Part of Series
The third volume of the Definitive Flash Gordon and Jungle Jim includes every Alex Raymond Sunday from March 12, 1939 through the end of 1941. Flash, Dale Arden, and Dr. Zarkov have a lengthy adventure with Fria, the stunning Snow Queen of Frigia; Dale is captured by Ming's secret service, culminating in a fight to the finish between Flash and the merciless tyrant. Meanwhile, when radio signals from Earth find their way to Mongo, Flash and company must decide—do they stay on Mongo or return home to help overthrow "The Dictator"?! In the topper strip, Jim, Lil, and Kolu ward off moon worshippers on the Malay Peninsula, protect the Panama Canal from sabotage, and, in the midst of an expanding world war, are enlisted to keep a Caribbean island free of hostile foreign influences. In the introduction by Bruce Canwell, Joe Kubert tells of being a 12-year-old making his first-ever trip out of Brooklyn to visit Alex Raymond at his Connecticut home! Plus, Howard Chaykin discusses the influence of the Matt and Benton Clark on Raymond's drawing style. Edited by Dean Mullaney, designed by Lorraine Turner, Introduction by Bruce Canwell.
Author
Alexander Gillespie Raymond was an American comic strip artist, best known for creating the comic Flash Gordon in 1934. The serial hit the silver screen three years later with Buster Crabbe and Jean Rogers as the leading players. Other strips he drew include Secret Agent X-9, Rip Kirby, Jungle Jim, Tim Tyler's Luck, and Tillie the Toiler. Alex Raymond received a Reuben Award from the National Cartoonists Society in 1949 for his work on Rip Kirby. Born in New Rochelle, New York, Alex Raymond attended Iona Prep on a scholarship and played on the Gaels' football team. He joined the US Marines Corp in 1944 and served in the Pacific theatre during World War II. His realistic style and skillful use of "feathering" (a shading technique in which a soft series of parallel lines helps to suggest the contour of an object) has continued to be an inspiration for generations of cartoonists. Raymond was killed in an automobile accident in Westport, Connecticut while driving with fellow cartoonist Stan Drake, aged 46, and is buried in St. John's Roman Catholic Cemetery in Darien, Connecticut. During the accident which led to his untimely demise, he was said to have remarked (by the surviving passenger of the accident) on the fact that a pencil on the dashboard seemed to be floating in relation to the plummet of the vehicle. He was the great-uncle of actors Matt Dillon and Kevin Dillon.
