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)
