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The Strange Death of Alex Raymond
Legendary creator Dave Sim is renowned world-wide for his groundbreaking Cerebus the Aardvark. Now, in The Strange Death of Alex Raymond, Sim brings to life the history of comics' greatest creators, using their own techniques. Equal parts Understanding Comics and From Hell, Strange Death is a head-on collision of ink drawing and spiritual intrigue, pulp comics and movies, history and fiction. The story traces the lives and techniques of Alex Raymond (Flash Gordon, Rip Kirby), Stan Drake (Juliet Jones), Hal Foster (Prince Valiant), and more, dissecting their techniques through recreations of their artwork, and highlighting the metatextual resonances that bind them together.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published November 3, 2021
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About the author
Dave Sim
1,049 books139 followersDavid Victor Sim is a Canadian comic book, artist and publisher, best known as the creator of Cerebus the Aardvark.
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April 21, 2021'A Metaphysical History of Comics Photorealism', and a loopy project in so many ways that I don't even know where to start. If you're aware of Dave Sim it's almost certainly from Cerebus, which started off as a so-so Conan spoof, morphed into a masterpiece expanding the frontiers of comics as an art form, and then spiralled off into a mess of horrible gender politics; deeply idiosyncratic hermeneutics; and worst of all, Three Stooges riffs. After 300 issues of that, which to my knowledge is still a unique feat for one creator, it was anyone's guess what would come next, but I'm pretty sure nobody had money on a fashion mag pastiche interleaved with a history/conspiracy theory of photorealist artwork in comics. Parts of the latter strand of which Sim then decided to rework as this project – only to find himself pretty much unable to draw on account of a mystery ailment. Thus, it reaches us now with a new conclusion by Carson Grubaugh, working from Sim's rough layouts as far as they go, and then attempting to put some kind of ending on a project which, even aside from that mystery malady, was probably unfinishable in any real sense. As Sim himself said, in an interview Grubaugh quotes, "The story was huge...and it was...it wasn't just huge, it was impossibly huge."
How come? Surely Alex Raymond was one man, who died in one car crash 65 years ago? Isn't the cold case investigation one of the standard story formats of our age? How could it get so thoroughly out of hand?
Well.
Let's take as an example the section where Sim goes into great detail exploring comics cover-dated July-August 1949 which contain echoes of the life of Margaret Mitchell – finding so many that it "stretched the concept of a coincidence up to – and well beyond – any rational breaking point". You know, Margaret Mitchell as in wrote Gone With The Wind. Was she involved in the crash? Did she know Alex Raymond? Not as such. As for the limits of coincidence...well, there were an awful lot of comics published in any given month of the 1940s, and speaking as someone with pretty high-grade apophenia myself, finding connections between any two things really isn't that difficult. Particularly when you bear in mind how many ways there are to find a link. So, if we confine ourselves to the numerology, here are three connections at which Sim points across the course of this book:
"(Stan Drake is born November 9, 1921, the day after Margaret Mitchell's twenty-first birthday.) (Seven seven seven)"
A comic with a cover recalling the Gone With The Wind premiere fourteen years earlier – "(Seven seven)"
"Stan Drake died forty-nine years, to the day, after Zelda Fitzgerald. Forty-nine. Seven Seven."
There are a lot of players here, and a lot of multiples of seven, and then on top of that it doesn't even have to be the same day – the day after is fine too! Lords know I'm prone to this sort of stuff myself at times, but I try to remember Ken Campbell's golden rule: "Don’t believe in anything – but you can suppose everything." Sim, on the other hand, is big on believing; this is, after all, a man who follows all three Abrahamic religions.
In short, you know that image/GIF used to indicate conspiracy mania, the wild-eyed guy with the bits of paper pinned to the wall, convinced he's just conclusively proved that the Beatles were all replaced or jet fuel doesn't melt steel beams or whatever the fuck it is this week? The sensation of reading The Strange Death Of Alex Raymond is an awful lot like that, except if the wall behind him were, while remaining just as baffling, absolutely beautiful.
Sim was always, after all, whatever one might think of him as a writer or a thinker or even a person, one hell of an artist. The best letterer comics ever had, too, but that's less on display here. The point is, the guy could draw, and he taught himself to do it all over again here, trying to unlock the secrets of Raymond and his peers. None of whose work I really know, incidentally – obviously I'm aware of Flash Gordon, but more through the film and the cartoon than the original strips. The likes of Rip Kirby, or The Heart Of Juliet Jones, I only know from reading Sim's account of them, seeing his reproductions of the panels. Whether his inferences about Raymond's methods are commonplace, innovative, or outlandish, I couldn't tell you. Someone who knows this material, or someone who can draw, would be much better placed to say; all I know is that it's fascinating to read, and gorgeous to behold. Sim asks of Raymond, "How did he maintain the precision of his brush stroke, the consistency of his brush stroke and the length of his brush stroke over wide areas?" These are questions worth answering, and also questions which are at least potentially answerable. There's also the fact that this whole set of cartoonists, but Raymond most of all, were doing work which would be reproduced quite shabbily in the newspapers of the day, which simply weren't up to printing the fine lines their art used for shading, so in a sense their greatest achievements, and much of their effort, were purely for their own benefit and that of the very few people who'd see the originals. Now, isn't that a wonderful study in how artists think? And it works; what the original readers of the papers saw was fine, but what's here is gorgeous, and those components are worked into fabulous layouts, counterpointing old panels as part of a wider whole.
Sim clearly feels an attraction to this set, for all he may not approve of their morals. He quotes Neal Adams, a bridge between Raymond's era of comics and Sim's: "These were guys who dressed in three-button suits and lived in Connecticut and drove sports cars. And it was a group of them. A whole bunch of them. If they didn't live in Connecticut, they lived as if they lived in Connecticut and they all dressed the same." A more elegant time, as against the jeans and t-shirts which Sim insists all modern comics types wear (again, quite the generalisation, but I'm going to try to do better than Sim about not going down every rabbit hole I pass). So little wonder if he starts putting himself in their heads; method art has a long and often fruitful history, and it comes as no great surprise that Sim finds it easier to ink like Alex Raymond when he thinks like Alex Raymond, imagining that he needs to hurry up with this panel so he can go drive his sports car (Sim himself, just to be clear, lives a very spartan and entirely sports-car-free life).
The problem arises with some of the other stuff Sim finds going through his mind while thinking like Raymond, which he then brings back as proof positive. So, early on, of the headlong ride in fellow cartoonist Stan Drake's car which would end in Raymond's death, with Drake thrown clear: "The central fact: it had been, unquestionably, a murderously aggressive act on Raymond's part." It's that 'unquestionably', isn't it? Not supposing, but fervently believing to the extent of stating as solid fact. And that may seem bold, but really it's only the edges of the deep, dark wood we're about to enter. "No one but Raymond - in 1946 - could have seriously contemplated such a thing. A metaphysical event...and process...without precedent or equal: into unexplored inner – and upper – reaches of ultra-realistic incarnation. An event and process into which – and within which – Raymond would soon find himself completely subsumed.... And which would – ultimately – destroy him." "Alex Raymond – in developing Rip Kirby – is becoming the first human being to methodically and purposefully shatter the metaphysical realism barrier". In short, Sim argues, and apparently feels that he has proved, that Alex Raymond unleashed something through the meticulous realism of his developing art style. Something which would lead to his death.
The thing is, while that's plainly bonkers by currently accepted standards of consensus reality, I don't necessarily disagree. "The creator shapes the comic art, and the comic art in turn shapes the creator. And sometimes, some times, the comic art snaps the creator in two." Yeah, why not? Two of my favourite comics writers are magicians. One, Alan Moore, created the character of John Constantine, and then met him, an experience several subsequent Constant writers have also had. Grant Morrison, on the other hand, created a sexy protagonist called King Mob in order to reap the benefits of giving him exactly the sort of girlfriend Morrison wanted, but forgot that King Mob was also going to get tortured in the course of the story, suffering injuries which were then mirrored on Morrison. I have no problem whatsoever with supposing these stories to be true. But some of the conclusions Sim reaches from this point are, and I say this as someone who just accepted comics writers meeting their characters, a bit on the batshit side.
The problem isn't just that Sim's argument is wrong, it's that in places it's not even clear what argument he's making – again, remember that conspiracy image. Clearly it's something about the comics and the lives reflecting into each other, what Moore and Morrison would call magic but Sim scrupulously leaves as 'metaphysics'. Occasionally the ideas on gender which detonated his popularity intrude, still managing to sound out-there even in the age of innumerable online incels: "Fictitious, light-projected female giantism, by 1950, all but overwhelms the actual female psyche, the female sense of actual self. Actresses' actual lives are a brief and unhappy adventure of nightmarishly long hours worked at fictitious pretence interspersed with sequential adulteries and fornications...in place of the happy, lifelong married lives all women actually desire." But there's less of this than you might think. And it probably doesn't help that permission was refused to use Margaret Mitchell's words, so the Peanuts-style Sim from one of two framing devices that never quite resolve themselves gets pasted over all the quotes from her – a couple of times, there are as many as nine of him spawning like pop-ups all over a single page. But all the same, I like to think I'm at least moderately good at following a complicated argument, and I was still unclear why we were even talking about Margaret Mitchell in the first place. Finally, we get there, and – SPOILER, maybe, if the concept even applies here – Sim explains the crux of it all. Raymond's scripter, Ward Greene, was a racist who wanted to do a Gone With The Wind comic, while also having the leeway to adapt it as he saw fit. And, says Sim, the threat was "A Ward Greene-ghosted Gone With The Wind comic strip, powered by the metaphysical juggernaut of Alex Raymond's increasingly realistic drawings, if it would (or had) (or would) come into existence, bringing about a mid-twentieth century revival of the racist Southern Confederacy." A threat which seems at once ridiculous, and inconsequential. There are mentions elsewhere in the book of the Klan's mid-twentieth century revival, the outrages they perpetrated. More recently we had the early twenty-first century revival endorsed by the literal President. Neither of which needed an Alex Raymond comic making Gone With The Wind more racist. Still, at least we've had an argument of sorts; phew. Maybe now we'll get back to that car crash...
"Arguably, early eighteenth-century Ireland is the metaphysical lynchpin in all this".
It is?
And we're into Margaret Mitchell as iteration of an old infernal presence. That sort of fizzles out, just in time for Aleister Crowley and Krazy Kat, neither of whom has been mentioned up to this point, to take the stage, linked by "Reporter, adventurer, future self-confessed cannibal and lifelong obsessive bondage fetishist William Seabrook". You might think that bit about cannibalism would merit explanation, but no, it just gets left there (though I infer that it's from an account of some ceremony in which he participated, recounted in one of his travel books?). By this point Carson Grubaugh, "skeptical, but spooked", has taken over from true believer Sim, and for me he's a much easier guide to follow, both logically and emotionally. He takes a middle path, prepared to accept a bottom-up version of the 'metaphysics', that comics creators explore patterns and get caught in the flow – as Sim has done himself, and Grubaugh by continuing... the reader too, of course, by getting this far. The problem being, like any book of any power at all, what it has is catching. So when we get Grubaugh saying "That entire 'top down' conception of exsitence makes no sense, to me" – the reader, or at least this reader, thinks: of all the words to have a typo. And in the picture from which this speech bubble comes, Carson is *sitting*. WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?
Nothing, probably. Just like the inconsistencies in the reports of Alex Raymond's crash, the details of a windscreen or an ear which Sim triumphantly points out as inaccuracies, are more likely the confusion of a report from a man who's narrowly escaped his own death in the same crash, or shoddy reporting, or both, rather than grand signs and symbols, or evidence of a conspiracy. But that absolute certainty that this can't be the case, that there's a hidden pattern, leaves the whole thing with the tinge of outsider art. Likewise those layouts, the expressive intricacy of the early pages becoming more and more of a tangle as the book goes on, until it's finally stripped back in those last rough layouts. The irony here being that Sim is exactly the sort to disapprove of decadence, but this ramification upon ramification until a work sprawls beyond comprehensibility as it ties itself in knots is as decadent as they come. Please understand, I don't say any of this to dismiss The Strange Death, at least not as art rather than argument. I like some outsider art, and if Richard Dadd had done comics, I think he might have produced a work not unlike this. But bloody hell, even if you don't hold with the whole 'metaphysics' bit, whereby no wonder probing into the 'upper reaches' blew up in Sim's face and left him unable to draw, I can see how drawing something like this would mess your hands up, because it's at the extreme limit of what human digits can reasonably be expected to produce. I could feel my eyes going a bit funny at times, and ended up having to read most of it zoomed in. To be fair, it's worth noting that Grubaugh at least is aware of the issue here – this is a rare case of a Netgalley ARC opening with a note asking us to remember that the book has been prepared for print, and for a larger scale, where I can well imagine it might be more of a sensory delight. Even as is, I'm very glad I read it. Investigate it as you might some gorgeous old map of the four-cornered Earth, marvel at it - just don't believe it.
How come? Surely Alex Raymond was one man, who died in one car crash 65 years ago? Isn't the cold case investigation one of the standard story formats of our age? How could it get so thoroughly out of hand?
Well.
Let's take as an example the section where Sim goes into great detail exploring comics cover-dated July-August 1949 which contain echoes of the life of Margaret Mitchell – finding so many that it "stretched the concept of a coincidence up to – and well beyond – any rational breaking point". You know, Margaret Mitchell as in wrote Gone With The Wind. Was she involved in the crash? Did she know Alex Raymond? Not as such. As for the limits of coincidence...well, there were an awful lot of comics published in any given month of the 1940s, and speaking as someone with pretty high-grade apophenia myself, finding connections between any two things really isn't that difficult. Particularly when you bear in mind how many ways there are to find a link. So, if we confine ourselves to the numerology, here are three connections at which Sim points across the course of this book:
"(Stan Drake is born November 9, 1921, the day after Margaret Mitchell's twenty-first birthday.) (Seven seven seven)"
A comic with a cover recalling the Gone With The Wind premiere fourteen years earlier – "(Seven seven)"
"Stan Drake died forty-nine years, to the day, after Zelda Fitzgerald. Forty-nine. Seven Seven."
There are a lot of players here, and a lot of multiples of seven, and then on top of that it doesn't even have to be the same day – the day after is fine too! Lords know I'm prone to this sort of stuff myself at times, but I try to remember Ken Campbell's golden rule: "Don’t believe in anything – but you can suppose everything." Sim, on the other hand, is big on believing; this is, after all, a man who follows all three Abrahamic religions.
In short, you know that image/GIF used to indicate conspiracy mania, the wild-eyed guy with the bits of paper pinned to the wall, convinced he's just conclusively proved that the Beatles were all replaced or jet fuel doesn't melt steel beams or whatever the fuck it is this week? The sensation of reading The Strange Death Of Alex Raymond is an awful lot like that, except if the wall behind him were, while remaining just as baffling, absolutely beautiful.
Sim was always, after all, whatever one might think of him as a writer or a thinker or even a person, one hell of an artist. The best letterer comics ever had, too, but that's less on display here. The point is, the guy could draw, and he taught himself to do it all over again here, trying to unlock the secrets of Raymond and his peers. None of whose work I really know, incidentally – obviously I'm aware of Flash Gordon, but more through the film and the cartoon than the original strips. The likes of Rip Kirby, or The Heart Of Juliet Jones, I only know from reading Sim's account of them, seeing his reproductions of the panels. Whether his inferences about Raymond's methods are commonplace, innovative, or outlandish, I couldn't tell you. Someone who knows this material, or someone who can draw, would be much better placed to say; all I know is that it's fascinating to read, and gorgeous to behold. Sim asks of Raymond, "How did he maintain the precision of his brush stroke, the consistency of his brush stroke and the length of his brush stroke over wide areas?" These are questions worth answering, and also questions which are at least potentially answerable. There's also the fact that this whole set of cartoonists, but Raymond most of all, were doing work which would be reproduced quite shabbily in the newspapers of the day, which simply weren't up to printing the fine lines their art used for shading, so in a sense their greatest achievements, and much of their effort, were purely for their own benefit and that of the very few people who'd see the originals. Now, isn't that a wonderful study in how artists think? And it works; what the original readers of the papers saw was fine, but what's here is gorgeous, and those components are worked into fabulous layouts, counterpointing old panels as part of a wider whole.
