Flash Gordon returns! Alex Raymond's classics reprinted.

Following the succes of high quality reprints of classic comics by IDW Publishing and Dean Mullaney´s ´Library of American Comics´ the San Diego based publisher most recently turned their attention to mr. Alex Raymond and published a complete collection of his 'modern detective' Rip Kirby. Starting September 20 it's finally time for 'that other' classic by Raymond... 'Flash Gordon'! Alex Raymond died tragically in a car crash in 1956 at the age of only 46. He truly was 'the Master of the Classics'...

Flash vs. Secret Agent X-9.

Just like 'Batman' creator Bob Kane and painter Norman Rockwell, Raymond studied at the Grand Central School of Art in New York and would assist notable comic artists like Russ Westover ('Tillie the Toyler') and the brothers Lyman and Chic Young ('Tim Tyler's Luck', 'Blondie'). Becoming a staff member of King Features Syndicate, he started his own comic in 1933: 'Secret agent X-9' was scripted by none other than Dashiell Hammett, writer of 'The Maltese Falcon' and many other hard-boiled crime novels.'The Maltese Falcon' was originally serialised in pulp fiction magazine 'Black Mask' in 1930 and turned into a movie three times. The second remake, directed in 1941 by John Huston became a classic film-noir and featured Humphrey Bogard.

Above left: Alex Raymond's publicity shot from the historic archive of William Randolph Hearst's San Francisco Examiner newspaper dated June 25th, 1949. Right: Raymond with a model, working on the March 8, 1949 strip for 'Rip Kirby'. Photo catalogued for the Examiner's Reference Library on January 31, 1950.

Above: original artwork from Raymond for X-9 from 1934. Click to see full view.

Secret Agent X-9 ran from January 22, 1934 until February 10, 1996, yet the only strips by Hammett & Raymond were created during the years 1934-1935. X-9 was turned into two film serials, once in 1937 and again in 1945 starring Lloyd Bridges. Hammett left X-9 in 1935 and was replaced by Leslie Charteris, creator and novelist of 'The Saint' aka 'Simon Templar'. But working on X-9 and Flash Gordon simultaneously (Flash actually started only two weeks earlier on January 7, 1934) became too much for Raymond and Charles Flanders took over on X-9. Flanders would draw 'The Lone Ranger' after that until 1971.

Flash was originally created by King Features as an answer to the popular 'Buck Rogers in the 25th Century', the comic strip from the National Newspaper Syndicate that debuted on January 7, 1929, based on science fiction stories by Philip Nowlan in the classic pulp magazine 'Amazing Stories'. Flash would eventually become much more popular than Buck ever was. Along with Flash, Raymond also created the comic strip 'Jungle Jim', which ran as a 'topper', meaning Flash would always be published with an episode of 'Jungle Jim' above it. 'Jungle Jim' was also launched on January 7, 1934 with the first page of Flash. It featured a hunter in Southeastern Asia, simular to the early Hal Foster's 'Tarzan' comic strips, based on Edgar Rice Burrough's stories from 'All-Story Magazine'.

Above: The very first Flash Gordon/Jungle Jim page published on January 7, 1934, currently goes for $ 800,00 Dollars on Ebay. That's the originally printed newspaper page only! Click to see the full view.

Goodbye Flash, hello Rip Kirby.

In 1944 Raymond volunteered to join the Marines in WWII and worked from an office in Philadelphia doing artwork for public relations. After training with the Marine Corps Air Station he was stationed in the Pacific Ocean on the escort carrier USS Gilbert islands, that attacked Okinawa in May and Borneo in June that year. In 1946 Raymond returned to the States as a Major. In the meantime Flash was continued by Austin Briggs, while John Mayo and Paul Norris ('Aquaman') worked on 'Jungle Jim'. When Raymond returned to King Features, he wasn't able to take on his former duties, instead, they had him create a completely new daily comic strip. Alex came up with Rip kirby, an ex-marine who returned from WWII to become a private detective. It debuted on March 4, 1946. The stories, initially plotted by King Features editor Ward Greene were written for 34 years by Fred Dickinson starting in 1952, continuing Raymond's work after his tragical car accident with artist John Prentice who drew Kirby until he passed away in 1999.

