crimefighter operating from the fictional African country Bengalla.The Phantom is...

comic books). Mandrake is popular in India through Indrajal Comics
Indrajal Comics
Indrajal Comics was a series launched by the publisher of The Times of India, Bennet, Coleman & Co in March 1964. The first 32 issues contained Lee Falk's The Phantom stories, but thereafter, the title alternated between various King Features characters, including Lee Falk's Mandrake, Alex...

.

In the early Mad
Mad (magazine)
Mad is an American humor magazine founded by editor Harvey Kurtzman and publisher William Gaines in 1952. Launched as a comic book before it became a magazine, it was widely imitated and influential, impacting not only satirical media but the entire cultural landscape of the 20th century.The last...

, Mandrake was spoofed as "Manduck." He lives in a hovel, which he convinces visitors is a palatial home by "gesturing hypnotically". In the story he matches wits with The Shadow
The Shadow
The Shadow is a collection of serialized dramas, originally in pulp magazines, then on 1930s radio and then in a wide variety of media, that follow the exploits of the title character, a crime-fighting vigilante in the pulps, which carried over to the airwaves as a "wealthy, young man about town"...

; he, Lothar, and The Shadow all gesture hypnotically at each other and only Lothar (looking like Manduck) remains. In a later article, Manduck pulls off the trick of turning Lothar into a six-foot-tall blonde woman.

"In Pictopia" (first published in Anything Goes! #2, August 1986) is a short story by Alan Moore and illustrator Don Simpson, which takes place in a limbo world of comic book characters. The main character, Nocturno the Necromancer, is based on Mandrake. The story was reprinted in George Khoury's The Extraordinary Works of Alan Moore (TwoMorrows, July 2003)

Mandrake is featured together with the Phantom
The Phantom
The Phantom is an American adventure comic strip created by Lee Falk, also creator of Mandrake the Magician. A popular feature adapted into many media, including television, film and video games, it stars a costumed crimefighter operating from the fictional African country Bengalla.The Phantom is...

 in The Phantom Annual #2, written by Mike Bullock
Mike Bullock
Mike Bullock is an American author and musician born in Washington, DC. Bullock began writing fiction, non-fiction and poetry in the 1980s. He worked professionally in the music and comic book industries since 1986 and is best known as the creator of comic book series Lions, Tigers and Bears from...

 and Kevin Grevioux
Kevin Grevioux
Kevin Grevioux is an American actor, screenwriter, and comic book writer. He is most known for his role as "Raze" in the Underworld movies.-Biography:...

 and published by Moonstone Books
Moonstone Books
Moonstone Books is an American comic book, graphic novel, and prose fiction publisher based in Chicago focused on pulp fiction comic books and prose anthologies as well as horror and western tales....

.

Radio


On radio as a 15-minute program, Mandrake the Magician aired on the Mutual Broadcasting System
Mutual Broadcasting System
The Mutual Broadcasting System was an American radio network, in operation from 1934 to 1999. In the golden age of U.S. radio drama, MBS was best known as the original network home of The Lone Ranger and The Adventures of Superman and as the long-time radio residence of The Shadow...

 from November 11, 1940, until February 6, 1942. Originally a three-day-a-week serial, it expanded to five days a week in 1941. Uttering the incantation "invovo legem magicarum" (I invoke the laws of magic) was Raymond Edward Johnson
Raymond Edward Johnson
Raymond Edward Johnson was an American radio and stage actor best remembered for his work on Inner Sanctum Mysteries....

, who starred as Mandrake. Juano Hernandez portrayed Lothar, and Francesca Lenni took the role of Princess Narda. The series was directed by Carlo De Angelo.


Films


In 1939, Columbia produced a 12-part Mandrake the Magician
Mandrake the Magician (serial)
Mandrake the Magician was the seventh serial released by Columbia Pictures.-Plot:Mandrake in this serial works with conjuring tricks and sleight of hand instead of all the all-powerful hypnotism in the comics. Lothar is portrayed as an Asian with hair instead of a giant bald African...

serial, based on the King Features strip, starring Warren Hull as Mandrake and Al Kikume as Lothar. The serial is available on DVD.

