A really good strip is a combination of drawing, plot, and characterization. In Raymond's own word, "A strip is good or bad in ratio to the worth of those three elements". The story and characterization he used to plot out usually, a month in advance. Then every week he used to go into New York and have a story conference with Ward Greene, the managing editor of King Features. At these meetengs, which usually took place at 10 AM on Tuesdays, Raymond, Greene, and comics editor Sylvan Byck would plot storylines and write dialogue for the strip.
Raymond would take the script back to his studio in Stamford, Connecticut. There he began to visualize the notes in picture form. This is an important phase in the development of the comic strip, for no space can be wasted and each picture must carry its share of telling the week's story, dramatically and clearly.
After the dialogues was penciled in balloons and the characters sketched in outline, Raymond's assistant, Ray Burns, would do the lettering in ink and the rough backgrounds in pencil.
Raymond would often work with models to get the exact poses he wanted and do extensive research on the costumes and the settings before he started the final drawings.
Essentially an illustrator - Raymond worked much as cameramen do. He moved around his subject seeking to establish the eye-level of the picture as it would appear to the reader from whatever point of view Raymond chooses. This technique of changing the angles of his "pen shots" made it possible for Raymond to give the strip a visual pictorial-pacing that adds greatly to reading pleasure. The distinctive style he developed for Rip Kirby, was influenced by the illustrations in contemporary women's magazines such as "Ladies Home Journal, Good Housekeeping, and McCall's".
Raymond would take the script back to his studio in Stamford, Connecticut. There he began to visualize the notes in picture form. This is an important phase in the development of the comic strip, for no space can be wasted and each picture must carry its share of telling the week's story, dramatically and clearly.
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| Ward Greene, Sylvan Byck and Raymond in one of the weekly story conferences.... |
Raymond would often work with models to get the exact poses he wanted and do extensive research on the costumes and the settings before he started the final drawings.
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| Raymond shows Beulah Bestor exactly how he wants her head tilted as reference for the scene in which Honey Dorian waves goodbye to Rip in Grand Central Station when she left with Stuart Beaumount for his Southern plantation. |
Read here one of the vintage Rip Kirby adventures, "Pagan's Plight" in B&W - it originally continued from May,1952 to September, 1952.
Pagan's Plight
(size: 67 MB)
Rip Kirby was(and still is!) very popular among western comic-fans,unlike the Indian readers who were more in Falks' creations plus,Raymond's other hero : Flash. But over the last few years,more I read about RK and his creators,history of the origin etc,more I feel connected with this detective. It's just amazing to see how much effort was invested for such comic-strips,where elderly creators will meet,think,re-analyze before the final take!
ReplyDeleteI donno others but with each passing year I feel more connected with these strips that I didn't earlier.May be as we read Rip and Desmond's adventures alongwith Betal,Mandrake,Flash & Bahadur,they were bit overlooked and lesser hyped! (ABP did their best to promote 'Goyenda Rip' though...)
Lastly,Raymond's untimely death on mid '50s cud ended this strip but thanks to J.PRENTICE who took over and re-created the magic once again,and sometimes better than AR. Later Prentice did the scripting too,from the mid '80s and some of his stories were also appeared in the Indrajal aswell..
HojO - yes, that's true for me as well :) - at least majority part. The advantage of RK: it was based on detective adventures, so there was less chance of recycling the same plot-line (as happened in Phantom or Mandrake stories many times).
DeleteWe still look back into vintage comics because that kind of dedication and perfection are simply missing in today's comics. I was a big fan of IJC and popular Bengali comics like 'Bantul/Handa-Vonda/Nonte-Fonte' - but now, with my age, my taste-expectation-requirement, all got morphed. I still love those comics, but it is no longer that I will go mad, if I loose one of my old IJCs.
Based on all Western and Eastern comics, to me, Tintin is the everlasting comics - I still feel the same interest and enjoyment whenever I read a good, old Tintin adventure.
akdom thik bolechen KUNTALDA .................. TINTIN sobar age ................
Deletetobe akek joner kache ak ak rokom ........ amar tintiner porei sob theke valo lage ASTERIX tarpor LUCKY LUKE, RIP KIRBY FLASH GORDON GARTH ............... :):):):):):):)
"Daltons Redeem Themselves" i.e. Lucky Luke #36 ekhon purotai blog-e upload kore diyechhi :)
Delete@Kuntalda : I don't know how much with you,but yes,over the period of last 5-7 years my taste(regarding comics) has been changed,actually improved,quite a fold! And that majorly after my introduction with newspaper strips and then my membership at "Phantom Phorum"(Australia) on 2007 where I have had interacted with several fans from various countries,mostly Norway/Sweden & Australia(other than Indian fans),and I was in the strips more and more,and by 2008 I was completely hooked with these strips - the original source of Indrajal stories!!
DeleteEarlier we used to dislike b/w strips,we dislike(or kinda shocked with!) the earliest Phantom/Mandrake(from '30s) where Phantom was too dark,plots were racist and moreover Lothar was mostly a servant of Mandrake with stupid English(meant to show blacks in some poor light!)...Well,and we were right at our point,as our taste were majorly build on stories from '50s to '80s,when both plot & art were more refined!
But then plenty of b/w strips were coming thru various sources,we read aplenty and slowly but steadily we were enjoying the b/w counter-parts!It was a process.....and the 'best part' was the UNEDITED/Uncensored strips as ToI did quite a bit editing/chopping in Indrajal!!
For me,while the madness with Indrajal will stay forever,that crazy charm filled with nostalgia and many other features will always be special for me,BUT yes,I do look beyond 'only' Indrajal stories.Or better say,I don't feel satisfied until I read both strip and
Indrajal versions of a same story....
PS - As I have mentioned before,today we are reading these AR strips(both RK & Flash(Sundays)) solely because we were introduced with these characters thru Indrajal,although those were much later stories. I doubt if I would have ever tried these RK strips if I wasn't introduced before!
For those who came in late(Falk istyle! :o)) : The first 200+ Mandrake strips, first 30+ Phantom strips,first ~100 Flash Gordon strips & 100+ RK strips - ALL were never published in India(i.e. Indrajal). So we were introduced with these characters when their worlds were well-defined and they are established,i.e. we read some top stories but for their earliest adventures you have to depend of old strips...Indrajal was pioneer to initiate the interest by introducing us with these fantastic heroes.Now, it's up to us how we carry forward that interest! :-)
DeleteAmi tomar mato eto research kore uthte parini ekhono - tobe recently ami Frew/Phantom pora shuru korechhi, ebong besh valoi lagchhe - and yes, we are very grateful to IJC for bringing those characters to Indian comics readers.
Deletekuntalda thanks a lot for the RIP KIRBY .............................
ReplyDeleteBTW Julius Chancer 'R 1ST PART LINKTA K TULE NIECHO ...............
R AKTA REQUEST Julius Chancer 'R 3RD PARTER JONYO ............ VAT HOJOM HOCHE NA JE :):):):):):)
RanjanDa - JC free-te deowata oneke valo mone koreni - taai daownload link delete kore diyechhi - dekha jak aapnar hozom howano jai ki kore.
Deletetai bujhi ........... ami age JC porini infact jantam na je ato sundor charecter ache onekta tintiner moto kintu akebarei nokol noi .... akdom alada r khub sundor ......... ai seriese k aro boi beriechilo ??
DeleteJulius Chancer-er aapatato 3-te boi baar hoyechhe - next aaro hobe. Aapni "Benny BreakIron" pore dekhte paren - ota-o besh mojaar - blog-e ekta golp deoa aachhe.
Delete