Is there any kind of compilation out there with the original comic strips produced by Alex Raymond?
shareYou should check out Budsartbooks.com. I know that all of the alex Raymond material was collected several years ago but it might not still be in print.
If Bud's doesn't have what you're looking for, try your nearest comic book store.
Thanks.
shareA few years later...
There have been several collections of the Flash Gordon strips. They appeared in Big Little Books and comic books back in the 30s and 40s. Nostalgia Press collected most of the Alex Raymond strips in 5 books:
Flash Gordon: The Planet Mongo
Flash Gordon: The Water World of Mongo
Flash Gordon: Escape to Arboria
Flash Gordon: Versus Forgotten Horrors
Flash Gordon: Joins the Power Men
Kitchen Sink (the defunct comic book publisher) collected them in 7 volumes (I think that was the total number) in the late 80s and early 90s. Checkerboard colelcted them again a few years back and there are brand new collections being issued.
If you've never seen the Raymond comics, they are gorgeous! They are a bit crude at first, but Raymond started to really develop them after the first few years. They also dropped the yellow coloring of the Mongo humans and made them caucasian (Ming was essentially a "Yellow Peril" villain ala Fu-Manchu). The detail is exquisite and the costuming shows influence from opera and movies like The Prisoner of Zenda.
There have also been collections of some of the later material, with a collection of some of the Dan Barry strips by Kitchen Sink, and the Mac Raboy strips by Dark Horse Comics. Kitchen Sink also collected some of the Austin Briggs strips, that followed Raymond. Dark Horse may have also collected these, though I am not sure.
The comic books have been a mix of Raymond (and others) reprints and new stories. Dell published some of it, then King Feature produced their own comics, for a short time. Gold Key/Western published them after that, up through the release of the 1980 movie). Some of that material was quite good, with Italian artists following in Raymond's style. DC did a miniseries, with Dan Jurgens on art, that was decent. Marvel did two issues, with Al Williamson, who also drew the strip, at one point, and did the Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi adaptations at Marvel (as well as the Star Wars comic strip). Dynamite Entertainment has a new series, designed by Alex Ross, though not on the regular art chores. It borrows quite a bit from the movie and the Filmation cartoon series.
"Fortunately, Ah keep mah feathers numbered for just such an emergency!"
grendelkahn: Have the volumes which you speak and you can clearly see the evolution of Raymond's style. Though even from the start the artistry is clearly superior to BUCK ROGERS and other strips of the time.
shareWell, that goes without saying. Only Hal Foster could touch Raymond on the adventure strip. When you read interviews with comic book artists who started in the 40s, the names that keep coming up are Foster, Raymond, and Milton Caniff (sometimes Noel Sickles and Roy Crane). Raymond was ripped off by everyone in the comic book world, especially Sheldon Moldoff, on Hawkman.
Dick Culkins, of Buck Rogers, was probably more in the Roy Crane camp, though Buck improves with time; but never to Raymond levels.
Rayboy's Flash is pretty darn good and Al Williamson captures it quite well. I've only see a little of Briggs, but he knew what he was doing.
"Fortunately, Ah keep mah feathers numbered for just such an emergency!"
Image-Madacy's The Complete Adventures of Flash Gordon albumn, which has all three of the serials on 4 dvd's, also includes a 24-page booklet with excerpts from the orginal comic strip as well as some other historical information.
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He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good... St. Matthew 5:45