Below: Alex Raymond working on his inks at his drawing table. Beneath that you can see him doing some rough sketches for the Kirby strip of July 3, 1949, one of the 90 strips that the 'Second Chances' story arc consisted of. It ran from May 23 to September 3rd that year and was Raymond's eleventh story of Kirby. The handwritten script on the photo has the dialogues broken down into three sections corresponding the layout of the strip alongside some reference photo's of trains, which he appears to have cut from a magazine.

Here's the finished strip as it ran in the newspapers. In the story Rip shows up at Grand Central to wave off Pagan Lee while he's supposed to be at a dinner with his girlfriend Honey. Lee's on her way to a small theatre company in New England to star in a new play and will soon find trouble on her way while boarded at an isolated cottage inhabited by a blind woman and her reclusive husband. The story was followed by 'Lost and found' which ran until December 3.

Above: Original artwork by Raymond (Click it to see it's full beauty!) for his somewhat longer Rip Kirby story 'Terror on the Thames' (it concluded after 150 strips and is the second longest Kirby by Raymond, only surpassed by the previous story 'Bleak Projects' which consisted of 210 strips. This one dates from July 1948).

Alex Raymond died on September 6, 1956 in a tragic car accident, driving Stan Drake's Corvette. Drake, creator of the comic 'The Heart of Juliet Jones' was seated beside him but was thrown from the car when Raymond crashed on Clapboard Hill Road near West Port, Connecticut.
Alex's brother, Jim Raymond, continued working as a cartoonist on Chic Young's 'Blondie', which he took over when Young died in 1973. Alex and Jim's sister was Bea Dillon, the grandmother of actors Matt and Kevin Dillon.

Below: Raymond and his assistant Ray Burns in 1949. The Kirby panels have already been hand lettered and show preliminary artwork. In the second photo Raymond is going over one of the scripts, there's just a small glance of Burns in the lower left corner. Raymond created 36 stories of Rip Kirby before John Prentice took over to complete the 'Elixer of Youth' story arc, which ran from July 30 to October 20, 1956 with Prentice taking over from October 1 and concluding the story with the final eighteen strips. Prentice would draw the strip for another 43 years and received the Newspaper Comic Strips Award from the NCS three times for his work on Kirby, in 1966, 1967 and 1986.

Alex Raymond - his influence on Europe.

Raymond's science fiction tales of 'Flash Gordon' were published in Europe's first real comic magazine, called 'Bravo!', which ran from 1940 to 1951. It relied heavily on many of the famous American comic artists and included lots of US material. While the Nazi's outlawed every comic strip serial from the US during WWII,European artists arose to continue the weekly adventures of Flash Gordon, sharpening their craftsmenship to mimic Raymond's visionairy style, and in the end, had to come up with their own comic creations - and heroes.

Without the shere void that Raymond left with his audience during the first half of the 1940's, the European comic scene would have looked completely different today. When the publication of any US imported stories was shut down, Flash was continued by Edgar P. Jacobs for a while. When he was censored in his work by the Nazi's in 1943, he came up with his own famous, but similar comic creation, 'Le Rayon 'U'' or 'The 'U' Ray'.

It had boxes of text describing the action much like Hal Foster's Prince Valiant did and it wasn't until 1974 before the comic really got any balloons, when it was reformatted to fit publication in Tintin comic magazine. 'The 'U' Ray was Jacobs first of many classic works, which he continued with his series of 'Blake & Mortimer' adventures.


IDW vs. Titan books.

Dean Mullaney founded the 'American Library of Comics', an imprint of IDW in 2007 and has published several multi-volume book series since, featuring the restored complete works of artists like Milton Caniff ('Terry and the Pirates'), Chester Gould ('Dick Tracy') and of course the complete Alex Raymond 'Rip Kirby'.

They will be publishing Alex Raymond's 'Flash Gordon' in four oversized volumes(12 x 16 inch), starting with volume 1 on September 20. This will be the first time 'Flash Gordon' sees print in bookform with the actual 'Jungle Jim' toppers. While the artwork has seen detailed color restoration work, the volumes will also feature have new behind the scenes information from Mullaney and historian John Locke.

However, London based publisher Titan Books has also announced the first volume of their upcoming series 'The Complete Flash Gordon Library', to be published on March 23 next year. It looks really promising too: the pages will be 11x10 inch and will have fully restored artwork as well, but you'll have to wait a little while! However, The Titan books will go for $25,00 US Dollars while the IDW books (including 'Jungle Jim')will cost you $75,00 per volume. (Covers below are not size related, IDW version is on the left). Check out Titan books's blog entry of today for more.