Sim clearly feels an attraction to this set, for all he may not approve of their morals. He quotes Neal Adams, a bridge between Raymond's era of comics and Sim's: "These were guys who dressed in three-button suits and lived in Connecticut and drove sports cars. And it was a group of them. A whole bunch of them. If they didn't live in Connecticut, they lived as if they lived in Connecticut and they all dressed the same." A more elegant time, as against the jeans and t-shirts which Sim insists all modern comics types wear (again, quite the generalisation, but I'm going to try to do better than Sim about not going down every rabbit hole I pass). So little wonder if he starts putting himself in their heads; method art has a long and often fruitful history, and it comes as no great surprise that Sim finds it easier to ink like Alex Raymond when he thinks like Alex Raymond, imagining that he needs to hurry up with this panel so he can go drive his sports car (Sim himself, just to be clear, lives a very spartan and entirely sports-car-free life).
The problem arises with some of the other stuff Sim finds going through his mind while thinking like Raymond, which he then brings back as proof positive. So, early on, of the headlong ride in fellow cartoonist Stan Drake's car which would end in Raymond's death, with Drake thrown clear: "The central fact: it had been, unquestionably, a murderously aggressive act on Raymond's part." It's that 'unquestionably', isn't it? Not supposing, but fervently believing to the extent of stating as solid fact. And that may seem bold, but really it's only the edges of the deep, dark wood we're about to enter. "No one but Raymond - in 1946 - could have seriously contemplated such a thing. A metaphysical event...and process...without precedent or equal: into unexplored inner – and upper – reaches of ultra-realistic incarnation. An event and process into which – and within which – Raymond would soon find himself completely subsumed.... And which would – ultimately – destroy him." "Alex Raymond – in developing Rip Kirby – is becoming the first human being to methodically and purposefully shatter the metaphysical realism barrier". In short, Sim argues, and apparently feels that he has proved, that Alex Raymond unleashed something through the meticulous realism of his developing art style. Something which would lead to his death.
The thing is, while that's plainly bonkers by currently accepted standards of consensus reality, I don't necessarily disagree. "The creator shapes the comic art, and the comic art in turn shapes the creator. And sometimes, some times, the comic art snaps the creator in two." Yeah, why not? Two of my favourite comics writers are magicians. One, Alan Moore, created the character of John Constantine, and then met him, an experience several subsequent Constant writers have also had. Grant Morrison, on the other hand, created a sexy protagonist called King Mob in order to reap the benefits of giving him exactly the sort of girlfriend Morrison wanted, but forgot that King Mob was also going to get tortured in the course of the story, suffering injuries which were then mirrored on Morrison. I have no problem whatsoever with supposing these stories to be true. But some of the conclusions Sim reaches from this point are, and I say this as someone who just accepted comics writers meeting their characters, a bit on the batshit side.
The problem isn't just that Sim's argument is wrong, it's that in places it's not even clear what argument he's making – again, remember that conspiracy image. Clearly it's something about the comics and the lives reflecting into each other, what Moore and Morrison would call magic but Sim scrupulously leaves as 'metaphysics'. Occasionally the ideas on gender which detonated his popularity intrude, still managing to sound out-there even in the age of innumerable online incels: "Fictitious, light-projected female giantism, by 1950, all but overwhelms the actual female psyche, the female sense of actual self. Actresses' actual lives are a brief and unhappy adventure of nightmarishly long hours worked at fictitious pretence interspersed with sequential adulteries and fornications...in place of the happy, lifelong married lives all women actually desire." But there's less of this than you might think. And it probably doesn't help that permission was refused to use Margaret Mitchell's words, so the Peanuts-style Sim from one of two framing devices that never quite resolve themselves gets pasted over all the quotes from her – a couple of times, there are as many as nine of him spawning like pop-ups all over a single page. But all the same, I like to think I'm at least moderately good at following a complicated argument, and I was still unclear why we were even talking about Margaret Mitchell in the first place. Finally, we get there, and – SPOILER, maybe, if the concept even applies here – Sim explains the crux of it all. Raymond's scripter, Ward Greene, was a racist who wanted to do a Gone With The Wind comic, while also having the leeway to adapt it as he saw fit. And, says Sim, the threat was "A Ward Greene-ghosted Gone With The Wind comic strip, powered by the metaphysical juggernaut of Alex Raymond's increasingly realistic drawings, if it would (or had) (or would) come into existence, bringing about a mid-twentieth century revival of the racist Southern Confederacy." A threat which seems at once ridiculous, and inconsequential. There are mentions elsewhere in the book of the Klan's mid-twentieth century revival, the outrages they perpetrated. More recently we had the early twenty-first century revival endorsed by the literal President. Neither of which needed an Alex Raymond comic making Gone With The Wind more racist. Still, at least we've had an argument of sorts; phew. Maybe now we'll get back to that car crash...
"Arguably, early eighteenth-century Ireland is the metaphysical lynchpin in all this".
It is?
And we're into Margaret Mitchell as iteration of an old infernal presence. That sort of fizzles out, just in time for Aleister Crowley and Krazy Kat, neither of whom has been mentioned up to this point, to take the stage, linked by "Reporter, adventurer, future self-confessed cannibal and lifelong obsessive bondage fetishist William Seabrook". You might think that bit about cannibalism would merit explanation, but no, it just gets left there (though I infer that it's from an account of some ceremony in which he participated, recounted in one of his travel books?). By this point Carson Grubaugh, "skeptical, but spooked", has taken over from true believer Sim, and for me he's a much easier guide to follow, both logically and emotionally. He takes a middle path, prepared to accept a bottom-up version of the 'metaphysics', that comics creators explore patterns and get caught in the flow – as Sim has done himself, and Grubaugh by continuing... the reader too, of course, by getting this far. The problem being, like any book of any power at all, what it has is catching. So when we get Grubaugh saying "That entire 'top down' conception of exsitence makes no sense, to me" – the reader, or at least this reader, thinks: of all the words to have a typo. And in the picture from which this speech bubble comes, Carson is *sitting*. WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?
Nothing, probably. Just like the inconsistencies in the reports of Alex Raymond's crash, the details of a windscreen or an ear which Sim triumphantly points out as inaccuracies, are more likely the confusion of a report from a man who's narrowly escaped his own death in the same crash, or shoddy reporting, or both, rather than grand signs and symbols, or evidence of a conspiracy. But that absolute certainty that this can't be the case, that there's a hidden pattern, leaves the whole thing with the tinge of outsider art. Likewise those layouts, the expressive intricacy of the early pages becoming more and more of a tangle as the book goes on, until it's finally stripped back in those last rough layouts. The irony here being that Sim is exactly the sort to disapprove of decadence, but this ramification upon ramification until a work sprawls beyond comprehensibility as it ties itself in knots is as decadent as they come. Please understand, I don't say any of this to dismiss The Strange Death, at least not as art rather than argument. I like some outsider art, and if Richard Dadd had done comics, I think he might have produced a work not unlike this. But bloody hell, even if you don't hold with the whole 'metaphysics' bit, whereby no wonder probing into the 'upper reaches' blew up in Sim's face and left him unable to draw, I can see how drawing something like this would mess your hands up, because it's at the extreme limit of what human digits can reasonably be expected to produce. I could feel my eyes going a bit funny at times, and ended up having to read most of it zoomed in. To be fair, it's worth noting that Grubaugh at least is aware of the issue here – this is a rare case of a Netgalley ARC opening with a note asking us to remember that the book has been prepared for print, and for a larger scale, where I can well imagine it might be more of a sensory delight. Even as is, I'm very glad I read it. Investigate it as you might some gorgeous old map of the four-cornered Earth, marvel at it - just don't believe it.
March 4, 2022
5 for the craft involved, 1 for Sim being nuts. Evens out to a three.
--------------------------
Dave Sim is Schizophrenic, and really good at comics.
He got big in the 70s for creating one of the first self-published comics, 'Cerebus', about an Aardvark in a fantasy land.
It was good, then got very good, then got weird then insane. Sim either _went_ insane or revealed his madness. It was a hell of a ride to be honest.
I read almost the entirety of the then-available Cerebus in the early 00's. Liverpool Library had the whole set, Sim published them in hugh hardback 'phone book' volumes. They were there, (old even then), ranked up on a bottom shelf, looking weird and mysterious, _being_ wierd and mysterious, because when you open them you find this intensely realised, visually intensely precise, quasi-medieval world, and this cartoon Aardvark hanging out in it, and then what is the Aardvark doing? Running for office, becoming pope, being a religious figure, dying in a bar? Huge books they were, densly realised complex politics, fictionalised visitations and analysis of literary and cultural figures, a weird matriarchal religious cult.
It's difficult to describe to people, when the craft of comics, not just the images or the writing, but the synthesis, is not deeply attended to, just how really intensely fucking *good* at comics Dave Sim was and is. I'm talking here about something that if it were broken down would be difficult to recombine in the minds as anything but a combination of minor and greater talents, lettering, conversational dialogue, portrait art, expressive art, the flow of time through panels, panel arrangement, composition, world building, but if you see it go as-one, it’s simply a different order of thing. People who knew about comics, the obsessives, all knew about him and as time went by they all knew he was nuts but still a genius.
Ok there's no way to tldr this but; Aardvark, acid trip, religious visitations, personal breakdown, misandrist feminist cult, alienation of former friends and lovers, self written into comic, protagonist encounters Sim as godhead, Sim encounters actual ("actual") godhead, structure of comic breaks down or changes hugely, turns out Dave Sim may be prophet of new (old) religion and also if I recall correctly modern culture is an act of vampirism where the female void preys upon the divinely inspires male light, Sim essentially forms his own religion from some combination of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, I suppose he is a one-man pure son of Abraham, and still carries out his devout observances today.
I don't know if Sim has ever come out directly and said he has been visited by the Godhead but I am pretty sure he believes he has.
Anyway, old story BUT, I happen to be visiting family down south and happen to wander through the nerd section of town and happen to see this strange book 'The Strange Death of Alex Raymond', by Dave Sim, and behold its only a single book, not an infinite series, and I, possessed by the spirit of Capitalism, take it home
THE USEFUL PART
The boon of a ferocious mind. Alex Raymond, master of brushwork and the hyper-realistic style; in particular he performs what Sim calls 'Nightingale Lines', with a sable brush (Raymond uses nothing else), he creates these flows of ultra-ultra-ultra fine and precise brushwork, so fine in some cases they don't even show up in reproduction. All his contemporaries are amazed. Not just amazed but intimidated. Some decide to ignore brushwork themselves as they feel they can never match up. How does/did Raymond do it?
*simply by looking at the comics* Sim has worked it out
(or almost certainly worked it out, I judge his analysis here as more accurate than any of his "wilder assertations" in the book)
This is the most useful thing in 'The Strange Death of Alex Raymond' and, since Sim is Sim, and even its description is an act of beauty, I present the images below)
(Pics on the blog if you want them)
Ok that was the useful part.
WHAT IS THIS BOOK
"The Strange Death of Alex Raymond" is, or starts out as, a deep, deep, *deep* investigation of the photorealistic comics style of, primarily its three titans, Hal Foster (Prince Valiant), Alex Raymond, (Flash Gordon) and Milton Caniff (Terry and the Pirates), who ruled in a great age of newspaper strips from the 30s to the 50s.
These guys were popular in ways that only 20th Century creators could be popular. The early age of mass production, but before communications tech advanced enough to splinter the market. We're talking millions and millions of readers.
The book is centred on what Sim calls 'The Strange Death of Alex Raymond', (he died in a car crash), which Sim makes the central mystery of his investigation.
He never actually gets there. The book remains uncompleted, at least by him, due to either, or both, a wrist injury which cripples his drawing hand and Sim himself becoming utterly lost in his own web of connections.
But its also about something Sim calls 'Comic Book Metaphysics', which, to boil down that which cannot be boiled down, because Sim describes it in fragments and staring inferences, is what he thinks is the interrelating patterns of people, persona dramas, crises, imagined entities etc which weave between the work of the photorealistic school and their actual lives.
And not just them but everyone connected to them, and not just those connected to them personally but everyone who may be connected to their ideas, anyone whose ideas fed into theirs, anyone their ideas fed into.
Sim knows these things two ways, by study and my inference.
His study is that he has read every goddamn one of these comics, memorised every element, researched every life-line, looked up interviews, checked histories, examined timelines.
His inference, which he would not separate from study, remember the level of attention and analysis it would have taken to first perceive the problem of Raymond’s 'Nightingale Lines' then to have, *within the pages of the comics themselves* devised and understood the solution, but to Sim, he can "read" the lives of these men from their work.
Which, because Sim is Sim, are largely about sexual jealousy and malfeasance, invisible power struggles, manipulation, cultural decay and, ultimately, as we go waaaaaay past the event horizon, actual witchcraft, the attempt to resurrect the Klu Klux Klan via sympathetic magic and the direct presence of the devil in the affairs of man, the devil here, operating though the sexual desires of women and the weakness of men.
He has no evidence for these things.
Lets take a look at one, very early, very mild example of Sim being Sim
(pics on the blog)
These are from page 81 and 82, Sim argues that for a few years Raymond had been copying or adopting the style of Caniff, as an act of domination of course, because for Sim, everything is domination and submission, then Raymond wins becomes the president of the National Cartoonists Society, he is photographed shaking hands with Caniff.
Sim takes this moment and over several pages goes, well, this...
Obviously (OBVIOUSLY) this is an act of mental and moral warfare between the two men and obviously Raymond has been defeated, destroyed, revealed for the weak man he is by the superior and more purely manly power of Caniffs handshake...
Try to avoid laughing at this. Like with anything Sim-related, elements of high skill, deep perception and subtle analysis segue seamlessly into foolishness and into madness.
Remember how clever he was with the brush thing. Could anyone else have done that? Well this is just the other side of that.
Having a high IQ doesn't really help much with Schizophrenia.
Imagine the pattern recognition of the mind firing and firing and firing, as it does in your mind, but more so. But with the Schizophrenic there is no, or only a weak, opposing synthesis. No voice or silent bar to so "no, this connection is bad, it doesn't make sense, it doesn't match with how reality works".
And under all that is fear, and an overwhelming sense of drive, of purpose, of importance, not just importance but of sacredness. To be in the grip of such power..... Well, if you've read the old testament you get my drift.
Think Sim hyper-analysing an awkward photo isn't really "nutso" enough? By around page 200 he's proved that Margret Mitchell, writer of 'Gone With the Wind' was either a witch or a direct servant of Satan and a descendant of witches, and was part of a plot, or a dark conspiracy to..
I'll just show you;
(as above)
Think about the level of clarity, of talent, think of the carefully acquired skill. When he began drawing Sim was considered pretty bad, by the end of Cerberus he was thought of as excellent, by this point he's reproducing, warping, remaking, some of the greatest pages, the greatest illustrations from the high point of Photorealistc Comics, riding with the masters.
This is high art in many ways. What a beautiful, incredible capacity to perceive and create, and what an absolutely awful, really a nightmarishly pathetic man.
Think in real terms about what Sim has done through the whole of this book. Pried, or imagined he has pried into the personal lives of these figures light-years away from him. Secretly opened the secret boxes of their hearts, these real people who really lived, and tipped them over to show the foulness and shit within.
But none of it is real. He made it up.
He will never really understand _that_ he made it up. To him it was revealed.
In fact he was just trying to save the world from the conspiracies of the Devil. When he prays he may even pray for your forgiveness for, in thinking him mad, you know not what you do.
Its inspiring and wounding and wearying and ultimately like taking a beating, or listening to a man rant you can't get away from. (Yet he is ranting in visual _music). It’s pretty much the same feeling I got reading Cerebus all those years ago. Its nasty and viscerally unpleasant. The mans heart is a sewer. Yet he is an innocent. _He_ doesn't know, after all, and never will.
--------------------------
Dave Sim is Schizophrenic, and really good at comics.
He got big in the 70s for creating one of the first self-published comics, 'Cerebus', about an Aardvark in a fantasy land.
It was good, then got very good, then got weird then insane. Sim either _went_ insane or revealed his madness. It was a hell of a ride to be honest.
I read almost the entirety of the then-available Cerebus in the early 00's. Liverpool Library had the whole set, Sim published them in hugh hardback 'phone book' volumes. They were there, (old even then), ranked up on a bottom shelf, looking weird and mysterious, _being_ wierd and mysterious, because when you open them you find this intensely realised, visually intensely precise, quasi-medieval world, and this cartoon Aardvark hanging out in it, and then what is the Aardvark doing? Running for office, becoming pope, being a religious figure, dying in a bar? Huge books they were, densly realised complex politics, fictionalised visitations and analysis of literary and cultural figures, a weird matriarchal religious cult.
