Alex Raymond

Alex Gillespie Raymond was born in October of 1909. He was encouraged from an early age by his father in drawing, but after losing his father at the age of 12, Alex felt that drawing was not such a viable career choice and enrolled at Iona Prep on a sports scholarship. After quitting his job as a Wall Street clerk in the wake of the 1929 crash, he enrolled Grand Central School of Art in New York City while working as solicitor. After quitting his job in 1930, he approached former neighbor Russ Westover, Raymond assisted him on his Tillie the Toiler comic, which lead to his being introduced to King Features Syndicate, where he worked as a staff artist and produced his greatest work. In 1933, King Features assigned him to do artwork for espionage, action-adventure strip Secret Agent X-9, scripted by novelist Dashiell Hammet. Towards the end of 1933, Raymond was approached by King Features to come up with a Sunday page that could compete with Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. Alongside ghost writer Don Moore, the two created the visually amazing Flash Gordon comic, which quickly surpassed the audience of Buck Rogers. Raymond's artwork was eye catching and fantastic, leading him to be among the most highly regarded and imitated of artists, even to this day. Another contribution he made was evolving the layout of comic strips from a four tier strip to a two tier strip, reducing the panel number but doubling the size, and replacing speech balloons with caption boxes at the bottom of the page. During his tour for the Allies during WWII, Raymond also did a series of covers for various war magazines. In addition to creating Flash Gordon, Alex also created and drew the police daily strip of the adventures of Rip Kirby. Alex Raymond died in a car crash in September of 1956. To all who read my blog, I implore you to read the collected volumes of Raymond's original Flash Gordon series. You'll be glad you did.