What do you think?
Rate this book
Checker Flash Gordon Reprints #6
Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon, Vol. 6
This premium quality book features works by the legand of Alex Raymond, who is credited with inspiring generations of artists to try their hand at comic strips, including greats such as Frank Frazette and Al Williamson. Flash Volume 6 is presented in stunning full-color in a horizontal page-format that does much to highlight Raymond's gorgeous, sprawling scenery and cinematic layout. Featuring the Flash Gordon strips which originally ran from August 1941 through May 1943.
- GenresScience Fiction
100 pages, Hardcover
Published October 1, 2006
1 person is currently reading
20 people want to read
About the author
Alex Raymond
721 books38 followersAlexander Gillespie Raymond was an American comic strip artist, best known for creating the comic Flash Gordon in 1934. The serial hit the silver screen three years later with Buster Crabbe and Jean Rogers as the leading players. Other strips he drew include Secret Agent X-9, Rip Kirby, Jungle Jim, Tim Tyler's Luck, and Tillie the Toiler. Alex Raymond received a Reuben Award from the National Cartoonists Society in 1949 for his work on Rip Kirby.
Born in New Rochelle, New York, Alex Raymond attended Iona Prep on a scholarship and played on the Gaels' football team. He joined the US Marines Corp in 1944 and served in the Pacific theatre during World War II.
His realistic style and skillful use of "feathering" (a shading technique in which a soft series of parallel lines helps to suggest the contour of an object) has continued to be an inspiration for generations of cartoonists.
Raymond was killed in an automobile accident in Westport, Connecticut while driving with fellow cartoonist Stan Drake, aged 46, and is buried in St. John's Roman Catholic Cemetery in Darien, Connecticut.
During the accident which led to his untimely demise, he was said to have remarked (by the surviving passenger of the accident) on the fact that a pencil on the dashboard seemed to be floating in relation to the plummet of the vehicle.
He was the great-uncle of actors Matt Dillon and Kevin Dillon.
Born in New Rochelle, New York, Alex Raymond attended Iona Prep on a scholarship and played on the Gaels' football team. He joined the US Marines Corp in 1944 and served in the Pacific theatre during World War II.
His realistic style and skillful use of "feathering" (a shading technique in which a soft series of parallel lines helps to suggest the contour of an object) has continued to be an inspiration for generations of cartoonists.
Raymond was killed in an automobile accident in Westport, Connecticut while driving with fellow cartoonist Stan Drake, aged 46, and is buried in St. John's Roman Catholic Cemetery in Darien, Connecticut.
During the accident which led to his untimely demise, he was said to have remarked (by the surviving passenger of the accident) on the fact that a pencil on the dashboard seemed to be floating in relation to the plummet of the vehicle.
He was the great-uncle of actors Matt Dillon and Kevin Dillon.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 9, 2026
Great classic SiFi comic read. Very recommended
December 31, 2024
Original color Alex Raymond Sundays from 08-31-41 to 05-09-43. Next-to-last volume in this edition of the series. No background information to supplement this book, just the story.
June 1, 2013
FLASH GORDON, vol. 6 (Miamisburg, Ohio: Checker Book Publishing Group, 2006)
This volume reprints Sunday strips from August 31, 1941 through May 9, 1943. By now, a daily FLASH GORDON strip was also running, and this was handled by Alex Raymond's assistant, Austin Briggs (Raymond himself never worked on the dailies.). IDW has recently been publishing Flash Gordon strip collections, and I believe that the IDW volumes DO include the dailies. The Checker volumes that I'm reviewing do not.
On with my review -
As the last volume ended, Ming was overthrown, and Flash, Dale and Zarkov returned to Earth. This volume begins in the middle of that story....and what an odd story it is. An enemy identified only as "the Red Sword" launches an invasion fleet toward the U.S. Naturally, Flash defeats them, and in the process, he's commissioned as an officer in the U.S. Army Air Corps.
