The Sign of 8

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The Sign of 8
Md-1965-08-16.jpg
Start date: August 16th, 1965
End date: February 5th, 1966
# of strips: 150 (25 weeks)
Writer: Lee Falk
Artist: Fred Fredericks
Preceded by: "The Odd Fellow"
Followed by: "The Witches"

"The Sign of 8" is the 129th Mandrake daily story. The story was written by Lee Falk and drawn by Fred Fredericks.

Plot Summary

Adult education is quite the thing now and Narda is back at school. She is doing graduate work in history. By accident, in a footnote, she discovered a medieval gang of thiefs, called "The League of 8". While doing a fascinating report on the 800 years old gang she found clues of the acient gang closer to our time. Then the league of 8 strike....

Appearances

Recurring characters

One-time characters

  • Antone, Ambassador.
  • Andros, president. mention only
  • Dr. Ludd, professor in history and Narda's supervisor.
  • Miss Percy, a librarian.
  • Dan Goon, ganglord and local head of 8.
  • Bello, gang member.
  • Sgt. Adams, a police woman.
  • Q, a quizzer of 8.
  • X, a executioner of 8.

Locations

  • New York City
    • Xanadu
    • Bartlett Street, where Narda lives.

Organizations

  • 8
  • Blue Cow Dairy.


Behind the scenes

Title

  • The title for this story is taken from the strip of September, 4 (Next Week: Sign of 8)

Mandrake Lore

  • This story have a long intro about Mandrake's new home, Xanadu, spanning the first 20 strips.
  • Narda lives in Bartlett Street, a real street name in the Broadway Triangle New York.
  • The members of 8 wearing cuff links with the sign 8, the X and Q wearing a ring with the sign 8 on their left ringfinger.
  • In a hidden place far away is the top unit of 8 and their giant computer, Octo. If they are in doubt about what to do in a case feed the information into the computer, and get a short reply.

The artist

  • Fredericks has an ink error in the strip from January 6, 1966. The background is shown through an uninked part of the back of Dan Goon's head.

Reprints

This story has been published in the following publications:

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  • "Den hemmelige liga: I en dødelig fælde & Forhørslederen", Fantomet #242 and #243 (1984)

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  • "Den hemliga ligan: I en dödlig fälla & Förhörsledaren", Fantomen #5 and #6 (1982)

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