An unauthorized Mandrake movie produced in Turkey was made in 1967, Mandrake Killing'e karsi (Mandrake against Killing (comics)
Killing (comics)
Killing is an Italian photo comic series featuring an eponymous character. The series was entitled Satanik in the French edition, Kiling in Argentina as well as being published in Belgium, Brazil, Colombia, Germany and Venezuela...

), directed by Oksal Pekmezoglu and starring Güven Erte as Mandrake.

Anthony Herrera
Anthony Herrera
Anthony Herrera was an American actor.-Career:Among roles in various movies, he is most known—and most hated—for his role as the evil James Stenbeck on the soap opera As the World Turns, a role he has played off and on from 1980 to 1984, from 1986 to 1989, in 1996, from 1997 to 1999, in 2001 and...

 had the title role in the TV movie Mandrake (1979) with Ji-Tu Cumbuka
Ji-Tu Cumbuka
Ji-Tu Cumbuka is an American veteran stage and screen actor.-Career Biography:...

 as Lothar. Magician Harry Blackstone Jr. was featured in the cast.

In 2007, it was announced that Baldwin Entertainment Group and Hyde Park Entertainment purchased rights to make a Mandrake movie, to be directed by Mimi Leder
Mimi Leder
Mimi Leder is an American film director. She was the first female graduate of the AFI Conservatory in 1973.-Movie career:...

. The two companies own the rights to Lee Falk's The Phantom
The Phantom
The Phantom is an American adventure comic strip created by Lee Falk, also creator of Mandrake the Magician. A popular feature adapted into many media, including television, film and video games, it stars a costumed crimefighter operating from the fictional African country Bengalla.The Phantom is...

. Jonathan Rhys Meyers was originally on board the project as the title character with Chuck Russell
Chuck Russell
Charles "Chuck" Russell is an American motion picture director, producer and actor.-Filmography:*The Hearse *Hell Night *The Seduction...

 announced as director. In 2009, Hayden Christensen
Hayden Christensen
Hayden Christensen is a Canadian actor. He appeared in Canadian television programs when he was young, then diversified into American television in the late 1990s. He moved on to minor acting roles before being praised for his role of Sam in Life as a House, for which he was nominated for a Golden...

 replaced Rhys Meyers in the title role of the film, with Djimon Honsou co-starring and Mimi Leder
Mimi Leder
Mimi Leder is an American film director. She was the first female graduate of the AFI Conservatory in 1973.-Movie career:...

 directing.
The plot of an upcoming Hollywood movie In Time (film)
In Time (film)
In Time, previously titled Now and I'm.mortal, is a 2011 dystopian science fiction-thriller film starring Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried, Cillian Murphy, Olivia Wilde, Alex Pettyfer, Johnny Galecki, and Vincent Kartheiser...

, a 2011 American science fiction film starring Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried, is based on one of Mandrake's comic strip, where on a distant planet time is the currency for its inhabitants.

Unproduced Films


In the 1960s, Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI , was an Italian film director and scriptwriter. Known for a distinct style that blends fantasy and baroque images, he is considered one of the most influential and widely revered filmmakers of the 20th century...

, a close friend of creator Lee Falk, intended to make a Mandrake movie, but the project never got off the ground.

In the early 1980s, within two weeks of signing with his first agent, American filmmaker Michael Almereyda
Michael Almereyda
Michael Almereyda is an American film director, screenwriter, and film producer. His most well known work is Hamlet , starring Ethan Hawke.-Early life:...

 was hired by Embassy Pictures
Embassy Pictures
Embassy Pictures Corporation was an independent studio and distributor responsible for such films as The Graduate, The Lion in Winter, This Is Spinal Tap and Escape from New York.-Founding:The company was founded in 1942 by producer Joseph E...

 to rewrite a script for Mandrake the Magician. He told Filmmaker that upon receiving the assignment, he flew to New York and checked himself into the Chelsea Hotel
Chelsea Hotel
Chelsea Hotel can refer to:*Hotel Chelsea in New York City*"Chelsea Hotel #2", a song from the 1974 Leonard Cohen album New Skin for the Old Ceremony*Chelsea Hotel, a book of photographs by Claudio Edinger, published in 1983See also...

 to work on the rewrite. Three weeks later, he emerged with new draft in hand, but by then the studio had changed heads, and in as little time as his revision took, the project was dropped.