It's difficult to describe to people, when the craft of comics, not just the images or the writing, but the synthesis, is not deeply attended to, just how really intensely fucking *good* at comics Dave Sim was and is. I'm talking here about something that if it were broken down would be difficult to recombine in the minds as anything but a combination of minor and greater talents, lettering, conversational dialogue, portrait art, expressive art, the flow of time through panels, panel arrangement, composition, world building, but if you see it go as-one, it’s simply a different order of thing. People who knew about comics, the obsessives, all knew about him and as time went by they all knew he was nuts but still a genius.
Ok there's no way to tldr this but; Aardvark, acid trip, religious visitations, personal breakdown, misandrist feminist cult, alienation of former friends and lovers, self written into comic, protagonist encounters Sim as godhead, Sim encounters actual ("actual") godhead, structure of comic breaks down or changes hugely, turns out Dave Sim may be prophet of new (old) religion and also if I recall correctly modern culture is an act of vampirism where the female void preys upon the divinely inspires male light, Sim essentially forms his own religion from some combination of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, I suppose he is a one-man pure son of Abraham, and still carries out his devout observances today.
I don't know if Sim has ever come out directly and said he has been visited by the Godhead but I am pretty sure he believes he has.
Anyway, old story BUT, I happen to be visiting family down south and happen to wander through the nerd section of town and happen to see this strange book 'The Strange Death of Alex Raymond', by Dave Sim, and behold its only a single book, not an infinite series, and I, possessed by the spirit of Capitalism, take it home
THE USEFUL PART
The boon of a ferocious mind. Alex Raymond, master of brushwork and the hyper-realistic style; in particular he performs what Sim calls 'Nightingale Lines', with a sable brush (Raymond uses nothing else), he creates these flows of ultra-ultra-ultra fine and precise brushwork, so fine in some cases they don't even show up in reproduction. All his contemporaries are amazed. Not just amazed but intimidated. Some decide to ignore brushwork themselves as they feel they can never match up. How does/did Raymond do it?
*simply by looking at the comics* Sim has worked it out
(or almost certainly worked it out, I judge his analysis here as more accurate than any of his "wilder assertations" in the book)
This is the most useful thing in 'The Strange Death of Alex Raymond' and, since Sim is Sim, and even its description is an act of beauty, I present the images below)
(Pics on the blog if you want them)
Ok that was the useful part.
WHAT IS THIS BOOK
"The Strange Death of Alex Raymond" is, or starts out as, a deep, deep, *deep* investigation of the photorealistic comics style of, primarily its three titans, Hal Foster (Prince Valiant), Alex Raymond, (Flash Gordon) and Milton Caniff (Terry and the Pirates), who ruled in a great age of newspaper strips from the 30s to the 50s.
These guys were popular in ways that only 20th Century creators could be popular. The early age of mass production, but before communications tech advanced enough to splinter the market. We're talking millions and millions of readers.
The book is centred on what Sim calls 'The Strange Death of Alex Raymond', (he died in a car crash), which Sim makes the central mystery of his investigation.
He never actually gets there. The book remains uncompleted, at least by him, due to either, or both, a wrist injury which cripples his drawing hand and Sim himself becoming utterly lost in his own web of connections.
But its also about something Sim calls 'Comic Book Metaphysics', which, to boil down that which cannot be boiled down, because Sim describes it in fragments and staring inferences, is what he thinks is the interrelating patterns of people, persona dramas, crises, imagined entities etc which weave between the work of the photorealistic school and their actual lives.
And not just them but everyone connected to them, and not just those connected to them personally but everyone who may be connected to their ideas, anyone whose ideas fed into theirs, anyone their ideas fed into.
Sim knows these things two ways, by study and my inference.
His study is that he has read every goddamn one of these comics, memorised every element, researched every life-line, looked up interviews, checked histories, examined timelines.
His inference, which he would not separate from study, remember the level of attention and analysis it would have taken to first perceive the problem of Raymond’s 'Nightingale Lines' then to have, *within the pages of the comics themselves* devised and understood the solution, but to Sim, he can "read" the lives of these men from their work.
Which, because Sim is Sim, are largely about sexual jealousy and malfeasance, invisible power struggles, manipulation, cultural decay and, ultimately, as we go waaaaaay past the event horizon, actual witchcraft, the attempt to resurrect the Klu Klux Klan via sympathetic magic and the direct presence of the devil in the affairs of man, the devil here, operating though the sexual desires of women and the weakness of men.
He has no evidence for these things.
Lets take a look at one, very early, very mild example of Sim being Sim
(pics on the blog)
These are from page 81 and 82, Sim argues that for a few years Raymond had been copying or adopting the style of Caniff, as an act of domination of course, because for Sim, everything is domination and submission, then Raymond wins becomes the president of the National Cartoonists Society, he is photographed shaking hands with Caniff.
Sim takes this moment and over several pages goes, well, this...
Obviously (OBVIOUSLY) this is an act of mental and moral warfare between the two men and obviously Raymond has been defeated, destroyed, revealed for the weak man he is by the superior and more purely manly power of Caniffs handshake...
Try to avoid laughing at this. Like with anything Sim-related, elements of high skill, deep perception and subtle analysis segue seamlessly into foolishness and into madness.
Remember how clever he was with the brush thing. Could anyone else have done that? Well this is just the other side of that.
Having a high IQ doesn't really help much with Schizophrenia.
Imagine the pattern recognition of the mind firing and firing and firing, as it does in your mind, but more so. But with the Schizophrenic there is no, or only a weak, opposing synthesis. No voice or silent bar to so "no, this connection is bad, it doesn't make sense, it doesn't match with how reality works".
And under all that is fear, and an overwhelming sense of drive, of purpose, of importance, not just importance but of sacredness. To be in the grip of such power..... Well, if you've read the old testament you get my drift.
Think Sim hyper-analysing an awkward photo isn't really "nutso" enough? By around page 200 he's proved that Margret Mitchell, writer of 'Gone With the Wind' was either a witch or a direct servant of Satan and a descendant of witches, and was part of a plot, or a dark conspiracy to..
I'll just show you;
(as above)
Think about the level of clarity, of talent, think of the carefully acquired skill. When he began drawing Sim was considered pretty bad, by the end of Cerberus he was thought of as excellent, by this point he's reproducing, warping, remaking, some of the greatest pages, the greatest illustrations from the high point of Photorealistc Comics, riding with the masters.
This is high art in many ways. What a beautiful, incredible capacity to perceive and create, and what an absolutely awful, really a nightmarishly pathetic man.
Think in real terms about what Sim has done through the whole of this book. Pried, or imagined he has pried into the personal lives of these figures light-years away from him. Secretly opened the secret boxes of their hearts, these real people who really lived, and tipped them over to show the foulness and shit within.
But none of it is real. He made it up.
He will never really understand _that_ he made it up. To him it was revealed.
In fact he was just trying to save the world from the conspiracies of the Devil. When he prays he may even pray for your forgiveness for, in thinking him mad, you know not what you do.
Its inspiring and wounding and wearying and ultimately like taking a beating, or listening to a man rant you can't get away from. (Yet he is ranting in visual _music). It’s pretty much the same feeling I got reading Cerebus all those years ago. Its nasty and viscerally unpleasant. The mans heart is a sewer. Yet he is an innocent. _He_ doesn't know, after all, and never will.
November 15, 2021
What a dumpster fire of a book this is. What credit it does get is for often quite stunning art, though the pages become increasingly difficult to read as the book progresses, not only because of the cluttered imagery but also because text/caption placing becomes increasingly ... complex, I guess, making it difficult to figure out what to read when. This may be part of Sim's point, of course, as the ideas of "layers upon layer upon layers" and (I kid you not) the simultaneity of past, present, and future are key conceits. One way the layering works--Sim folding in redrawn and recaptioned (sometimes) panels and sequences from various old comic strips and books--is a kind of interesting instance of meta-comics, I guess, but it's in service of frankly batshit crazy nonsense. Sim has invented this idea he calls "Comic book metaphysics": what happens in comics affects reality. His thesis, insofar as it can even be determined, since the work is not only incomplete but also simply expands in its interweaving of dubiously linked events and people as it progresses, without ever concluding, seems to be something about the death of Alex Raymond being tied to the writer of Rip Kirby, Ward Greene, using the strip to encode autobiography and to trying somehow to influence the life of Margaret Mitchell, even though she was killed in a car crash (but so was Alex Raymond! Though Raymond was driving, and Mitchell was a pedestrian....) in 1949, seven years before Raymond's death in 1956, and even though Greene had evidently stopped writing the strip in 1952. How do we know the strip includes encoded autobiographical elements? Well, sometimes, instead of a period or three ellipses appearing following text, only two dots appear. Two dots are Morse code for "I." Obviously, therefore, when these two dots appear, Greene is secretly telling us that "I" (i. e. he) is speaking in his own voice, rather than simply narrating. What other evidence is there, you ask? Well, um ... none, other than Sim's apophenic-induced enumeration of too many links and echoes to ... well, whatever to be explained away as coincidence. (Also, ascribing the eccentricities of punctuation to the author rather than the letterer seems odd.) The pattern grows as the book goes on, until we get to Sim folding in references to a Margaret Mitchell from Ireland two hundred years prior to the events he is ostensibly documenting being "arguably" (credit to Sim for stating that it is merely arguable, not incontrovertible) the "lynchpin" of the whole thing. Again, how this might be is opaque. Sim finds echoes of Margaret Mitchell in various comics women drawn by different hands, because they all look so similar ... which is normative in comics. Sim finds numerological significance in sevens, noting many dates or passages of time that include or add up to multiples of seven. Why is this significant? Who knows? Sim simply notes the numbers. He's also fond of claiming that things happened "exactly" a certain amount of time apart (e. g. two different books published "exactly" two years apart), without explaining why it is significant or even what he means by "exactly": the same day in the two different years? If so, he doesn't provide the dates, or even tell us how he could know (or if he does, I missed it). Eventually, Sim abandoned the project, so the final few dozen pages are cobbled together by collaborator Carson Grubaugh (also no slouch as an artist), from partially completed art. Do we ever actually get to the explanation of Raymond's strange death? Nope. If you want to look at some nice art, this might be worth a glance. If you want some information about the realist school of comics, Sim does have some interesting things to say about the techniques of Raymond and others early in the book. If you want a coherent account of Raymond's death and a clear explanation of what was strange about it, you're out of luck. I laughed frequently reading this, not because it was supposed to be funny but because Sim's manufactured correspondences between events and his inferences about the people whose lives he is ostensibly documenting are frequently laughable in their absurdity, as well as is the absolute confidence in their veracity with which Sim asserts them. Even his collaborator on the project, Carson Grubaugh, wonders in the final part of the book whether Sim is just crazy. I'm gonna say, arguably yes.
September 19, 2021
This book is a beautifully illustrated, cleverly designed and perfectly executed work from a master of the medium. Which makes it all the more unfortunate that is nearly unreadable.
In its early stages, the book is quite captivating and, to this artist, inspirational for the quality of Sim's work and the way he makes the work of the photorealist comic artists fresh to new eyes. Sure, there's a hint of conspiracy theory in the subject matter, but that's more than compensated for by the investigation into the historic significance of the art style.
However, as the book proceeds, the material becomes more uncomfortably existential and meta-textual, making it difficult to not only follow but to reconcile with anything resembling reality.
By the time Sim breaks out the numerology ("seven-seven-seven", etc.), it seems that he's gone full tilt into crazypants territory and that's when you know it's time to check out.
Dogged readers who make into the section (of which, admittedly, we were forewarned) where Sim has to bow out and Grubaugh takes over will find that by the end of the book, even the subject matter has been abandoned, and the book becomes fully self-referential and inward facing.
In the end, it's progression from analytical study through metaphysical exploration to self-absorbed navel-gazing is either a great work of existentialism on a par with Heidegger and Sartre, or a pointless journey down "Who Cares" lane.
Still....it's got some pretty pictures, so there's that.
In its early stages, the book is quite captivating and, to this artist, inspirational for the quality of Sim's work and the way he makes the work of the photorealist comic artists fresh to new eyes. Sure, there's a hint of conspiracy theory in the subject matter, but that's more than compensated for by the investigation into the historic significance of the art style.
However, as the book proceeds, the material becomes more uncomfortably existential and meta-textual, making it difficult to not only follow but to reconcile with anything resembling reality.
By the time Sim breaks out the numerology ("seven-seven-seven", etc.), it seems that he's gone full tilt into crazypants territory and that's when you know it's time to check out.
Dogged readers who make into the section (of which, admittedly, we were forewarned) where Sim has to bow out and Grubaugh takes over will find that by the end of the book, even the subject matter has been abandoned, and the book becomes fully self-referential and inward facing.
In the end, it's progression from analytical study through metaphysical exploration to self-absorbed navel-gazing is either a great work of existentialism on a par with Heidegger and Sartre, or a pointless journey down "Who Cares" lane.
Still....it's got some pretty pictures, so there's that.
July 9, 2022
This book is hard to read. The text is often very small, the layouts are confusing, and the ideas are odd. Near the end, I started skimming and almost dnf'd it, which would be fair since the author himself did not finish it. (After 250 pages, Sim stopped writing and drawing it. Partly because it was becoming clear that it was a money-losing proposition, and partly because he developed a condition that makes it painful for him to draw.)
There is some beautiful art, and interesting discussion of photo-realistic comics creators and the history of their works. Sim studied and learned to reproduce some of the most detailled comics art ever produced. Art that was originally technologically impossible to reproduce at full resolution is now presented perfectly in Sim's recreations. And it is stunning. Unfortunately, the ideas that Sim adds are a confusing, rambling mess and he goes off on many tangents and leaves many loose ends. The basic idea is that through some "comics metaphysics" the things that comics artists draw influence the real world (in both the future and the past) and conversely real-world events invade into the comics (from the future as well as the past). Whatever point Sim was leading up to about Alex Raymond's death, though, is never revealed because the work isn't finished. Carson Grumbaugh added a sort-of conclusion with his own ideas of where it was going, tentatively concluding that Sim thought Raymond's death was the blood-price for getting un-intentionally involved in magical forces beyond his understanding.
I recommend looking at the art, and maybe reading some of the desciptions of drawing techniques. But, even if you believe in the sort of mystical ideas Sim explores, it isn't worthwhile to read the rambling story which goes nowhere.
Carson Grumbaugh seems to have been semi-conviced, though. I'll quote him here, trying to preserve his odd italics and bolding: "It is when these themes, resonances, names, etc. start to pile up and loop back in on one another so densely that I start to get weirded out. That I start to consider the possibility that Dave might not be just crazy."
There is some beautiful art, and interesting discussion of photo-realistic comics creators and the history of their works. Sim studied and learned to reproduce some of the most detailled comics art ever produced. Art that was originally technologically impossible to reproduce at full resolution is now presented perfectly in Sim's recreations. And it is stunning. Unfortunately, the ideas that Sim adds are a confusing, rambling mess and he goes off on many tangents and leaves many loose ends. The basic idea is that through some "comics metaphysics" the things that comics artists draw influence the real world (in both the future and the past) and conversely real-world events invade into the comics (from the future as well as the past). Whatever point Sim was leading up to about Alex Raymond's death, though, is never revealed because the work isn't finished. Carson Grumbaugh added a sort-of conclusion with his own ideas of where it was going, tentatively concluding that Sim thought Raymond's death was the blood-price for getting un-intentionally involved in magical forces beyond his understanding.
I recommend looking at the art, and maybe reading some of the desciptions of drawing techniques. But, even if you believe in the sort of mystical ideas Sim explores, it isn't worthwhile to read the rambling story which goes nowhere.
Carson Grumbaugh seems to have been semi-conviced, though. I'll quote him here, trying to preserve his odd italics and bolding: "It is when these themes, resonances, names, etc. start to pile up and loop back in on one another so densely that I start to get weirded out. That I start to consider the possibility that Dave might not be just crazy."
November 17, 2022
That was a disappointing read considering that at one point Dave Sim was a god of creative independent comics. There was an interesting story idea that was not followed despite what the blurb on the back and all the reviews might say the “Who Killed” theme does not last long.
The art on the other hand was amazingly good. Even the bad art was wonderfully displayed.
But this just read like someone wanted to do a history of the art of comics and a biography of certain comic artists. There was also some literary criticism thrown in for good measure. If that was the goal that is what should have been made with all the art. But it looks like the funding backers wanted something story based and fictional because that is the mess we ended up with.
But really (and why I barely give this mess one star and not a zero) this is crap, it reads like the rantings of an art school dropout who took a few philosophy classes so they sound like they know what they are talking about; though actuality they just have their head up their own ass and their fans are calling it genius art. It actually hurts to say these things, Dave Sim was my hero, he was smart and wrote amazing classic stuff from my youth.
