Friday, January 9, 2015

Rip Kirby - Danger in Key Diablo


Raymond's skill and talent reached to its peak with Rip Kirby. After returning from WWII Raymond did not resume Flash Gordon because of King Feature's contract with Austin Briggs. To keep Raymond with them, they let him produce a new feature. Thus it's debatable if King Features editor Ward Greene created the character, that was later more fully developed by writer Fred Dickenson. 

But whether Alex Raymond created the character or not, it was his success and name recognition that really mattered with his audience. It gave Raymond part ownership in the strip. Raymond was also like his character, with many of the qualities of the famous detective. More sophisticated and urbane than the average artist, he was a striking figure, handsome, athletic, hugely talented and admired among his peers. Raymond's art influenced many of the talented comic artists of today.

Raymond constantly looked for different ways to carry the story visually to readers with experimentation in his style. He used models, took reference photographs, and swiped from magazines in his efforts to absorb different approaches. He worked close to deadlines, leaving only three weeks of strips at the time of his death from an auto accident. Abandoning the old soap opera approach of a simpler outline style, Raymond brought numerous slick advertising techniques to the daily.

Always in firm control of his art and career, King Features offered Raymond $35,000 a year to produce a Sunday Rip Kirby page. Raymond declined citing the extra work the page would impose on his already limited free time.

To mention a few of his achievements, Raymond won the coveted Ruben Award in 1949 for Rip Kirby, was a member of the Society of Illustrators, and served as president of the National Cartoonists Society for 1950 and 1951. Even when producing both magazine and book illustration, and his combat paintings displayed in the National Gallery of Washington, DC, Raymond still always championed the comic strip as his preferred art form. 

He once said, "I decided honestly that comic art work is an art form in itself. It reflects the life and times more accurately and actually is more artistic than magazine illustration -- since it is entirely creative. A comic artist is playwright, director, editor and artist at once..."



Read here one of the vintage Rip Kirby adventures, "Danger in Key Diablo" in B&W - it originally continued from Feb,1953  to May, 1953.

Pagan's Plight (67 MB)
Danger in Key Diablo 
   (Size: 43 MB)


2 comments:

  1. thank you kuntalda অনেক ধন্যবাদ গোয়েন্দা রীপ'র জন্য

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  2. গোয়েন্দা রীপের আপনার আপলোড করা সব গল্প পড়লাম। দারুন লেগেছে। আরো চাই। আপলোডের জন্য ধন্যবাদ।

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