Television


NBC made a pilot for a Mandrake the Magician TV series in 1954, but no other episodes were made. Stage magician Coe Norton starred as Mandrake and Woody Strode
Woody Strode
Woodrow Wilson Woolwine "Woody" Strode was a decathlete and football star who went on to become a pioneering black American film actor. He was nominated for a Golden Globe award for best supporting actor for his role in Spartacus in 1960...

 as Lothar.

In the animated series Defenders of the Earth
Defenders of the Earth
Defenders of the Earth is an animated television series produced in 1986, narrated by Corey Burton and featuring characters from three comic strips distributed by King Features Syndicate—Flash Gordon, the Phantom, and Mandrake the Magician—battling the Flash Gordon villain Ming the Merciless in the...

(1986–87), Mandrake the Magician teams with fellow King Features adventurers Flash Gordon
Flash Gordon
Flash Gordon is the hero of a science fiction adventure comic strip originally drawn by Alex Raymond. First published January 7, 1934, the strip was inspired by and created to compete with the already established Buck Rogers adventure strip. Also inspired by these series were comics such as Dash...

 and The Phantom. Mandrake's friend Lothar also has a prominent role, as well as a teenage son nicknamed L.J. (Lothar's son, Lothar Jr.) who was also a martial artist. Mandrake has an adoptive son of Asian blood named Kshin, whom he is training as his apprentice and heir. Peter Renaday
Peter Renaday
Peter Renaday is an American voice actor.-Film:*The Aristocats as the truck driver*Scooby-Doo and the Witch's Ghost as Mr.McKnight-TV series:*Angel as The Beast's Master...

 provided the voice of Mandrake and Buster Jones
Buster Jones
Edward L. "Buster" Jones is an American voice actor.He is probably best known from his roles as Black Vulcan in Super Friends, Blaster in The Transformers, Doc in G.I...

 provided that of Lothar. The entire series has been released by BCI Eclipse in two DVD sets.

In the animated series Phantom 2040
Phantom 2040
Phantom 2040 is an American animated science fiction television series loosely based on the comic strip hero The Phantom, created by Lee Falk. The central character of the series is said to be the 24th Phantom...

, featuring a future Phantom, Mandrake has a brief, unnamed appearance in the episode "The Magician." He is presented as an old friend of that Phantom's father, and his remarkably well-preserved shape is compatible with the longevity-conferring properties of the Crystals.

Theatre


The musical Mandrake the Magician and the Enchantress was produced during the late 1970s at the Lenox Arts Festival in Massachusetts. The script is by Lee Falk
Lee Falk
Lee Falk, born Leon Harrison Gross , was an American writer, theater director, and producer, best known as the creator of the popular comic strip superheroes The Phantom and Mandrake the Magician, who at the height of their popularity attracted over a hundred million readers every day...

 and Thayer Burch, with music by George Quincy and lyrics by Thayer Burch.

Mandrake is a character in the play King Kong Palace, written by Chilean playwright Marco Antonio de la Parra. In the play, Mandrake is now a performer in birthday parties and attempts to seduce Jane, the ambitious wife of Tarzan
Tarzan
Tarzan is a fictional character, an archetypal feral child raised in the African jungles by the Mangani "great apes"; he later experiences civilization only to largely reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adventurer...

, in order to satisfy his lust for power.