The art on the other hand was amazingly good. Even the bad art was wonderfully displayed.
But this just read like someone wanted to do a history of the art of comics and a biography of certain comic artists. There was also some literary criticism thrown in for good measure. If that was the goal that is what should have been made with all the art. But it looks like the funding backers wanted something story based and fictional because that is the mess we ended up with.
But really (and why I barely give this mess one star and not a zero) this is crap, it reads like the rantings of an art school dropout who took a few philosophy classes so they sound like they know what they are talking about; though actuality they just have their head up their own ass and their fans are calling it genius art. It actually hurts to say these things, Dave Sim was my hero, he was smart and wrote amazing classic stuff from my youth.
May 12, 2022
One of the oddest comics I've had the pleasure of reading. The artwork by Dave Sim, mostly reproductions of classic photo-realism comic strips is outstanding. The story... it's part history of photo-realism in comics and part "metaphysical" history. In fact, Sim uses the word "metaphysical" on nearly every page. I don't quite understand what he means by that word in this context.
Essentially the stories being told in the comic strips and the techniques these artists were using ended up causing real world consequences such as Alex Raymond dying in a car crash. Sim's explanations and theories end up spiralling out of control and this project was seemingly left abandoned. Carson Grubaugh (billed as a co-creator) steps in for the final chapter and attempts to close up the story based on Sim's notes. Apparently, Sim wasn't even really talking to Grubaugh about the book. I don't know, it's a very odd book with any equally odd creation story.
Essentially the stories being told in the comic strips and the techniques these artists were using ended up causing real world consequences such as Alex Raymond dying in a car crash. Sim's explanations and theories end up spiralling out of control and this project was seemingly left abandoned. Carson Grubaugh (billed as a co-creator) steps in for the final chapter and attempts to close up the story based on Sim's notes. Apparently, Sim wasn't even really talking to Grubaugh about the book. I don't know, it's a very odd book with any equally odd creation story.
November 27, 2021
The 2nd book I never thought that I would see arrived this year. (The first was Monsters.) An enigmatic book that left me enjoyably confused and flabbergasted. A compromise, surely. I'm sure the final product was not what was envisioned way back in Glamourpuss but an immersive experience nonetheless.
May 8, 2022
After reading somewhere in the range of 3,000* permutations of the word in this volume, I am now conditioned to become physically unwell upon encountering any variation of the word "Metaphysics".
*Margin of error of plus or minus 2,000
*Margin of error of plus or minus 2,000
December 19, 2021
It’s difficult to succinctly explain what this book is. There is a framing narrative about Jack, a woman working late at a comic book store, doing the inventory, and in the process discovering the first issue of a mysterious comic, called The Strange Death of Alex Raymond. As she reads it, the issue keeps switching to the next one, and thus we are treated to the entire book-within-the-book, the actual meat of Strange Death.
Framing narrative aside, what is The Strange Death of Alex Raymond? Large parts of it consist of writer-artist Dave Sim talking to us about the history of realism in comic art, and these lessons in art history are well-researched and demonstrated visually, making it possible to quickly absorb the information presented.
As Sim studies the changes in the art styles of people like the eponymous Alex Raymond (author of Flash Gordon and Rip Kirby) or his contemporaries and rivals, like Hal Foster (Prince Valiant), Milton Caniff (Terry and the Pirates) and Stan Drake (The Heart of Juliet Jones), the book turns to not just a study in art history but an in-depth analysis of personal rivalries and behind-the-scenes drama between talented and surprisingly wealthy comic artists.
Making this book must’ve been a daunting task, and it did take decades of work. So much of what Sim presents here relies on hearsay or reading between the lines, and he even spends some pages on interpreting body language during a handshake between two people, breaking the image down and making a very compelling case for his interpretation in light of the information he has given us for context.
The Strange Death of Alex Raymond is not just a history of realism in comic art presented in comic form, nor is it a simple biography about the rivalries between the founders of the different schools of said realism. It is also a cold-case mystery, with Sim himself acting as a sort of detective, trying to piece together the evidence required to show what really went on when Alex Raymond perished in a fatal car accident. But even this isn’t the whole of it, and the most important reason for why Sim himself appears as a character throughout the book is that this is a book about his own artistic development.
Having read the entirety of Cerebus, I’ve had the pleasure of seeing Dave Sim go from his amateurish drawings in 1977 to excellent cartooning skills and constant experimentation. His growth is well documented in the pages of a single, 300-issue series and can be easily followed. But even after Cerebus ended in 2004, he wasn’t done. Some of the latter parts of Cerebus (specifically in Latter Days, volume 15) featured many images that were traced, whether from Ingmar Bergman movies or from fashion magazines, and this trajectory away from cartooning and toward realism would continue in his later career.
The study of realism in art is what brought Sim to the old masters this book is about, and thus to the mystery of Raymond’s death, which is generally accepted to have been an open-and-shut case of a man simply driving a car off the road with fatal results. The Strange Death of Alex Raymond is perhaps at its most interesting not when discussing this mystery or even the admittedly fascinating history of comic art, but specifically when Sim is talking shop and exploring the methods by which he learned the techniques of these older artists.
Regardless of what your personal opinions are of Dave Sim as a person, his skill as an artist cannot be denied. When he speaks of the interpersonal drama of long-dead artists, this is speculation, even if informed and convincing, and sometimes goes a little weird (the talk of comic-art metaphysics would be right at home in a Grant Morrison comic) but when he speaks of the art itself, he speaks with an unquestionable authority, and his words carry a weight that cannot be ignored.
For example, from page 98 onward he demonstrates how to ink with a brush and the inherent problems with it. To achieve the results Raymond did, one would have to spend an exorbitant amount of time on brush maintenance, but this couldn’t be considering the speed with which Raymond worked, and the solution to this problem is something only an artist could have discovered. I’d have been completely stumped.
It’s not at all necessary to be an expert in comic art to appreciate this book, though I imagine actual artists will get even more out of it than I ever could. My takeaway is clear, though; Dave Sim the art historian is competent and engaging, Dave Sim the cold-case detective is a bit loony but at least persuasive, and Dave Sim the art style analyst and mimic is the true hero of the book, intrepid, clever and possessing almost magical talents. The book would fit on the shelf right alongside Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics, Reinventing Comics and Making Comics.
There is so much to be said about this book. The visuals demand your attention. There’s pages here, especially the ones having to do with the car crash itself, that have this Katsuhiro Otomo –esque detail that must’ve taken an ungodly amount of labour to draw but that the eye simply skips over during the reading experience. My words cannot adequately describe how impressive it is.
It came in at the very end of the year, and I will gladly name The Strange Death of Alex Raymond my book of the year for 2021. Get your hands on it while it’s still available.
5/5
Framing narrative aside, what is The Strange Death of Alex Raymond? Large parts of it consist of writer-artist Dave Sim talking to us about the history of realism in comic art, and these lessons in art history are well-researched and demonstrated visually, making it possible to quickly absorb the information presented.
As Sim studies the changes in the art styles of people like the eponymous Alex Raymond (author of Flash Gordon and Rip Kirby) or his contemporaries and rivals, like Hal Foster (Prince Valiant), Milton Caniff (Terry and the Pirates) and Stan Drake (The Heart of Juliet Jones), the book turns to not just a study in art history but an in-depth analysis of personal rivalries and behind-the-scenes drama between talented and surprisingly wealthy comic artists.
Making this book must’ve been a daunting task, and it did take decades of work. So much of what Sim presents here relies on hearsay or reading between the lines, and he even spends some pages on interpreting body language during a handshake between two people, breaking the image down and making a very compelling case for his interpretation in light of the information he has given us for context.
The Strange Death of Alex Raymond is not just a history of realism in comic art presented in comic form, nor is it a simple biography about the rivalries between the founders of the different schools of said realism. It is also a cold-case mystery, with Sim himself acting as a sort of detective, trying to piece together the evidence required to show what really went on when Alex Raymond perished in a fatal car accident. But even this isn’t the whole of it, and the most important reason for why Sim himself appears as a character throughout the book is that this is a book about his own artistic development.
Having read the entirety of Cerebus, I’ve had the pleasure of seeing Dave Sim go from his amateurish drawings in 1977 to excellent cartooning skills and constant experimentation. His growth is well documented in the pages of a single, 300-issue series and can be easily followed. But even after Cerebus ended in 2004, he wasn’t done. Some of the latter parts of Cerebus (specifically in Latter Days, volume 15) featured many images that were traced, whether from Ingmar Bergman movies or from fashion magazines, and this trajectory away from cartooning and toward realism would continue in his later career.
The study of realism in art is what brought Sim to the old masters this book is about, and thus to the mystery of Raymond’s death, which is generally accepted to have been an open-and-shut case of a man simply driving a car off the road with fatal results. The Strange Death of Alex Raymond is perhaps at its most interesting not when discussing this mystery or even the admittedly fascinating history of comic art, but specifically when Sim is talking shop and exploring the methods by which he learned the techniques of these older artists.
Regardless of what your personal opinions are of Dave Sim as a person, his skill as an artist cannot be denied. When he speaks of the interpersonal drama of long-dead artists, this is speculation, even if informed and convincing, and sometimes goes a little weird (the talk of comic-art metaphysics would be right at home in a Grant Morrison comic) but when he speaks of the art itself, he speaks with an unquestionable authority, and his words carry a weight that cannot be ignored.
For example, from page 98 onward he demonstrates how to ink with a brush and the inherent problems with it. To achieve the results Raymond did, one would have to spend an exorbitant amount of time on brush maintenance, but this couldn’t be considering the speed with which Raymond worked, and the solution to this problem is something only an artist could have discovered. I’d have been completely stumped.
It’s not at all necessary to be an expert in comic art to appreciate this book, though I imagine actual artists will get even more out of it than I ever could. My takeaway is clear, though; Dave Sim the art historian is competent and engaging, Dave Sim the cold-case detective is a bit loony but at least persuasive, and Dave Sim the art style analyst and mimic is the true hero of the book, intrepid, clever and possessing almost magical talents. The book would fit on the shelf right alongside Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics, Reinventing Comics and Making Comics.
There is so much to be said about this book. The visuals demand your attention. There’s pages here, especially the ones having to do with the car crash itself, that have this Katsuhiro Otomo –esque detail that must’ve taken an ungodly amount of labour to draw but that the eye simply skips over during the reading experience. My words cannot adequately describe how impressive it is.
It came in at the very end of the year, and I will gladly name The Strange Death of Alex Raymond my book of the year for 2021. Get your hands on it while it’s still available.
5/5
Read
November 23, 2021A beautiful book that’s somewhat challenging to read both in terms of content and presentation. The bulk of the art is recreations of various photorealistic cartoonists of the mid-twentieth century who make up the central characters. There isn’t really much of story in the traditional sense—the basic facts of the titular death are dispatched pretty quickly—but it’s Sim’s exploration of the event’s Cosmic Significance that, for better or for worse, make up most the book.
Dave Sim is a big believer in what can best be described as a magical connection between our reality and creativity. Fictional characters and situations will be replicated in real life and vice versa. As Sim sees it, Alex Raymond’s strange death we foreshadowed in (or caused by) events in comics created by him, his contemporaries and others. And not just Raymond—Gone With the Wind author Margaret Mitchell (who gets just as much screen time as Alex Raymond) also died in a car accident which was also a manifestation of various creative works. Other real life people associated with Raymond and Mitchell also had fates that echoed fictional works, and it seems that the more Sim dug the more connections he found.
At its best the book reads like an entertaining comics history version of someone pointing out all the fun coincidences when you play Dark Side of the Moon with “The Wizard of Oz.” But eventually the obsessive depth becomes exhausting (if two events happen on the same date years apart or if two people share the similar last name they obviously have a Cosmic Significance, for instance).
Dave Sim is a big believer in what can best be described as a magical connection between our reality and creativity. Fictional characters and situations will be replicated in real life and vice versa. As Sim sees it, Alex Raymond’s strange death we foreshadowed in (or caused by) events in comics created by him, his contemporaries and others. And not just Raymond—Gone With the Wind author Margaret Mitchell (who gets just as much screen time as Alex Raymond) also died in a car accident which was also a manifestation of various creative works. Other real life people associated with Raymond and Mitchell also had fates that echoed fictional works, and it seems that the more Sim dug the more connections he found.
At its best the book reads like an entertaining comics history version of someone pointing out all the fun coincidences when you play Dark Side of the Moon with “The Wizard of Oz.” But eventually the obsessive depth becomes exhausting (if two events happen on the same date years apart or if two people share the similar last name they obviously have a Cosmic Significance, for instance).
August 21, 2023
Okay dit is een van de vreemdste en meest uitdagende strips die ik ooit heb gelezen (en dat zegt toch wel iets). Iets dat begint als een interessant soort raadsel op metaniveau met four wall breaks en alles ontaard in een overdaad aan complottheorieën en verbanden die alleen maar getrokken kunnen worden door iemand die ze volgens mij niet helemaal op een rijtje heeft.
Het eindigt ook helemaal niet bevredigend, geen antwoorden op wat er nou precies zo Strange was aan de Death van Alex Raymond. Ik bedoel, die vent is gewoon met z'n sportwagen tegen een boom gereden.
En toch is het een fucking fascinerend document. Date Sim is hier meer dan 10 jaar mee bezig geweest en moest stoppen omdat ie z'n hand heeft kapot getekend. Obsessie much? Het sterkt mij wel in het idee dat de wereld een poel aan random events is maar dat wij mensen niet anders kunnen dan proberen daar maar voortdurend betekenis in te injecteren. We kunnen dat gewoon niet uit zetten.
Soms is dat helend en sleept dat ons door moeilijke momenten en duistere dalen.
Soms trekt het ons daar alleen maar dieper naartoe.
Het eindigt ook helemaal niet bevredigend, geen antwoorden op wat er nou precies zo Strange was aan de Death van Alex Raymond. Ik bedoel, die vent is gewoon met z'n sportwagen tegen een boom gereden.
En toch is het een fucking fascinerend document. Date Sim is hier meer dan 10 jaar mee bezig geweest en moest stoppen omdat ie z'n hand heeft kapot getekend. Obsessie much? Het sterkt mij wel in het idee dat de wereld een poel aan random events is maar dat wij mensen niet anders kunnen dan proberen daar maar voortdurend betekenis in te injecteren. We kunnen dat gewoon niet uit zetten.
Soms is dat helend en sleept dat ons door moeilijke momenten en duistere dalen.
Soms trekt het ons daar alleen maar dieper naartoe.
August 4, 2021
Originally posted on my blog: Nonstop Reader.
The Strange Death of Alex Raymond is a beautifully drawn but largely inscrutable graphic novel begun by Dave Sim and more or less completed by Carson Grubaugh. Due out in Aug 2021, it's 320 pages and will be available in hardcover format.
This is a difficult book to evaluate and review. On the one hand the art is top notch - beautifully rendered and clean - it mesmerizes. The story on the other hand is just strange and very disjointed. It begins (mostly) understandably, with a parallel narrative essay on photorealism generously interleaved with kind of nutsobonkers conspiracy theory and soon switches into turbo-numerology and around that point I lost (and never found) the plot again.
If it's truly sublime genius, a modern comics stream-of-consciousness nod to Finnegan's Wake, Anna Karenina and other classics, or simply self absorbed navel gazing must be left to wiser minds than mine. I do know that I simply couldn't catch any narrative threads and wasn't able to sink myself into the story at any point, but I really loved looking at the art.
Five stars for the art. Two stars for the narrative (which may well have been too intellectual and subtle for me). Three and a half stars overall. For Dave Sim completionists, this will be a must-buy. Probably important for public library acquisition, otherwise I'm in a bit of a quandary for audiences for whom this will be a good fit.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
The Strange Death of Alex Raymond is a beautifully drawn but largely inscrutable graphic novel begun by Dave Sim and more or less completed by Carson Grubaugh. Due out in Aug 2021, it's 320 pages and will be available in hardcover format.
This is a difficult book to evaluate and review. On the one hand the art is top notch - beautifully rendered and clean - it mesmerizes. The story on the other hand is just strange and very disjointed. It begins (mostly) understandably, with a parallel narrative essay on photorealism generously interleaved with kind of nutsobonkers conspiracy theory and soon switches into turbo-numerology and around that point I lost (and never found) the plot again.
If it's truly sublime genius, a modern comics stream-of-consciousness nod to Finnegan's Wake, Anna Karenina and other classics, or simply self absorbed navel gazing must be left to wiser minds than mine. I do know that I simply couldn't catch any narrative threads and wasn't able to sink myself into the story at any point, but I really loved looking at the art.
