Alex Raymond
Raymond's father loved drawing and encouraged his son to draw from an early age. In the early 1930s, this led Raymond to become an assistant illustrator on strips such as Tillie the Toiler and Tim Tyler's Luck. Towards the end of 1933, Raymond created the epic Flash Gordon science fiction comic strip to compete with the popular Buck Rogers comic strip. Before long, Flash was the more popular strip. Raymond also worked on the jungle adventure saga Jungle Jim and spy adventure Secret Agent X-9 concurrently with Flash, though his increasing workload caused him to leave Secret Agent X-9 to another artist by 1935. He left the strips in 1944 to join the Marines, saw combat in the Pacific Ocean theater in 1945, and was demobilized in 1946. Upon his return to civilian life, Raymond created and illustrated the much-heralded Rip Kirby, a private detective comic strip. In 1956, Raymond was killed in a car crash at the age of 46.
He became known as "the artist's artist" and his much-imitated style can be seen on the many strips that he illustrated. Raymond worked from live models furnished by Manhattan's Walter Thornton Agency, as indicated in "Modern Jules Verne," a profile of Raymond published in the Dell Four-Color Flash Gordon #10 (1942), showing how Thornton model Patricia Quinn posed as a character in the strip.
Numerous artists have cited Raymond as an inspiration for their work, including comic artists Jack Kirby, Bob Kane, Russ Manning, and Al Williamson. George Lucas cited Raymond as a major influence for Star Wars. He was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 1996. Maurice Horn stated that Raymond unquestionably possessed "the most versatile talent" of all the comic strip creators. He has also described his style as "precise, clear, and incisive." Carl Barks described Raymond as a man "who could combine craftsmanship with emotions and all the gimmicks that went into a good adventure strip". Raymond's influence on other cartoonists was considerable during his lifetime and did not diminish after his death.
Biography from the Wikipedia article Alex Raymond. Licensed under CC-BY-SA. Full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Part of Crew
Recently Updated Shows
The Real Housewives of Atlanta
An up-close and personal look at life in Hotlanta, The Real Housewives of Atlanta follows five glamorous southern belles as they balance motherhood, demanding careers and a fast-paced social calendar, and shows what life is like in the most exclusive areas of Atlanta. These driven and ambitious women prove that they're not just "housewives," but entrepreneurs, doting mothers and classy southern women. These ladies show the world what it takes to live large in some of the hottest zip codes in the south.
Holmes Family Rescue
Mike Holmes has been making it right for years, and now it's a family affair. Mike's daughter Sherry and son Michael share their own dedication and expertise as they join forces to rescue homeowners from botched construction jobs and renovation fatigue.
The Gilded Age
The American Gilded Age was a period of immense economic change, of huge fortunes made and lost, and the rise of disparity between old money and new.
Against this backdrop of change, the story begins in 1882 — introducing young Marian Brook, the orphaned daughter of a Union general, who moves into the New York City home of her thoroughly old money aunts Agnes van Rhijn and Ada Brook. Accompanied by Peggy Scott, an accomplished African-American woman, Marian inadvertently becomes enmeshed in a social war between one of her aunts, a scion of the old money set, and her stupendously rich neighbors, a ruthless railroad tycoon and his ambitious wife, George and Bertha Russell.
In this exciting new world that is on the brink of the modern age, will Marian follow the established rules of society, or forge her own path?
MasterChef
Three celebrated food experts put the latest group of contestants through a series of challenging elimination rounds and turn one home cook into a culinary master.