Software


A software company called MandrakeSoft started in France in 1998. Their biggest product was the GNU
GNU
GNU is a Unix-like computer operating system developed by the GNU project, ultimately aiming to be a "complete Unix-compatible software system"...

/Linux distribution
Linux distribution
A Linux distribution is a member of the family of Unix-like operating systems built on top of the Linux kernel. Such distributions are operating systems including a large collection of software applications such as word processors, spreadsheets, media players, and database applications...

 Mandrake Linux. In February 2004, MandrakeSoft lost a court case against Hearst Corporation
Hearst Corporation
The Hearst Corporation is an American media conglomerate based in the Hearst Tower, Manhattan in New York City, New York, United States. Founded by William Randolph Hearst as an owner of newspapers, the company's holdings now include a wide variety of media...

, owners of King Features Syndicate. Hearst contends that MandrakeSoft is infringing upon King Features' trademarked character Mandrake the Magician. The word Mandrake
Mandrake
Mandrake may refer to:* Mandrake , a plant of the genus Mandragora* Mandragora , in occultism* Mandrake Linux, former name of Mandriva Linux, a computer operating system...

 is not unique to the King Features character, and MandrakeSoft appealed the decision. However, the Linux-tool Lothar which was developed in a project sponsored by MandrakeSoft also has a name inspired by the comic strip, where Lothar is the longtime friend of Mandrake the Magician. The use of a magician's top hat and magic wand in images and logos also showed that MandrakeSoft wanted to associate the name with a magician and not (for example) the mandrake root
Mandrake Root
"Mandrake Root" is a song by Deep Purple that is featured on their debut album Shades of Deep Purple. The title is in reference to the hallucinogenic mandrake plant, but is also the name of a pre-Purple band that Blackmore was trying to form in Germany when he got the call from Deep Purple's...

. Consequently and due to the acquisition of the Linux company called Conectiva
Conectiva
Conectiva was a company founded on August 28, 1995, in Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil, by a group of friends, among them Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo, who was a pioneer in the distribution of Linux and open source software in Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish and English for all of Latin America...

, MandrakeSoft and its product have changed names to Mandriva
Mandriva
Mandriva S.A. is a publicly traded Linux and open source software company with its headquarters in Paris, France and development center in Curitiba, Brazil. Mandriva, S.A...

 and Mandriva Linux
Mandriva Linux
Mandriva Linux is a Linux distribution distributed by Mandriva. It uses the RPM Package Manager...

 respectively.

Leon Mandrake


Leon Mandrake
Leon Mandrake
Leon Giglio , better known by his stage name Leon Mandrake, was an Italian-American magician, mentalist, illusionist, escapologist, ventriloquist and stunt performer known worldwide as Mandrake the Magician....

, the stage magician, who was known for his top hat, pencil line moustache and scarlet-lined cape, was the basis for the strip. Leon Mandrake, who toured as Mandrake the Magician, was accompanied at the time the strip began by Narda, his first wife and stage assistant who appears in the strip. Velvet, his life-time partner would also later make appearances in the strip along with his real-life side-kick, Lothar. In fact, Leon Mandrake had been performing for well over ten years before Lee Falk introduced the comic strip character. Davis, the strip's creator became good friends and corresponded for years afterwards.

Reprints

  • Inside Magic
    Inside Magic
    Inside Magic is a USA online magazine edited and published by Tim Quinlan and aimed at magicians and people interested in magic as a performing art.Inside Magic is one of the longer-running magic pages...

     publishes current Mandrake daily comic strip from King Features.
  • Dragon Lady Press
    Dragon Lady Press
    Toronto-based Dragon Lady Press was the publishing wing of the Dragon Lady Comics store. Its publications were distributed through the direct market throughout the United States and Canada. This company was known for its reprints of classic newspaper comic strips in various forms...

     reprinted a 1937 Mandrake daily story in Classic Adventure Strips #1.
  • Pacific Comics Club reprinted two Mandrake daily stories from 1938 Feature Books #18 and #23.
  • Nostalgia Press
    Woody Gelman
    Woodrow Gelman , better known as Woody Gelman, was a publisher, a cartoonist, a novelist and an artist-writer for animation and comic books. As the publisher of Nostalgia Press, he pioneered the reprinting of vintage comic strips in quality hardcovers and trade paperbacks...

