Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon, Vol. 2

Checker Flash Gordon Reprints #2

by Alex Raymond

The second of Checker's re-issue of the color Flash Gordon strips from the pen and brush of its unsurpassed originator, Alex Raymond The work of a master at his best, these color strips were originally published in 1935 and 1936.

Genres: Comics, Fantasy, Graphic Novels, Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Adventure, Space Opera

100 pages, Hardcover

Published December 15, 2004

About the author

Alexander Gillespie Raymond was an American comic strip artist, best known for creating the comic Flash Gordon in 1934. The serial hit the silver screen three years later with Buster Crabbe and Jean Rogers as the leading players. Other strips he drew include Secret Agent X-9, Rip Kirby, Jungle Jim, Tim Tyler's Luck, and Tillie the Toiler. Alex Raymond received a Reuben Award from the National Cartoonists Society in 1949 for his work on Rip Kirby.

Born in New Rochelle, New York, Alex Raymond attended Iona Prep on a scholarship and played on the Gaels' football team. He joined the US Marines Corp in 1944 and served in the Pacific theatre during World War II.

His realistic style and skillful use of "feathering" (a shading technique in which a soft series of parallel lines helps to suggest the contour of an object) has continued to be an inspiration for generations of cartoonists.

Raymond was killed in an automobile accident in Westport, Connecticut while driving with fellow cartoonist Stan Drake, aged 46, and is buried in St. John's Roman Catholic Cemetery in Darien, Connecticut.

During the accident which led to his untimely demise, he was said to have remarked (by the surviving passenger of the accident) on the fact that a pencil on the dashboard seemed to be floating in relation to the plummet of the vehicle.

He was the great-uncle of actors Matt Dillon and Kevin Dillon.

Reviews

[Terence · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this up on impulse while visiting my library. The stories are ridiculous (and racist) but the artwork is surprisingly good (IMO) and I should see if LA County has more volumes.

[Philip of Macedon · Rating 3 out of 5]

The second volume of Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon comics covers the weekly installments from April 1935 to October 1936, picking up where the first collection left off. Once again, brilliant artwork by one of the era’s best comic artists. The structure is the same — quick plot development, lots of action and dynamic shifting of fortunes, wonderfully illustrated sequences and highly imaginative worlds, monsters, technology, and styles that blend medieval and dark age fantasy with exotic futurism.

Flash has become king of the cave kingdom, winning the loyalty of the cave people, but his authority is not recognized by the witch queen of Mongo. Just as he and Dale are to be married, the witch queen Azura strikes, kidnapping Flash, Dale, and Zarkov. Azura wants to keep Flash for herself and attempts to kill his friends. Through heroism and bravery and daring and a stint of invisibility, he overcomes all her plots, and with the help of Zarkov and Dale he defeats her armies of magic men. Flash resists the death dwarves and by rescuing the queen who was once his enemy, receives her loyalty as king of the caves. War is declared on Ming, and Ming brings together people from distant lands to aid his war: the armored fire people and the ice giants. But Flash gains the aid of the hawk men and Aura and Barin’s tree people from the forest kingdom.

The war is massive and over its course there is fire, devastation, battle with beasts, disguises, deception, daring, and clever traps aplenty. The art is stepped up a notch for many of these dramatic sequences, particularly in the battle scenes, which possess an awesome epic essence. There’s so much to feast the eyes on once the reading is finished. The war with Ming takes a detour as Flash and his comrades, on the run, plunge into the sea and find themselves drawn into more danger in the undersea kingdom Coralia.

Flash, unconscious and drowning after the crash of their rocket, is rescued by the undersea people and his lungs are altered to breath water. The undersea queen Undina of course has plans of her own that are not aligned with Flash’s goals. So begins the final sequence of the collection, as the setting changes once more to a new and fantastical stage, and a bundle of adventures filled with some of the same ingredients we are by now familiar with: battles with beasts and man, trickery and deception, traps, bargains, and endless conflict. This sections sees a temporary escape from Ming, with events focused on Flash and his friends trying to survive and ultimately escape Coralia. Unfortunately, their lungs are now incapable of breathing oxygen, so it seems the underwater life is their fate…

The collection is visually stunning, a satisfying read of pulp science fiction and fantasy during its glory days. I’m not sure how common color artwork was in comics of this time, but it makes the panels so vibrant and beautiful it’s hard to imagine them in black and white. I thought black and white was appropriate for the Secret Agent X-9 comics, given their noir spirit. But the Flash Gordon adventures cannot be effectively portrayed without such colorful and contrasting imagery.

[Mike (the Paladin) · Rating 4 out of 5]

As I noted in my review of the first book of this "series" where the old Flash Gordon comic strips are gathered I watched the old 1936 Flash Gordon movie the other night and it "flashed" me back to my childhood. To watching the old TV series, reruns of the movies and movie serials...and of course reading these strips in the newspaper each Sunday (well, not "these specific" strips as they are still early. I'll hopefully get to the 1950s strips i began reading later.

While these are reprints (possibly of reprints) and the art suffers a little it's still great. The stories and the dialogue are (of course) very dated, but that doesn't bother me. Hopefully it won't most readers as it's part of the package...1930s forward.

The stories can be a little repetitive in some ways as you're reading through these books. Originally you read one a week so the fact Flash gets captured...Dale gets captured....local beautiful girl falls for Flash...Flash overcomes all was spread out more.

So enjoy. These are "G" to slightly "PG" rated fun and adventure. Ray-guns and swords "flash", zing and crash. There are some great battle scenes and other action paintings in the frames.

Really, enjoy.

[Fabiano Cerqueira · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is simply great. Checker continues brilliantly reviving the first Flash Gordon Sunday strips in an amazing way. Alex Raymond's art is stunning, and the plot is full of adventure and sci-fi, old-dated, of course. By the way, the old-dated sci-fi, besides with the, also, old-dated dialogue, only adds more charm to the book. A real trip to the past for those that want to remember those early days of sci-fi, and also, to the ones having their first sight of it. A book that old and new readers will fall in love with it. A must read indeed.

[Robert Garrett · Rating 4 out of 5]

This volume reprints strips from April 21, 1935 - October 11, 1936. In comparison to Volume 1, the panels are larger and the stories more decompressed. The earliest strips packed a lot into them, but after the first year, things slowed down. Were Alex Raymond and scripter Don Moore running out of ideas? Quite possibly. There's a definite feel of "making things up as they go along" here.

The decompressed storytelling isn't entirely unwelcome, though, because the larger panels give Raymond room to shine. Raymond definitely improved during this period, too, and his art is much more atmospheric. I was slightly surprised to discover that some of his work reminded me of famed comic book artist Gene Colan, and I have to think that Colan would have counted Raymond as an influence.

The stories largely involve wars with Ming and/or between different kingdoms of Mongo. There's a cave kingdom, a forest kingdom, an underwater kingdom - you get the idea. Naturally, every queen is in love with Flash Gordon, and goofy monsters (with names like "constrictosauruses" and "octoclaws") often pop up just when Raymond and Moore need a cliffhanger. It's hokey stuff, but these are also fun, "high adventure stories," and Raymond's artwork does a lot to draw you into the proceedings.