Five stars for the art. Two stars for the narrative (which may well have been too intellectual and subtle for me). Three and a half stars overall. For Dave Sim completionists, this will be a must-buy. Probably important for public library acquisition, otherwise I'm in a bit of a quandary for audiences for whom this will be a good fit.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
January 19, 2024
I can’t say that I truly finished this book, but I was definitely finished with it. There’s some exquisite Sim drawing here, but the story is insane and I deemed it unworthy of my time. When the Sim as Charlie Brown image kept repeating and he cried out in frustration “doesn’t anyone want this story told?”, I could only answer Not Me.
November 16, 2022
Dave Sim is known for making life hard for himself. He set an incredibly ambitious target of 300 self published issues for his magnum opus Cerebus The Aardvark, only getting assistance when Gerhard joined on backgrounds from issue 65. A funny animal Conan knock off that became a dense, political and social satire, Sim and his creation inspired a mini self publishing boom in the early 1990s, spawning Martin Wagner’s Hepcats, Terry Moore’s Strangers In Paradise and Jeff Smith’s Bone and, along the way, upset a lot of people with his opinions on a whole range of topics.
After the completion of Cerebus, Sim took a short break before returning with Judenhaas, a one shot comic about the Holocaust. He followed that with Glamourpuss, a weird fish of a comic. It was part satire of the fashion industry and part comic history, specifically Sim’s first stab at The Strange Death of Alex Raymond. Glamourpuss ended after 26 issues, torpedoed by its very select appeal and schizophrenic content.
Undeterred, Sim announced his intention to complete the Strange Death. Originally proposed as a four volume series to be published by IDW, it faltered. With failed crowdfunding attempts, it seemed fate had conspired against the project, the final straw that Sim is now unable to draw, without severe pain.
However, finally, The Strange Death of Alex Raymond is here in a single volume, courtesy of publisher Living the Line.
If it had to be categorized, then Strange Death might be described as a history of comic art. Specifically photorealistic comic art. But there is more to it than that. Initially exploring what he proposes as three schools of photorealistic art, Sim splices it with commentary and an exploration of the circumstances around the instigator of one of those three schools, Alex Raymond, creator of Flash Gordon, and his death at the wheel of fellow artist Stan Drake’s gull wing Mercedes. He delves deeply into the three photorealistic schools, replicating the work of the artists he features in the book.
But what initially appears to be an Understanding Comics-styled exploration and deconstruction of the medium becomes something far more dense and strange.
Sim appears in the book, featured as the tortured artist; determined to complete this project, and to explain his thought and creative process. He outlines his theory that comics have metaphysical properties, that they influence reality. In a warren of rabbit holes, he attempts to demonstrate that the lives and fates of Raymond, his rival Stan (The Heart of Juliet Jones) Drake, creative luminaries such as Margaret Mitchell, author of Gone with the Wind, intertwine… but were forecast or determined by comic strips.
Sim’s financial and health problems meant that the book would have been left unfinished, if it wasn’t for Carson Grubaugh assisting Sim from around two thirds in and Grubaugh then going solo for the last the last 31 pages. But Grubaugh, a truly great artist in his own right, makes no concessions to Sim and uses what has gone previously as a springboard into completing it the book in his own way, and spends the last few pages offering his own opinion on Sim’s theory on metaphysics.
Comparisons with Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics are inevitable, but a better comparison would be with Bryan Talbot’s huge and equally ambitious, meta textual and criminally underrated Alice in Sunderland, that explores similar themes.
It’s an incredibly ambitious project. It isn’t an easy read, though not without humour. Arguably, Sim overreaches and the project begins to it collapse under the weight of his ambition. You may come away from it with the conclusion that Sim is a nut, and still be unsure as to what metaphysics actually is, but Strange Death should be appreciated for the beautiful art, if nothing else. It’s a magnificent piece of work and should be read by lovers of the medium. But put a few days aside to read and process it.
Be awed by the art, dazzled by the ambition and baffled by the theory.
After the completion of Cerebus, Sim took a short break before returning with Judenhaas, a one shot comic about the Holocaust. He followed that with Glamourpuss, a weird fish of a comic. It was part satire of the fashion industry and part comic history, specifically Sim’s first stab at The Strange Death of Alex Raymond. Glamourpuss ended after 26 issues, torpedoed by its very select appeal and schizophrenic content.
Undeterred, Sim announced his intention to complete the Strange Death. Originally proposed as a four volume series to be published by IDW, it faltered. With failed crowdfunding attempts, it seemed fate had conspired against the project, the final straw that Sim is now unable to draw, without severe pain.
However, finally, The Strange Death of Alex Raymond is here in a single volume, courtesy of publisher Living the Line.
If it had to be categorized, then Strange Death might be described as a history of comic art. Specifically photorealistic comic art. But there is more to it than that. Initially exploring what he proposes as three schools of photorealistic art, Sim splices it with commentary and an exploration of the circumstances around the instigator of one of those three schools, Alex Raymond, creator of Flash Gordon, and his death at the wheel of fellow artist Stan Drake’s gull wing Mercedes. He delves deeply into the three photorealistic schools, replicating the work of the artists he features in the book.
But what initially appears to be an Understanding Comics-styled exploration and deconstruction of the medium becomes something far more dense and strange.
Sim appears in the book, featured as the tortured artist; determined to complete this project, and to explain his thought and creative process. He outlines his theory that comics have metaphysical properties, that they influence reality. In a warren of rabbit holes, he attempts to demonstrate that the lives and fates of Raymond, his rival Stan (The Heart of Juliet Jones) Drake, creative luminaries such as Margaret Mitchell, author of Gone with the Wind, intertwine… but were forecast or determined by comic strips.
Sim’s financial and health problems meant that the book would have been left unfinished, if it wasn’t for Carson Grubaugh assisting Sim from around two thirds in and Grubaugh then going solo for the last the last 31 pages. But Grubaugh, a truly great artist in his own right, makes no concessions to Sim and uses what has gone previously as a springboard into completing it the book in his own way, and spends the last few pages offering his own opinion on Sim’s theory on metaphysics.
Comparisons with Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics are inevitable, but a better comparison would be with Bryan Talbot’s huge and equally ambitious, meta textual and criminally underrated Alice in Sunderland, that explores similar themes.
It’s an incredibly ambitious project. It isn’t an easy read, though not without humour. Arguably, Sim overreaches and the project begins to it collapse under the weight of his ambition. You may come away from it with the conclusion that Sim is a nut, and still be unsure as to what metaphysics actually is, but Strange Death should be appreciated for the beautiful art, if nothing else. It’s a magnificent piece of work and should be read by lovers of the medium. But put a few days aside to read and process it.
Be awed by the art, dazzled by the ambition and baffled by the theory.
January 2, 2022
I've never read Cerebus and I mostly know Sim's work through friends' recommendations and the controversies he has kicked up over the years, but when I read a brief review of this book that mentioned its unlikely tie to William Seabrook, it went to the top of my reading list. I have no regrets.
Having just read a book about Hans Prinzhorn and his curation of the work of "insane" artists, it's difficult not to see this volume as an example of immense artistic talent so blended with an alternate view of reality that the darker foundations of creativity just may peek through. Beautiful drawings and a good survey of photo realistic comic strip art are the wrappings around an obsessive quest for meaning that the artists' mind obsessively extracts from his own perceptions. I won't spoil anything by revealing his premise or the elaborate evidence he brings forth to support it and I will resist passing judgment on anyone's sanity. It may all be art.
I believe that it is possible for art, and popular culture, to produce unintentional truth, even foreshadowing things that have not yet happened, because art and culture are born from the same actions and perceptions that shape our common consciousness and that precipitate actual events, but the premise here goes well beyond that notion.
As a footnote to the strange world of Willie Seabrook, I found the book totally satisfying. As a guide to a side of comic history I hardly knew, it's excellent, though probably not for the literal-minded. As an example of graphic novel design, it's a masterpiece. Artist Carson Grubaugh deserves enormous credit for his work in completing the story, as much as it is possible to complete something that lends itself to endless layer-peeling.
Given the pages spent on the efforts Raymond took to ensure his inked lines survived the printing press, there is certainly an irony in the misprinting of many copies of the book, dropping vital content due to an error in reproduction. Probably not an example of comic strip metaphysics at work, but worth noting since Amazon is still shipping defective copies.
Having just read a book about Hans Prinzhorn and his curation of the work of "insane" artists, it's difficult not to see this volume as an example of immense artistic talent so blended with an alternate view of reality that the darker foundations of creativity just may peek through. Beautiful drawings and a good survey of photo realistic comic strip art are the wrappings around an obsessive quest for meaning that the artists' mind obsessively extracts from his own perceptions. I won't spoil anything by revealing his premise or the elaborate evidence he brings forth to support it and I will resist passing judgment on anyone's sanity. It may all be art.
I believe that it is possible for art, and popular culture, to produce unintentional truth, even foreshadowing things that have not yet happened, because art and culture are born from the same actions and perceptions that shape our common consciousness and that precipitate actual events, but the premise here goes well beyond that notion.
As a footnote to the strange world of Willie Seabrook, I found the book totally satisfying. As a guide to a side of comic history I hardly knew, it's excellent, though probably not for the literal-minded. As an example of graphic novel design, it's a masterpiece. Artist Carson Grubaugh deserves enormous credit for his work in completing the story, as much as it is possible to complete something that lends itself to endless layer-peeling.
Given the pages spent on the efforts Raymond took to ensure his inked lines survived the printing press, there is certainly an irony in the misprinting of many copies of the book, dropping vital content due to an error in reproduction. Probably not an example of comic strip metaphysics at work, but worth noting since Amazon is still shipping defective copies.
February 10, 2022
There’s some great stuff about the craft of realistic cartoonists and then it just gets lost for me in odd detours that never make much sense. It did make me want to go back to the source — even if some of the copies of Alex Raymond’s art is okay, they just don’t have the life of the original line drawings.
November 28, 2021
Самое мощное когда-либо недописанное произведение, которое пытались дописать. Невероятной силы текст и визуал, обволакивающие четыре (их ведь четыре, правда?) слоя повествования. Обязательная книга для тех, кто хочет лучше ПОНЯТЬ комиксы.
December 13, 2021
Dave Sim has always been underrated as an artist, especially as an inker (it was Gerhard who got the Harvey nomination for his inking), and let me say: this gorgeous volume is a long-overdo showcase that displays his art’s swansong and its glorious brush inking as it should be seen.
Swansong unfortunately it is, as Sim’s hand gave out and he can no longer draw. He only completed maybe two thirds of this book, which should be fatal to its success—but fortunately, as if by miracle, Sim found another artist, one Carson Grubaugh, who can also pull an amazing line! He even does a boffo Dave Sim impression! Book saved!
Unfortunately, what is fatal to this volume’s success is the fact that it is street-preacher tinfoil-hat crazy. I mean something happened one day in Westport, CT, and it changed the face of American cartooning, and it sure would be interesting if someone could unravel what it was. While the bare facts (the two greatest “photorealistic” newspaper cartoonists in America got into a car alive and one came out dead) are clear, so many of the alleged details don’t add up. As Sim points out, how can a driver confuse the gas and the brake when his foot perforce must already be on the gas? We are supposed to believe that Stan Drake was “thrown clear” of the accident and survived…but the very phrase “thrown clear of an accident” is a now-archaic fiction, and all seatbelt-related research has shown that being thrown clear of any accident not involving a drive into a volcano is the very worst thing that can happen to you. “Thrown clear” is exactly the kind of thing that sounded plausible in 1956 but by 2021 looks like a trumped-up fiction.
Did Stan Drake kill Alex Raymond? Did Alex Raymond commit suicide in Stan Drake’s car? A little of both? The answer would be fascinating, and I thought that an answer was just what Sim was groping towards a decade ago in his comic book Glamourpuss. But whatever the answer is it probably involves neither a Crowley disciple trying to manipulate Margaret Mitchell into resurrecting the Ku Klux Klan nor how many time Sim spots multiples of the number 7. Sim’s close readings of comic strips are clever, but they’re closer to Carl Jung’s book-length confession that he is bad at math than to the true-crime expose the opening pages of TSDoAR promise the reader.
Even all this craziness could be forgiven—and by forgiven I mean I would still be hailing TSDoAR as a comic work of the first order that deserves canonicity despite or even because of its madness. The art is that good, the cartooning (I mean the pacing of the panels and all that) is that assured. Moore and Campbell’s From Hell is the obvious touchstone here, but TSDoAR is crazier, and better-drawn. Everything would be fine…
…except that 80% through the project, Sim just straight-up abandoned it. Dave Sim being Dave Sim, he gave his blessing to Carson Grubaugh to finish the project and publish it in this prestige format, but “finish” is too generous a term for the (well-drawn) shrug Grubaugh manages to conjure up. The threads just hang there. Something about Grace Kelly. Something about Milton Caniff “defeating” Alex Raymond via handshake. Something about everything except, of course, the day Alex Raymond borrowed Stan Drake’s car and suffered an eponymous strange death.
This is a book with a host of virtues, and if you can overlook its shortcomings you’ll be…not rewarded, really, because it’s a book distinctly lacking a reward. But you’ll get some kicks from it. No one has loved the art of Alex Raymond the way Sim has loved the art of Alex Raymond, and that kind of love always makes a book fun. At the very least, we’ll always have Sim’s so-crazy-it-must-be-right analysis of the great man’s inking technique. If that sounds like a small payoff for a 300-page oversized hardcover, then this book may not be for you. But if you can find beauty in inkers’ secrets you’ll find beauty in more than that inside.
Swansong unfortunately it is, as Sim’s hand gave out and he can no longer draw. He only completed maybe two thirds of this book, which should be fatal to its success—but fortunately, as if by miracle, Sim found another artist, one Carson Grubaugh, who can also pull an amazing line! He even does a boffo Dave Sim impression! Book saved!
Unfortunately, what is fatal to this volume’s success is the fact that it is street-preacher tinfoil-hat crazy. I mean something happened one day in Westport, CT, and it changed the face of American cartooning, and it sure would be interesting if someone could unravel what it was. While the bare facts (the two greatest “photorealistic” newspaper cartoonists in America got into a car alive and one came out dead) are clear, so many of the alleged details don’t add up. As Sim points out, how can a driver confuse the gas and the brake when his foot perforce must already be on the gas? We are supposed to believe that Stan Drake was “thrown clear” of the accident and survived…but the very phrase “thrown clear of an accident” is a now-archaic fiction, and all seatbelt-related research has shown that being thrown clear of any accident not involving a drive into a volcano is the very worst thing that can happen to you. “Thrown clear” is exactly the kind of thing that sounded plausible in 1956 but by 2021 looks like a trumped-up fiction.
Did Stan Drake kill Alex Raymond? Did Alex Raymond commit suicide in Stan Drake’s car? A little of both? The answer would be fascinating, and I thought that an answer was just what Sim was groping towards a decade ago in his comic book Glamourpuss. But whatever the answer is it probably involves neither a Crowley disciple trying to manipulate Margaret Mitchell into resurrecting the Ku Klux Klan nor how many time Sim spots multiples of the number 7. Sim’s close readings of comic strips are clever, but they’re closer to Carl Jung’s book-length confession that he is bad at math than to the true-crime expose the opening pages of TSDoAR promise the reader.
Even all this craziness could be forgiven—and by forgiven I mean I would still be hailing TSDoAR as a comic work of the first order that deserves canonicity despite or even because of its madness. The art is that good, the cartooning (I mean the pacing of the panels and all that) is that assured. Moore and Campbell’s From Hell is the obvious touchstone here, but TSDoAR is crazier, and better-drawn. Everything would be fine…
…except that 80% through the project, Sim just straight-up abandoned it. Dave Sim being Dave Sim, he gave his blessing to Carson Grubaugh to finish the project and publish it in this prestige format, but “finish” is too generous a term for the (well-drawn) shrug Grubaugh manages to conjure up. The threads just hang there. Something about Grace Kelly. Something about Milton Caniff “defeating” Alex Raymond via handshake. Something about everything except, of course, the day Alex Raymond borrowed Stan Drake’s car and suffered an eponymous strange death.
This is a book with a host of virtues, and if you can overlook its shortcomings you’ll be…not rewarded, really, because it’s a book distinctly lacking a reward. But you’ll get some kicks from it. No one has loved the art of Alex Raymond the way Sim has loved the art of Alex Raymond, and that kind of love always makes a book fun. At the very least, we’ll always have Sim’s so-crazy-it-must-be-right analysis of the great man’s inking technique. If that sounds like a small payoff for a 300-page oversized hardcover, then this book may not be for you. But if you can find beauty in inkers’ secrets you’ll find beauty in more than that inside.
September 26, 2023
This is something.
January 27, 2024
I've known about Dave Sim ever since I found a reference to Cerebus the Aardvark in a history of the comics field I read back in High School, which I believe must have been published before the comic completed given it's lack of reference to the controversies of the last 3rd of the run. I started reading it a few years later and I still have the first 200 issues in paperback on my shelf. Somehow I've never gotten around to finishing it.
I never really followed any of Sim's other work like Glamourpuss or any of the Cerebus in Hell cut up comics Sim started putting out, but I was always somewhat aware of it from online fan circles. Part of that was, of course, the hype surrounding his next big project The Strange Death of Alex Raymond. A weird mish-mash of art history, metaphysics, sympathetic magic, conspiracy theory, and biography, The Strange Death of Alex Raymond seemed like the kind of grand project that Sim used to be known for.
And then there came the hand injury which seemed to kill the book dead in the water.
Now the books actually come out because of the assistance of Carson Grubaugh, but it's taken me this long to read it because I knew the Sim we would get for it would be the right wing paranoid crank. Eventually curiosity got the better of me, plus fond memories of the work Sim used to be capable of in Cerebus the Aardvark (which despite everything I still have a soft spot for) and I picked it up from the library.
The comic is basically a synthesis of two Dave Sims, and the comic can be infuriating to read because usually it's Dave the crank burying Dave the talented artist.
It's obviously not unusual that a writer will let his worldview influence his work, but there are so many moments where Dave just gives his own motivations for what other people were doing as if they are obvious or fact, such as an entire sequence early on where he states that all of the comic artists were actively working with "Comic Book Metaphysics" to dominate one another or steal power from someones work, and at one point gives a lengthy spiel about how a moment caught on camera where Alex Raymond gave a weak handshake with Milt Caniff was actually Caniff turning the tables on him. He doesn't present these moments as hypotheticals or arguments, but as obvious conclusions.
The entire comic is written as if to provoke information overload in the reader. The comic doesn't work as a biography or history of newspaper comics or Alex Raymond because the comic tends to jump all over the place and it's impossible to follow any narrative thread, and the comic doesn't work as a metaphysical reading of events because Sim never really presents his arguments. He doesn't explain his "Comic Book Metaphysics" till near the end of the book, and just dangles the phrase throughout while promising to get more into it later.
I'm not opposed to what the comic is ostensibly about, the weird events surrounding the events of Alex Raymonds life and death, and the way that art influences life. The second half of the book is full of weird coincidences and strange events that are genuinely interesting. But the problem is that these moments are surrounding by weak arguments and Sim just throwing irrelevant information at you.
And all of this of course is without getting into Sim's casual misogyny, transphobia, and homophobia. These don't drive the book (thank god), but there will be just little references to them, or a knowing joke to the audience about how he'll get yelled at just for asking questions.
And all of this is dropped on top of Sim's absolutely absurd level of artistic ability. The comic is full of jaw dropping art, with Sim replicating the art styles of multiple newspaper comic artists on the same page, as well as recreating entire panels and photographs for the book. I had to put the book down at one point because I got so angry at one point remembering that for all of Sim's faults he's a damn good artist. Throughout the book there are several references and quotes about other artists awe at Alex Raymond's ability to ink so quickly and with such highly detailed lines, and apparently Raymond kept the technique secret. Sim talks about how he was able to piece together the technique from what he knew of brush inking and a single line of a comic panel he saw close up where the ink ran out on the brush.
There are a few other weird quirks to the book. The first half has the parts broken up into chunks because it was originally going to be released as individual issues. These parts have a framing narrative of a comic shop employee reading the comic that I believe was drawn by Grubaugh. The style is noticeably different, and I don't really think the framing devices help or do much for the comic as it stands now, especially because it gets dropped half way through with the character basically escaping the narrative.
The other weird quirk is because the comic was unfinished at the time it was released. Grubaugh comes in and tells us the story of how he got involved in the book, and how he basically had to come in and finish up what he could before giving us the unfinished pages Sim was working on before his injury. It's an unsatisfying end to the work, but given that Sim apparently couldn't pare down the scope of his book, it's probably to be expected.
I have mixed feelings about the book. I'm glad it came out in some state, but it's such a mess in so many ways while being an obvious labor of love. Apparently Sim is going to tackle the book again now that his hand is better, mocking up an additional 320 pages to 'finish' the book. Somehow I think I'll end up reading that one too.
6 out of 10.
I never really followed any of Sim's other work like Glamourpuss or any of the Cerebus in Hell cut up comics Sim started putting out, but I was always somewhat aware of it from online fan circles. Part of that was, of course, the hype surrounding his next big project The Strange Death of Alex Raymond. A weird mish-mash of art history, metaphysics, sympathetic magic, conspiracy theory, and biography, The Strange Death of Alex Raymond seemed like the kind of grand project that Sim used to be known for.
And then there came the hand injury which seemed to kill the book dead in the water.
Now the books actually come out because of the assistance of Carson Grubaugh, but it's taken me this long to read it because I knew the Sim we would get for it would be the right wing paranoid crank. Eventually curiosity got the better of me, plus fond memories of the work Sim used to be capable of in Cerebus the Aardvark (which despite everything I still have a soft spot for) and I picked it up from the library.
The comic is basically a synthesis of two Dave Sims, and the comic can be infuriating to read because usually it's Dave the crank burying Dave the talented artist.
It's obviously not unusual that a writer will let his worldview influence his work, but there are so many moments where Dave just gives his own motivations for what other people were doing as if they are obvious or fact, such as an entire sequence early on where he states that all of the comic artists were actively working with "Comic Book Metaphysics" to dominate one another or steal power from someones work, and at one point gives a lengthy spiel about how a moment caught on camera where Alex Raymond gave a weak handshake with Milt Caniff was actually Caniff turning the tables on him. He doesn't present these moments as hypotheticals or arguments, but as obvious conclusions.
The entire comic is written as if to provoke information overload in the reader. The comic doesn't work as a biography or history of newspaper comics or Alex Raymond because the comic tends to jump all over the place and it's impossible to follow any narrative thread, and the comic doesn't work as a metaphysical reading of events because Sim never really presents his arguments. He doesn't explain his "Comic Book Metaphysics" till near the end of the book, and just dangles the phrase throughout while promising to get more into it later.
I'm not opposed to what the comic is ostensibly about, the weird events surrounding the events of Alex Raymonds life and death, and the way that art influences life. The second half of the book is full of weird coincidences and strange events that are genuinely interesting. But the problem is that these moments are surrounding by weak arguments and Sim just throwing irrelevant information at you.
And all of this of course is without getting into Sim's casual misogyny, transphobia, and homophobia. These don't drive the book (thank god), but there will be just little references to them, or a knowing joke to the audience about how he'll get yelled at just for asking questions.
And all of this is dropped on top of Sim's absolutely absurd level of artistic ability. The comic is full of jaw dropping art, with Sim replicating the art styles of multiple newspaper comic artists on the same page, as well as recreating entire panels and photographs for the book. I had to put the book down at one point because I got so angry at one point remembering that for all of Sim's faults he's a damn good artist. Throughout the book there are several references and quotes about other artists awe at Alex Raymond's ability to ink so quickly and with such highly detailed lines, and apparently Raymond kept the technique secret. Sim talks about how he was able to piece together the technique from what he knew of brush inking and a single line of a comic panel he saw close up where the ink ran out on the brush.
There are a few other weird quirks to the book. The first half has the parts broken up into chunks because it was originally going to be released as individual issues. These parts have a framing narrative of a comic shop employee reading the comic that I believe was drawn by Grubaugh. The style is noticeably different, and I don't really think the framing devices help or do much for the comic as it stands now, especially because it gets dropped half way through with the character basically escaping the narrative.
The other weird quirk is because the comic was unfinished at the time it was released. Grubaugh comes in and tells us the story of how he got involved in the book, and how he basically had to come in and finish up what he could before giving us the unfinished pages Sim was working on before his injury. It's an unsatisfying end to the work, but given that Sim apparently couldn't pare down the scope of his book, it's probably to be expected.
I have mixed feelings about the book. I'm glad it came out in some state, but it's such a mess in so many ways while being an obvious labor of love. Apparently Sim is going to tackle the book again now that his hand is better, mocking up an additional 320 pages to 'finish' the book. Somehow I think I'll end up reading that one too.
6 out of 10.
July 30, 2022
Nicely drawn, but the logic, pacing and story of it are meandering and tedious. I am trying to read it in the mindset of Alan Moore's epilogue to From Hell, "I made it all up," but even without taking any of the ideas too seriously, the book feels all over the place - meta, art theory, weird suppositions into personal lives, comic strip history, biography. It's an ambitious book, for sure, but it's not coming together for me.
Read
April 18, 2021Just couldn't be doing with this huge splodge of up-its-own-arse-ness. Not for the general reader at all.
November 14, 2021
Obsession has both power and curse.
February 15, 2024
As close to a work of abject madness as I have ever read. "The Strange Death of Alex Raymond" finds the controversial comics author and artist Dave Sim ankle deep up his own ass and giving full indulgence to every harebrained conspiracy theory that has seemingly strolled through his unique imagination. It's practically impossible to recommend, and yet it is also shockingly impressive.
Ostensibly an investigation into the car accident that claimed the life of cartoonist Alex Raymond in 1956, Sim dives deep into the history of comics art of the time -- an era before the comic book madness of the 80s and 90s and the film-first comics universes of today.
It's in this objective history of mid-century comics art that Sim is at his most illuminating. He goes deep here, discussing not only the major players and their creations (think of "Prince Valiant" and its precursors, including "Rip Kirby," Alex Raymond's most famous strip) but, crucially, the "schools" that developed over time, including cartoon realism, photorealism, etc. For those who are interested in not only the skills of craftsmanship it takes to recreate those techniques and styles (as well as showcase generous and loving recreations of the original works themselves), it's a veritable college course, with illuminating illustrations and pointed critique.
As you get further in, however, Sim's manic tendencies take over, introducing wild tangents that seemingly go nowhere, yet are seemingly meant to illustrate a point that he seems to believe he is making: that there was much more to mid-century comics than merely dramatic stories and gorgeous artwork. Sim's entire point seems to revolve around the idea of "comics art metaphysics," that is, a larger conflux of forces at work to create coincidences and narrative echoes throughout the lives of the creators and their works. In other words, he thinks there's some spooky shit happening. And it somehow all revolves around Margaret Mitchell (author of "Gone With the Wind"). Or something.
Throughout, Sim blasts the reader with name after name, incident after incident, reference after reference, somehow expecting you to be able to keep up when, at least in my reading experience, I was completely lost in the minutiae of it all; trying to understand how this person's life resonated with that reference, or that moment in a comic strip from 1949 was an echo of something that happened hundreds of years in the past in real life (and 40 years into the future). It was bewildering. Maddening.
If the book's narrative is confounding (and more than a little pity inducing; you can't help but feel bad for Sim. He clearly believes there'ssomething at work here but either can't work it out in his head or doesn't have the ability to express it clearly. Or, you know, it's all poppycock.), its art is a wonder. Dave Sim made his name as the author and primary artist on the legendary "Cerebus" comic series and he brings all of his powers of style, rendering, inking, lettering to bare here. And DESIGN; my God, this book is a masterclass in creative page layout, with page after page of stunning and utterly unique designs throughout. I haven't Sim better as an artist, ever.
So it's at once disappointing (but not surprising) when, after about 3/4 of the book, Sim gives up on the story altogether, literally exits as author and artist, to be replaced by fellow cartoonist Carson Grubaugh. Crucially Grubaugh considers this work an important work even if he is admittedly (in the text itself!) quite skeptical of Sim's central thesis -- that strange metaphysical forces were at work in the death of Alex Raymond and the rest of the mid-century comic art history. To have a work abandoned midstream, only to be picked up by someone who doesn't believe in the premise, but considers it an important enough work to see it through; has this ever occurred in literature before?
(EDIT: To be clear, creators come and go from comic book projects all of the time -- I think of the early 2000's run of The Authority, where Mark Millar took over for Warren Ellis. Not unusual for monthly "mainstream" comics, but for a singular work that was such a product of one creator's imagination; only to be picked up by someone who thought the work's central idea was bullshit? Now THAT is some weird comics art metaphysics at work).
Grubaugh manages to bring a more down-to-earth approach to the story, voicing his skepticism, and also showing off some serious artistic skills of his own, before reaching what is a gorgeous conclusion that is about as far away from a "Sim ending" as could possibly be imagined. It's all the better for it too. That this work of manic and crazed philosophical pondering and deep exploration is brought home to rest in... a living room. It's poignant and beautiful and fitting too.
Enjoy this book for the incredible art. Tolerate this book based on your proclivity for the ravings of a conspiracy theorist in the height of his manic episodes. I can't recommend this, but I can say there is literally nothing else like it.
Ostensibly an investigation into the car accident that claimed the life of cartoonist Alex Raymond in 1956, Sim dives deep into the history of comics art of the time -- an era before the comic book madness of the 80s and 90s and the film-first comics universes of today.
It's in this objective history of mid-century comics art that Sim is at his most illuminating. He goes deep here, discussing not only the major players and their creations (think of "Prince Valiant" and its precursors, including "Rip Kirby," Alex Raymond's most famous strip) but, crucially, the "schools" that developed over time, including cartoon realism, photorealism, etc. For those who are interested in not only the skills of craftsmanship it takes to recreate those techniques and styles (as well as showcase generous and loving recreations of the original works themselves), it's a veritable college course, with illuminating illustrations and pointed critique.
As you get further in, however, Sim's manic tendencies take over, introducing wild tangents that seemingly go nowhere, yet are seemingly meant to illustrate a point that he seems to believe he is making: that there was much more to mid-century comics than merely dramatic stories and gorgeous artwork. Sim's entire point seems to revolve around the idea of "comics art metaphysics," that is, a larger conflux of forces at work to create coincidences and narrative echoes throughout the lives of the creators and their works. In other words, he thinks there's some spooky shit happening. And it somehow all revolves around Margaret Mitchell (author of "Gone With the Wind"). Or something.
Throughout, Sim blasts the reader with name after name, incident after incident, reference after reference, somehow expecting you to be able to keep up when, at least in my reading experience, I was completely lost in the minutiae of it all; trying to understand how this person's life resonated with that reference, or that moment in a comic strip from 1949 was an echo of something that happened hundreds of years in the past in real life (and 40 years into the future). It was bewildering. Maddening.
If the book's narrative is confounding (and more than a little pity inducing; you can't help but feel bad for Sim. He clearly believes there'ssomething at work here but either can't work it out in his head or doesn't have the ability to express it clearly. Or, you know, it's all poppycock.), its art is a wonder. Dave Sim made his name as the author and primary artist on the legendary "Cerebus" comic series and he brings all of his powers of style, rendering, inking, lettering to bare here. And DESIGN; my God, this book is a masterclass in creative page layout, with page after page of stunning and utterly unique designs throughout. I haven't Sim better as an artist, ever.
So it's at once disappointing (but not surprising) when, after about 3/4 of the book, Sim gives up on the story altogether, literally exits as author and artist, to be replaced by fellow cartoonist Carson Grubaugh. Crucially Grubaugh considers this work an important work even if he is admittedly (in the text itself!) quite skeptical of Sim's central thesis -- that strange metaphysical forces were at work in the death of Alex Raymond and the rest of the mid-century comic art history. To have a work abandoned midstream, only to be picked up by someone who doesn't believe in the premise, but considers it an important enough work to see it through; has this ever occurred in literature before?
(EDIT: To be clear, creators come and go from comic book projects all of the time -- I think of the early 2000's run of The Authority, where Mark Millar took over for Warren Ellis. Not unusual for monthly "mainstream" comics, but for a singular work that was such a product of one creator's imagination; only to be picked up by someone who thought the work's central idea was bullshit? Now THAT is some weird comics art metaphysics at work).
Grubaugh manages to bring a more down-to-earth approach to the story, voicing his skepticism, and also showing off some serious artistic skills of his own, before reaching what is a gorgeous conclusion that is about as far away from a "Sim ending" as could possibly be imagined. It's all the better for it too. That this work of manic and crazed philosophical pondering and deep exploration is brought home to rest in... a living room. It's poignant and beautiful and fitting too.
Enjoy this book for the incredible art. Tolerate this book based on your proclivity for the ravings of a conspiracy theorist in the height of his manic episodes. I can't recommend this, but I can say there is literally nothing else like it.
October 29, 2021
This review originally published in Looking For a Good Book. Rated 2.5 of 5
This is a very difficult graphic novel to review because there are many different aspects to the book.