     published a hardback book reprinting two 1938 daily stories.
  • Pioneer Comics reprinted a large number of Mandrake stories in comic book
    Comic book
    A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...

     form.
  • Comics Revue
    Comics Revue
    Comics Revue is a bi-monthly small press comic book published by Manuscript Press and edited by Rick Norwood. Don Markstein edited the publication from 1984 to 1987 and 1992 to 1996....

    has reprinted several Mandrake daily and Sunday stories, and is currently reprinting the first Mandrake daily story.
  • JAL Publications has reprinted several Mandrake stories

Cultural legacy


Baseball player Don Mueller
Don Mueller
Donald Frederick Mueller is a retired outfielder who played 12 seasons in American Major League Baseball . The first ten of those years were spent with the New York Giants, for whom he batted over .300 for three consecutive seasons and led the National League in hits in 1954...

, an outfielder for the New York Giants
San Francisco Giants
The San Francisco Giants are a Major League Baseball team based in San Francisco, California, playing in the National League West Division....

 on their 1951 National League
National League
The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League , is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball, and the world's oldest extant professional team sports league. Founded on February 2, 1876, to replace the National Association of Professional...

 pennant
Pennant (sports)
A pennant is a commemorative flag typically used to show support for a particular athletic team. Pennants have been historically used in all types of athletic levels: high school, collegiate, professional etc. Traditionally, pennants were made of felt and fashioned in the official colors of a...

 winners and 1954 World Championship
1954 World Series
The 1954 World Series matched the National League champion New York Giants against the American League champion Cleveland Indians. The Giants swept the Series in four games to win their first championship since , defeating the heavily favored Indians, who had won an AL-record 111 games in the...

 teams, was known as "Mandrake the Magician" for his hitting ability.

Mandrake the Magician appears briefly in the Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...

 film Yellow Submarine.

The Mandrake Mechanism is a term coined by G. Edward Griffin
G. Edward Griffin
G. Edward Griffin is an American film producer, author, and political lecturer. He is perhaps best known as the author of The Creature from Jekyll Island , a critique of much modern economic theory and practice, specifically the Federal Reserve System.Starting as a child actor, he became a radio...

 to describe the process by which money is created by the Federal Reserve.

In the TV series MacGyver
MacGyver
MacGyver is an American action-adventure television series created by Lee David Zlotoff. Henry Winkler and John Rich were the executive producers. The show ran for seven seasons on ABC in the United States and various other networks abroad from 1985 to 1992. The series was filmed in Los Angeles...

, Pete Thornton refers to Jack Dalton as "a real Mandrake the Magician" (Season 3, Ep45)

Michael Kupperman
Michael Kupperman
Michael Kupperman, also known by the pseudonym P. Revess, is an American cartoonist and illustrator. He created the comic strips Up All Night and Found in the Street, and has written scripts for DC Comics...

's Tales Designed to Thrizzle, pokes fun at many comics, including Mandrake the Magician with a three-panel strip, "Mancake the Magician".

The magician John Mandrake is one of the main characters of the Bartimaeous Trilogy
Bartimaeus Trilogy
Bartimaeus is a fantasy series by Jonathan Stroud consisting of a trilogy published from 2003 to 2005 and a prequel novel published in 2010. The titular character, Bartimaeus, is a five-thousand-year-old djinni, a spirit of approximately mid-level power...

.

Story sequences can be read at Steve Cottle
Steve Cottle
Steve Cottle, Jr. , dedicated to the preservation of vintage comic strips, is also known as Mr. ilovecomix. In 2008, he founded the I Love Comix Archive and began to recruit vintage comic strip collectors as contributors, noting, "This is a collaborative effort to save and digitize old newspaper...

's I Love Comix Archive.

External links