The Red Sword is clearly a stand-in for Nazi Germany. The villains have German-sounding names like "Von Noz" and "Krogoff." One villain wears a monocle and another sports a Hitler mustache. In the story, Flash destroys the Sword's "entire invasion fleet," so...if the Red Sword really IS the Nazis, then wouldn't Flash have effectively ended the war? Perhaps the strip really takes place in the future or in some alternate universe...or perhaps the whole Red Sword sequence is a dream. It's up to the reader to decide, I guess. These matters aside, the Red Sword sequence reads as one big piece of wartime propaganda. It ends on December 28, 1941 - a mere three weeks after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
Afterwards, Flash decides to give the U.S. technology to build ray guns. Earth doesn't have enough radium, however, so it's back to Mongo for Flash, Dale and Zarkov. They crash land in a jungle kingdom and meet yet another queen who falls for Flash and makes Dale jealous. Naturally, she has an underling who seeks to overthrow her.
Frankly, our heroes should have stayed on Earth a little longer. The Mongo plots are getting a bit...well, overly familiar, I guess. Now, Flash doesn't even have Ming to battle, so he just travels from one climate-themed kingdom to another (There's an arctic kingdom, a jungle kingdom, a desert kingdom...). The stories are still enjoyable, for the most part, but it does feel as if we've seen it all before...because we have.
This volume reprints Sunday strips from August 31, 1941 through May 9, 1943. By now, a daily FLASH GORDON strip was also running, and this was handled by Alex Raymond's assistant, Austin Briggs (Raymond himself never worked on the dailies.). IDW has recently been publishing Flash Gordon strip collections, and I believe that the IDW volumes DO include the dailies. The Checker volumes that I'm reviewing do not.
On with my review -
As the last volume ended, Ming was overthrown, and Flash, Dale and Zarkov returned to Earth. This volume begins in the middle of that story....and what an odd story it is. An enemy identified only as "the Red Sword" launches an invasion fleet toward the U.S. Naturally, Flash defeats them, and in the process, he's commissioned as an officer in the U.S. Army Air Corps.
The Red Sword is clearly a stand-in for Nazi Germany. The villains have German-sounding names like "Von Noz" and "Krogoff." One villain wears a monocle and another sports a Hitler mustache. In the story, Flash destroys the Sword's "entire invasion fleet," so...if the Red Sword really IS the Nazis, then wouldn't Flash have effectively ended the war? Perhaps the strip really takes place in the future or in some alternate universe...or perhaps the whole Red Sword sequence is a dream. It's up to the reader to decide, I guess. These matters aside, the Red Sword sequence reads as one big piece of wartime propaganda. It ends on December 28, 1941 - a mere three weeks after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
Afterwards, Flash decides to give the U.S. technology to build ray guns. Earth doesn't have enough radium, however, so it's back to Mongo for Flash, Dale and Zarkov. They crash land in a jungle kingdom and meet yet another queen who falls for Flash and makes Dale jealous. Naturally, she has an underling who seeks to overthrow her.
Frankly, our heroes should have stayed on Earth a little longer. The Mongo plots are getting a bit...well, overly familiar, I guess. Now, Flash doesn't even have Ming to battle, so he just travels from one climate-themed kingdom to another (There's an arctic kingdom, a jungle kingdom, a desert kingdom...). The stories are still enjoyable, for the most part, but it does feel as if we've seen it all before...because we have.
March 4, 2008
This is another fabulous installment in the Flash Gordon series, featuring the comics Alex Raymond wrote just before and during the early stages of World War II. Amazingly, Flash returns to Earth and defeats "The Dictator" and his secret invasion fleet in the month just before the attack on Pearl Harbor. When the real war starts, Raymond almost immediately writes Flash back to Mongo on the pretext of getting alien fuel to help the war effort. It is reassuring to think that Raymond was committed enough to fantasy to avoid wasting the next five years of Flash Gordon having him fight Nazis. And don't get me wrong, I love stories with Nazi villains, but leave those for Indiana, Flash belongs in space.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews