About the Author

Alex Raymond (1909-1956) is regarded, with Milton Caniff and Hal Foster, as one of the three giants of newspaper adventure strip artists. Raymond apprenticed with Chic Young on Blondie and Lyman Young onaTim Tyler's Luck. The year 1934 was a major turning point in his career- he illustratedaSecret Agent X-9, a new detective comic strip written by Dashiell Hammett, and then createdaFlash Gordon and Jungle Jim. He leftaX-9aafter a couple of years and continued drawingaFlash and Jim, with a writing assist from Don Moore, until 1944, when he enlisted in the Marines. In 1946 Raymond created the ultimate post-War cool detective series,aRip Kirby, which is also available from the Library of American Comics.