First, the description. Even then is difficult because of the various parts to this novel. Here's a portion of what the publisher has on Goodreads:
(Dave) Sim brings to life the history of comics' greatest creators, using their own techniques. ... Strange Death is a head-on collision of ink drawing and spiritual intrigue, pulp comics and movies, history and fiction. The story traces the lives and techniques of Alex Raymond (Flash Gordon, Rip Kirby), Stan Drake (Juliet Jones), Hal Foster (Prince Valiant), and more, dissecting their techniques through recreations of their artwork, and highlighting the metatextual resonances that bind them together.
A phrase like "metatextual resonances that bind them together" always makes me a little nervous.
What drew me first to the book was the name of Alex Raymond. Of course I knew of him as the creator of Flash Gordon, and that was probably enough. But a 'strange death' surrounding Alex Raymond? Was this true? Or was this bait to hook a reader?
It turns out that the death itself wasn't particularly strange, but there are enough unusual (and not so unusual) circumstances surrounding Raymond that writer/illustrator Dave Sim (and Carson Grumbaugh) can make multiple connections from Raymond to a number of famous personalities (from Margaret Mitchell to, well, just about anyone with the initials "M.M.")
What starts out as an interesting hypothesis and worth following (mostly because of the art, which I'll come back to) slowly devolves into a series of speculations that would make even the most ardent conspiracy theorist raise an eyebrow. At one point (pun slightly intended) near the end of the book, Sim notes that in one of Raymond's works there is an ellipsis that contains only two dots rather than the standard three dots. Now in Morse code, two dots is the code for the letter "I." Clearly this is a sign of Raymond sneaking in the message that he is actually the subject of the story - why else would he put in a secret code saying "I"?
By this point I was already pretty much rolling my eyes as Sim kept making all sorts of connections. If you throw out enough crazy ideas or spurious connections, something is bound to hit and feel authentic to someone.
The artwork in the book is absolutely outstanding. Sim identifies a number of artists that Raymond worked with and influenced, or was influenced by, and Sim emulates those styles with remarkable detail. Even someone like me, who might not normally notice a difference in art styles, could see how different these artists' styles were. I was particularly impressed with some of the really fine detail.
In the first quarter of the book I was highly excited to be reading this, and reading it quite closely. The presentation of material was terrific and I figured this was not only going to be a five star review but possibly my best graphic novel of the year.
But Sim inserts himself into the story, questions his own findings and what it means and we lose sight of where this story started and where it's heading because Sim appears to lose sight, and what started on the high ground becomes a conspiracy theorist's dream, with every name, every image, every error holding multiple meanings.
What started out as one of my favorite graphic novels (for the art alone), becomes something so convoluted that it's hard to give it any positive rating. Hard, but not impossible. I'll give this two and a half stars just for the art.
Looking for a good book? Prepare yourself for a psychedelic, metatextual trip of hidden meanings in art and story in Dave Sim's The Strange Death of Alex Raymond.
I received a temporary digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review.
This is a very difficult graphic novel to review because there are many different aspects to the book.
First, the description. Even then is difficult because of the various parts to this novel. Here's a portion of what the publisher has on Goodreads:
(Dave) Sim brings to life the history of comics' greatest creators, using their own techniques. ... Strange Death is a head-on collision of ink drawing and spiritual intrigue, pulp comics and movies, history and fiction. The story traces the lives and techniques of Alex Raymond (Flash Gordon, Rip Kirby), Stan Drake (Juliet Jones), Hal Foster (Prince Valiant), and more, dissecting their techniques through recreations of their artwork, and highlighting the metatextual resonances that bind them together.
A phrase like "metatextual resonances that bind them together" always makes me a little nervous.
What drew me first to the book was the name of Alex Raymond. Of course I knew of him as the creator of Flash Gordon, and that was probably enough. But a 'strange death' surrounding Alex Raymond? Was this true? Or was this bait to hook a reader?
It turns out that the death itself wasn't particularly strange, but there are enough unusual (and not so unusual) circumstances surrounding Raymond that writer/illustrator Dave Sim (and Carson Grumbaugh) can make multiple connections from Raymond to a number of famous personalities (from Margaret Mitchell to, well, just about anyone with the initials "M.M.")
What starts out as an interesting hypothesis and worth following (mostly because of the art, which I'll come back to) slowly devolves into a series of speculations that would make even the most ardent conspiracy theorist raise an eyebrow. At one point (pun slightly intended) near the end of the book, Sim notes that in one of Raymond's works there is an ellipsis that contains only two dots rather than the standard three dots. Now in Morse code, two dots is the code for the letter "I." Clearly this is a sign of Raymond sneaking in the message that he is actually the subject of the story - why else would he put in a secret code saying "I"?
By this point I was already pretty much rolling my eyes as Sim kept making all sorts of connections. If you throw out enough crazy ideas or spurious connections, something is bound to hit and feel authentic to someone.
The artwork in the book is absolutely outstanding. Sim identifies a number of artists that Raymond worked with and influenced, or was influenced by, and Sim emulates those styles with remarkable detail. Even someone like me, who might not normally notice a difference in art styles, could see how different these artists' styles were. I was particularly impressed with some of the really fine detail.
In the first quarter of the book I was highly excited to be reading this, and reading it quite closely. The presentation of material was terrific and I figured this was not only going to be a five star review but possibly my best graphic novel of the year.
But Sim inserts himself into the story, questions his own findings and what it means and we lose sight of where this story started and where it's heading because Sim appears to lose sight, and what started on the high ground becomes a conspiracy theorist's dream, with every name, every image, every error holding multiple meanings.
What started out as one of my favorite graphic novels (for the art alone), becomes something so convoluted that it's hard to give it any positive rating. Hard, but not impossible. I'll give this two and a half stars just for the art.
Looking for a good book? Prepare yourself for a psychedelic, metatextual trip of hidden meanings in art and story in Dave Sim's The Strange Death of Alex Raymond.
I received a temporary digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review.
July 21, 2022
Dammn this guy REALLY can do storytelling.
Spanish--->
Conocemos los hechos: Alex raymond pidió prestado un auto para probarlo en una tarde lluviosa.
En una curva presionó el acelerador a fondo, perdió el control y salió volando, impactando y perdiendo la vida.
Sin embargo, su copiloto fue hallado prácticamente ileso a un lado del auto.
¿Cómo esto se conecta con la muerte de la escritora de lo que el viento se llevó? ¿Es verdad que Alex Raymond predijo su muerte en las páginas de RIP Kirby? ¿Qué tiene que ver todo esto con la magia negra?
Dave Sim, el famoso e infame creador de Cerebus tiene una teoría y esto se explica en THE STRANGE DEATH OF ALEX RAYMOND.
The Strange Death of Alex Raymond : Sim, Dave, Grubaugh, Carson, Sim, Dave, Grubaugh, Carson: Amazon.com.mx: Libros
ARRACANDO MOTORES
Todo empezó hace años cuando Dave Sim se encontró esta historia tratando de emular el estilo hiper realista de Alex Raymond dentro de las páginas de una revista de modas. Ahí encontró mientras estudiaba, algunos indicios de que Alex Raymond había dejado pistas sobre su muerte en las páginas de sus historietas.
Lo que al inicio era unas páginas poco más que informativas sobre las herramientas y proceso de trabajo del autor, se convertiría en un cómic que nos contaría la historia y genealogía del hiperrealismo en los cómics así como una estela de muerte y destrucción que involucra a escritores de cómics con líderes de culto como Alister Crowley.
Esto llevaría a Dave Sim al pico de su capacidad narrativa, cambiando de su estilo cartoon hasta poder emular con precisión a nombres como Caniff, Raymond y Foster, entre otros.
Así pues, con un storytelling envidiable y mientras extiende infinitamente el segundo en el que Alex Raymond volaba dentro del Corvette de Stan Drake, recorre la rivalidad entre los grandes padres de los cómics, las trampas y técnicas que usaban para entintar y te entrega pruebas sobre que su teoría de magia negra dentro de los cómics es verdadera.
The Strange Death of Alex Raymond page par Dave Sim - Planche originale
LA METAFÍSICA DE LOS CÓMICS
El eje central de su teoría: La metafísica de los cómics.
Un concepto con el que autores del renombre de Alan Moore, Grant Morrison y Neil Gaiman están de acuerdo (y por la que algunos se creen magos). Según este concepto, los cómics, pueden y son una puerta a nuevas realidades. Pueden invocar historias, evocar sucesos y manipular personas por medio de sus páginas.
Sin embargo, estás mismas fuerzas desde la perspectiva de Dave Sim son capaces de volverse en tu contra, ya que son impredecibles. Y aunque los escritores ya mencionados, hay descrito sucesos o aclaman tener cierta influencia en la magia de sus páginas, es realmente la primera vez que un autor la expĺica a profundidad.
Según Dave, la historia sobre las reales implicaciones de la muerte de Alex Raymond era incomprensiblemente larga y llegaba a tocar temas y hechos de lo más inesperados. Sin embargo, el storytelling de la historia cambia en sus últimos capítulos introduciendo su últimas 20 páginas de los esbozos a cyan, copiando los correos que contestó a Carson negando querer finalizar la obra y los esfuerzos de este último por crear las piezas faltantes en el rompecabezas.
FUERTE IMPACTO
Hablemos entonces sobre los puntos fuertes de The Strange Dead of Alex Raymond
Destaca muchísimo en dos aspectos: El “Storytelling” y el “Lettering”, ambos aspectos a los que el creador de Cerebus nos tiene muy acostumbrados, pero que no deja de sorprender, sobre todo cuando se contrasta con el grueso de los cómics.
La forma en la que agranda, copia, recrea y acomoda el trabajo de las tiras cómicas explicando detalles sobre el arte, la trama e incluso momentos de vida de los artistas es impecable. La facilidad con la que Dave estira la caída eterna del auto en el accidente o cómo analiza fotos mostrando su verdadero significado para los personajes, es impresionante y su composición de cada página impecable.
Digerir tanta información para el lector podría ser una tarea muy ardua, pero el lettering es ese aceite que permite todo fluir incluso en las página más caóticas y es sólo uno de esos detalles que permiten al lector comprender el nivel de cuidado y detalle que los autores han mantenido en esta edición.
Las últimas páginas, terminadas por Carlson Grubaugh, relata con profunda curiosidad, el declive de la capacidad para dibujar de Dave Sim y el extraño desinterés que este muestra en terminar la obra maestra a la que le dedicó 10 años de su vida, así como sus preocupaciones reales en haber decidido darle una conclusión a esta obra maestra.
Podríamos decir que un tercio fue hecho totalmente por Dave Sim, un tercio en colaboración con Carson Grubaugh y un tercio sólo por Carson tomando como guía las notas de Dave, terminando así de juntar el tomo.
Si bien se agradece que Carson haya logrado finalizar de forma satisfactoria el cómic, también se lamenta que Dave no haya participado al final. Aunque bastante bien hecho, se nota el vacío se deja tanto en trama como en Storytelling, por lo que el lector no puede más que respetar que estas últimas páginas sean breves.
Dave Sim Pulls Plug on The Strange Death Of Alex Raymond
LA EDICIÓN
La edición cumple con creces el cuidado que esta historia merecía. Es sublime esta portada de justo el momento antes del impacto de Raymond con el naranja que nos muestra el peligro inminente sobre ese cyan de las pruebas de dibujo que estan por matar al artista. Supera por mucho a la anterior que Dave había escogido originalmente.
El papel y la impresión es otro gran punto a favor. En una historia cuyo eje conductor son las diferentes técnicas que los artistas usaban para destacar sus obras, se necesitaba un cuidado muy especial al imprimir correctamente esas diferencias. El papel mate y los negros solidos hacen que comprarla entre sus pastas gruesas valga cada centavo y que sea imposible de recrear esta experiencia en digital.
Inside 'The Strange Death Of Alex Raymond,' An Obsessive, Cursed Graphic Masterpiece
¿RIUS Y FROM HELL EN LA MUERTE DE ALEX RAYMOND?
En comparaciones, hay dos artistas que me han venido a la mente mientras pasaba sus páginas.
El primero, Eddie Campbell.
Con su apéndice de From Hell, donde junto con Alan Moore explica cómo llegaron al fino arte de cazar gaviotas, mostrando el proceso detrás de hacer una narrativa gráfica. En mi opinión, este apéndice es justo lo mejor de From Hell y por esto no es una casualidad que Campbell sea quien escribe la introducción del tomo.
El segundo seguramente los sorprenderá, es RIUS.
El gran historietista mexicano cuya forma de explicar en cómic los temas más variados y complejos, se valía de un gran número de técnicas, incluyendo el collage, la figura del narrador explicando detalles y el “lettering”, que si bien, es lo más criticable en los cómics de RIUS, hay que reconocer que siempre supo cómo variarlo para querer seguir leyendo.
The Strange Death of Alex Raymond, con mucho tacto, podríamos decir que es una especie de mezcla entre la técnica de Eddie Campbell y el collage dinámico de RIUS contando la historia detrás de la muerte de Alex Raymond.
PAGANDO COSTOS
Pero como bien explican, meterse con cosas de magia metafísica en los cómics no es posible sin pagar un alto costo por ello. Dave Sim después de lograr emular la capacidad gráfica de Alex Raymond, pierde la habilidad de dibujar y con ello, la motivación para terminar esta novela. En mi opinión, es la prueba más grande de que la metafísica de los cómics es verdadera.
La edición en sí misma no queda exenta de esta maldición, y un error de impresión, termina en algunas copias que se distribuyen con páginas parcialmente blancas. Carson Grubaugh reflexiona sobre esto y se muestra consternado por saber cuál precio tendrá que pagar por terminar la historia.
La extraña muerte de Alex Raymond, es un cómic único. Una conjunción de investigación, historia, storytelling, arte, técnica y lettering llevado a los límites que la narrativa gráfica nos permite.
Por esto, no me sorprendió saber que está nominado a un premio Eisner. Y espero que lo gane, porque da igual si la teoría metafísica de los cómics propuesta en sus viñetas es o no real.
La realidad es que la obsesión fue lo que mató a Alex Raymond, lo que destruyó el brazo de Dave Sim, lo que impulsa a Carson Grubaugh a editarlo y al lector a disfrutar cada una de sus páginas.
Páginas en las que Alex Raymond junto con Stan Drake, estarán volando en su Corvette eternamente.
Spanish--->
Conocemos los hechos: Alex raymond pidió prestado un auto para probarlo en una tarde lluviosa.
En una curva presionó el acelerador a fondo, perdió el control y salió volando, impactando y perdiendo la vida.
Sin embargo, su copiloto fue hallado prácticamente ileso a un lado del auto.
¿Cómo esto se conecta con la muerte de la escritora de lo que el viento se llevó? ¿Es verdad que Alex Raymond predijo su muerte en las páginas de RIP Kirby? ¿Qué tiene que ver todo esto con la magia negra?
Dave Sim, el famoso e infame creador de Cerebus tiene una teoría y esto se explica en THE STRANGE DEATH OF ALEX RAYMOND.
The Strange Death of Alex Raymond : Sim, Dave, Grubaugh, Carson, Sim, Dave, Grubaugh, Carson: Amazon.com.mx: Libros
ARRACANDO MOTORES
Todo empezó hace años cuando Dave Sim se encontró esta historia tratando de emular el estilo hiper realista de Alex Raymond dentro de las páginas de una revista de modas. Ahí encontró mientras estudiaba, algunos indicios de que Alex Raymond había dejado pistas sobre su muerte en las páginas de sus historietas.
Lo que al inicio era unas páginas poco más que informativas sobre las herramientas y proceso de trabajo del autor, se convertiría en un cómic que nos contaría la historia y genealogía del hiperrealismo en los cómics así como una estela de muerte y destrucción que involucra a escritores de cómics con líderes de culto como Alister Crowley.
Esto llevaría a Dave Sim al pico de su capacidad narrativa, cambiando de su estilo cartoon hasta poder emular con precisión a nombres como Caniff, Raymond y Foster, entre otros.
Así pues, con un storytelling envidiable y mientras extiende infinitamente el segundo en el que Alex Raymond volaba dentro del Corvette de Stan Drake, recorre la rivalidad entre los grandes padres de los cómics, las trampas y técnicas que usaban para entintar y te entrega pruebas sobre que su teoría de magia negra dentro de los cómics es verdadera.
The Strange Death of Alex Raymond page par Dave Sim - Planche originale
LA METAFÍSICA DE LOS CÓMICS
El eje central de su teoría: La metafísica de los cómics.
Un concepto con el que autores del renombre de Alan Moore, Grant Morrison y Neil Gaiman están de acuerdo (y por la que algunos se creen magos). Según este concepto, los cómics, pueden y son una puerta a nuevas realidades. Pueden invocar historias, evocar sucesos y manipular personas por medio de sus páginas.
Sin embargo, estás mismas fuerzas desde la perspectiva de Dave Sim son capaces de volverse en tu contra, ya que son impredecibles. Y aunque los escritores ya mencionados, hay descrito sucesos o aclaman tener cierta influencia en la magia de sus páginas, es realmente la primera vez que un autor la expĺica a profundidad.
Según Dave, la historia sobre las reales implicaciones de la muerte de Alex Raymond era incomprensiblemente larga y llegaba a tocar temas y hechos de lo más inesperados. Sin embargo, el storytelling de la historia cambia en sus últimos capítulos introduciendo su últimas 20 páginas de los esbozos a cyan, copiando los correos que contestó a Carson negando querer finalizar la obra y los esfuerzos de este último por crear las piezas faltantes en el rompecabezas.
FUERTE IMPACTO
Hablemos entonces sobre los puntos fuertes de The Strange Dead of Alex Raymond
Destaca muchísimo en dos aspectos: El “Storytelling” y el “Lettering”, ambos aspectos a los que el creador de Cerebus nos tiene muy acostumbrados, pero que no deja de sorprender, sobre todo cuando se contrasta con el grueso de los cómics.
La forma en la que agranda, copia, recrea y acomoda el trabajo de las tiras cómicas explicando detalles sobre el arte, la trama e incluso momentos de vida de los artistas es impecable. La facilidad con la que Dave estira la caída eterna del auto en el accidente o cómo analiza fotos mostrando su verdadero significado para los personajes, es impresionante y su composición de cada página impecable.
Digerir tanta información para el lector podría ser una tarea muy ardua, pero el lettering es ese aceite que permite todo fluir incluso en las página más caóticas y es sólo uno de esos detalles que permiten al lector comprender el nivel de cuidado y detalle que los autores han mantenido en esta edición.
Las últimas páginas, terminadas por Carlson Grubaugh, relata con profunda curiosidad, el declive de la capacidad para dibujar de Dave Sim y el extraño desinterés que este muestra en terminar la obra maestra a la que le dedicó 10 años de su vida, así como sus preocupaciones reales en haber decidido darle una conclusión a esta obra maestra.
Podríamos decir que un tercio fue hecho totalmente por Dave Sim, un tercio en colaboración con Carson Grubaugh y un tercio sólo por Carson tomando como guía las notas de Dave, terminando así de juntar el tomo.
Si bien se agradece que Carson haya logrado finalizar de forma satisfactoria el cómic, también se lamenta que Dave no haya participado al final. Aunque bastante bien hecho, se nota el vacío se deja tanto en trama como en Storytelling, por lo que el lector no puede más que respetar que estas últimas páginas sean breves.
Dave Sim Pulls Plug on The Strange Death Of Alex Raymond
LA EDICIÓN
La edición cumple con creces el cuidado que esta historia merecía. Es sublime esta portada de justo el momento antes del impacto de Raymond con el naranja que nos muestra el peligro inminente sobre ese cyan de las pruebas de dibujo que estan por matar al artista. Supera por mucho a la anterior que Dave había escogido originalmente.
El papel y la impresión es otro gran punto a favor. En una historia cuyo eje conductor son las diferentes técnicas que los artistas usaban para destacar sus obras, se necesitaba un cuidado muy especial al imprimir correctamente esas diferencias. El papel mate y los negros solidos hacen que comprarla entre sus pastas gruesas valga cada centavo y que sea imposible de recrear esta experiencia en digital.
Inside 'The Strange Death Of Alex Raymond,' An Obsessive, Cursed Graphic Masterpiece
¿RIUS Y FROM HELL EN LA MUERTE DE ALEX RAYMOND?
En comparaciones, hay dos artistas que me han venido a la mente mientras pasaba sus páginas.
El primero, Eddie Campbell.
Con su apéndice de From Hell, donde junto con Alan Moore explica cómo llegaron al fino arte de cazar gaviotas, mostrando el proceso detrás de hacer una narrativa gráfica. En mi opinión, este apéndice es justo lo mejor de From Hell y por esto no es una casualidad que Campbell sea quien escribe la introducción del tomo.
El segundo seguramente los sorprenderá, es RIUS.
El gran historietista mexicano cuya forma de explicar en cómic los temas más variados y complejos, se valía de un gran número de técnicas, incluyendo el collage, la figura del narrador explicando detalles y el “lettering”, que si bien, es lo más criticable en los cómics de RIUS, hay que reconocer que siempre supo cómo variarlo para querer seguir leyendo.
The Strange Death of Alex Raymond, con mucho tacto, podríamos decir que es una especie de mezcla entre la técnica de Eddie Campbell y el collage dinámico de RIUS contando la historia detrás de la muerte de Alex Raymond.
PAGANDO COSTOS
Pero como bien explican, meterse con cosas de magia metafísica en los cómics no es posible sin pagar un alto costo por ello. Dave Sim después de lograr emular la capacidad gráfica de Alex Raymond, pierde la habilidad de dibujar y con ello, la motivación para terminar esta novela. En mi opinión, es la prueba más grande de que la metafísica de los cómics es verdadera.
La edición en sí misma no queda exenta de esta maldición, y un error de impresión, termina en algunas copias que se distribuyen con páginas parcialmente blancas. Carson Grubaugh reflexiona sobre esto y se muestra consternado por saber cuál precio tendrá que pagar por terminar la historia.
La extraña muerte de Alex Raymond, es un cómic único. Una conjunción de investigación, historia, storytelling, arte, técnica y lettering llevado a los límites que la narrativa gráfica nos permite.
Por esto, no me sorprendió saber que está nominado a un premio Eisner. Y espero que lo gane, porque da igual si la teoría metafísica de los cómics propuesta en sus viñetas es o no real.
La realidad es que la obsesión fue lo que mató a Alex Raymond, lo que destruyó el brazo de Dave Sim, lo que impulsa a Carson Grubaugh a editarlo y al lector a disfrutar cada una de sus páginas.
Páginas en las que Alex Raymond junto con Stan Drake, estarán volando en su Corvette eternamente.
December 31, 2023
This is surely among the most beautifully rendered of all "graphic novels." Nominally about Alex Raymond and the circumstances of his death, this book is more broadly a sort of picto-history book about "photo-realistic" comic strips drawn in the 1940's and 1950's. It's quite a feast for the eyes.
At first, I wondered where Sim got all those fine scans of old comic strips. Eventually, it dawned on me that Sim was not just hand-copying art work from old comics, but bringing new life to them and in many instances, improving on them technically. I'm especially impressed by the way many of the strip reproductions hang in 3D space, as if the reader is viewing them from an angle. The effect of the book is like walking through an imaginary museum of comic strip art.
SDOAR is certainly not a book for everyone. I would recommend it only to those who have an interest in the history of comics, commercial art, and perhaps even to the fine art crowd.
Furthermore, Sim is making a claim here about the reflexivity of art and reality. He is claiming that the writing and drawing of comics can exert an influence on reality and history -- which he calls the "metaphysics" of comics.
I loved the first half of the book, but at some point thereafter began to get bogged down in all the coincidences and parallels that Sim brings up to show how comic strip stories influenced the lives and fates of various people who had tenuous connections to Raymond, such as Margaret Mitchell (author of Gone With the Wind) and William Seabrook (author of The Magic Island, an early book on Tahiti and voodoo).
I can't say that I fully absorbed everything that Sim intended to convey. It's quite complicated and there were many sequences and connections that I found difficult to follow. I probably skimmed the last 15 pages or more, on account of burnout from sensory and information overload.
Does Sim really believe that Ward Greene, the script writer for Raymond's Rip Kirby, was using the strip as a kind of voodoo ritual to punish and murder Margaret Mitchell for refusing him the comic strip rights to Gone With the Wind? And furthermore, that Raymond and others were collateral damage? Apparently so.
I'm excited to track down reprints of several strips discussed in SDOAR, including Alden McWilliams' Twin Earths, John Cullen Murphy's Ben Bolt, and Stan Drake's Heart of Juliet Jones.
At first, I wondered where Sim got all those fine scans of old comic strips. Eventually, it dawned on me that Sim was not just hand-copying art work from old comics, but bringing new life to them and in many instances, improving on them technically. I'm especially impressed by the way many of the strip reproductions hang in 3D space, as if the reader is viewing them from an angle. The effect of the book is like walking through an imaginary museum of comic strip art.
SDOAR is certainly not a book for everyone. I would recommend it only to those who have an interest in the history of comics, commercial art, and perhaps even to the fine art crowd.
Furthermore, Sim is making a claim here about the reflexivity of art and reality. He is claiming that the writing and drawing of comics can exert an influence on reality and history -- which he calls the "metaphysics" of comics.
I loved the first half of the book, but at some point thereafter began to get bogged down in all the coincidences and parallels that Sim brings up to show how comic strip stories influenced the lives and fates of various people who had tenuous connections to Raymond, such as Margaret Mitchell (author of Gone With the Wind) and William Seabrook (author of The Magic Island, an early book on Tahiti and voodoo).
I can't say that I fully absorbed everything that Sim intended to convey. It's quite complicated and there were many sequences and connections that I found difficult to follow. I probably skimmed the last 15 pages or more, on account of burnout from sensory and information overload.
Does Sim really believe that Ward Greene, the script writer for Raymond's Rip Kirby, was using the strip as a kind of voodoo ritual to punish and murder Margaret Mitchell for refusing him the comic strip rights to Gone With the Wind? And furthermore, that Raymond and others were collateral damage? Apparently so.
I'm excited to track down reprints of several strips discussed in SDOAR, including Alden McWilliams' Twin Earths, John Cullen Murphy's Ben Bolt, and Stan Drake's Heart of Juliet Jones.
January 25, 2022
The Strange Death of Alex Raymond is a difficult book to review. If you're looking into this chances are you are at least familiar with the author Dave Sim. He is best known for his 300 issue comic series Cerebus, which I will maintain is the best comic series of all time. Following Cerebus he did 26 issues of Glamourpuss (which I'm still missing an issue of, so I haven't yet read). In the pages of Glamourpuss he became interested in Alex Raymond's art and his death.
So what is Strange Death? It's a lot of things. It's partly an unfinished framing sequence of a real girl named Jack who manages a comic book store, it's partly an autobiography of Sim's life since 2004. It's partly the history of newspaper comic art, it's partly a philosophy book on Dave Sim's theory of Comic Art Metaphysics and it's partly a look at the Death of Alex Raymond.
There are also a lot of things Strange Death is not. It is not a story with beginning, middle and end. It is not a book that offers a satisfying conclusion (though given Sim's seeming desire to bury the book, we should just thankful we got this much of it. I doubt Dave will see this, but if he does, I may only be speaking for myself here, but I would love to hear how his religious convictions tie in with his theory of Comic Art Metaphysics.)
With all that said, Carson Grubah, who is responsible for the last fifty pages, plus actually getting the book published, does an admirable job wrapping it up. His art is nearly as good as Dave's and though he doesn't seem to agree with it, he has a decent grasp on Dave's Comic Art Metaphysics theory and manages to give the broad brushstrokes of how it all ties together in the last twenty odd pages.
So should you read Strange Death? If you've read Cerebus and enjoyed it, absolutely. If you just want to look at some of the most beautiful comic art you'll ever see, the book is worth more than the price of admission. Just be aware of what you're getting into. There isn't a cohesive plotline, this isn't a well rounded tale of Alex Raymond's death or even a fully fleshed out look at Comic Art Metaphysics. This is Dave Sim's stream of consciousness as he discovers how Alex Raymond died, how his brushing technique worked and ultimately how he lost faith in the book itself.
So what is Strange Death? It's a lot of things. It's partly an unfinished framing sequence of a real girl named Jack who manages a comic book store, it's partly an autobiography of Sim's life since 2004. It's partly the history of newspaper comic art, it's partly a philosophy book on Dave Sim's theory of Comic Art Metaphysics and it's partly a look at the Death of Alex Raymond.
There are also a lot of things Strange Death is not. It is not a story with beginning, middle and end. It is not a book that offers a satisfying conclusion (though given Sim's seeming desire to bury the book, we should just thankful we got this much of it. I doubt Dave will see this, but if he does, I may only be speaking for myself here, but I would love to hear how his religious convictions tie in with his theory of Comic Art Metaphysics.)
With all that said, Carson Grubah, who is responsible for the last fifty pages, plus actually getting the book published, does an admirable job wrapping it up. His art is nearly as good as Dave's and though he doesn't seem to agree with it, he has a decent grasp on Dave's Comic Art Metaphysics theory and manages to give the broad brushstrokes of how it all ties together in the last twenty odd pages.
So should you read Strange Death? If you've read Cerebus and enjoyed it, absolutely. If you just want to look at some of the most beautiful comic art you'll ever see, the book is worth more than the price of admission. Just be aware of what you're getting into. There isn't a cohesive plotline, this isn't a well rounded tale of Alex Raymond's death or even a fully fleshed out look at Comic Art Metaphysics. This is Dave Sim's stream of consciousness as he discovers how Alex Raymond died, how his brushing technique worked and ultimately how he lost faith in the book itself.
October 7, 2021
My thanks to Living the Line/Diamond Book Distributors for a digital review copy via NetGalley of ‘The Strange Death of Alex Raymond’ by Dave Sim with Grubaugh Carson. It is due to be published in December 2021.
This was a fascinating history of photorealism in comics. It is quite visually complex and at times entered territory that reminded me of Robert Anton Wilson’s wild writings on coincidences and conspiracies. I was able to follow it to some degree though I likely wasn’t as invested as some readers might be. However, the artwork was stunning and I was very impressed.
While I not a huge reader of comics and graphic novels, I do have an interest in art history and aware that illustrations, such as those found in comics, have often been overlooked by art historians. In actuality, comic art has been at times innovative and certainly worthy of study and inclusion in the history of modern art.
Dave Sim placed himself in ‘Strange Death’ as its narrator addressing the reader from the printed page, including at times as a Charlie Brown-like character.
It appears to have taken a long time to produce the final book due to various issues. Dave Sim had to step aside from its drawing due to a painful malady that effected his wrist. As a result in 2015 Grubaugh Carson, a fellow photorealist artist, was brought in to complete the art in collaboration with Sim.
Then in 2020 Sim left the project completely though gave permission to Carson to finish and then publish ‘Strange Death’ in its entirety. This was detailed in Part Five, titled ‘In Dave’s Wake’. I didn’t find this had quite the impact of the earlier sections. In addition, it was rendered in part using blue ink and this proved harder for me to read as the contrast wasn’t as strong as with black ink on white.
Overall, I found ‘The Strange Death of Alex Raymond’ a visually detailed, playful and thought-provoking work of meta fiction that was rich in ideas, even if a little ‘out there’ in places. As a result it wasn’t a graphic novel that I could zip through and it took me a considerable amount of time to read it.
This was a fascinating history of photorealism in comics. It is quite visually complex and at times entered territory that reminded me of Robert Anton Wilson’s wild writings on coincidences and conspiracies. I was able to follow it to some degree though I likely wasn’t as invested as some readers might be. However, the artwork was stunning and I was very impressed.
While I not a huge reader of comics and graphic novels, I do have an interest in art history and aware that illustrations, such as those found in comics, have often been overlooked by art historians. In actuality, comic art has been at times innovative and certainly worthy of study and inclusion in the history of modern art.
Dave Sim placed himself in ‘Strange Death’ as its narrator addressing the reader from the printed page, including at times as a Charlie Brown-like character.
It appears to have taken a long time to produce the final book due to various issues. Dave Sim had to step aside from its drawing due to a painful malady that effected his wrist. As a result in 2015 Grubaugh Carson, a fellow photorealist artist, was brought in to complete the art in collaboration with Sim.
Then in 2020 Sim left the project completely though gave permission to Carson to finish and then publish ‘Strange Death’ in its entirety. This was detailed in Part Five, titled ‘In Dave’s Wake’. I didn’t find this had quite the impact of the earlier sections. In addition, it was rendered in part using blue ink and this proved harder for me to read as the contrast wasn’t as strong as with black ink on white.
Overall, I found ‘The Strange Death of Alex Raymond’ a visually detailed, playful and thought-provoking work of meta fiction that was rich in ideas, even if a little ‘out there’ in places. As a result it wasn’t a graphic novel that I could zip through and it took me a considerable amount of time to read it.
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