In late 1931, he joined Young full time, and assisted on 'Blondie' until early 1933, shortly after the story arc of Blondie and Dagwood's marriage.

In the evenings, he helped Chic Young with his comic strip 'Blondie'. In 1931, the young Alex Raymond was hired as an assistant artist in the King Features bullpen. Westover introduced Raymond to King Features, the newspaper syndicate belonging to William Randolph Hearst's media empire. Initially serving as an errand boy, he was eventually tasked with some small lettering and background art chores. 'Tim Tyler's Luck', ghosted by Alex Raymond (19 October 1933).īy 1930, Raymond was the assistant of his former neighbor Russ Westover, the cartoonist of 'Tillie the Toiler'. For a while, he earned a living as a mortgage salesman, but eventually chose to pursue his artistic ambitions. The 1929 Wall Street Crash and the ensuing economic crisis in the USA cut Raymond's career as a stockbroker short. In the evenings, Raymond took a course from the Grand Central School of Art.

By 1928, the youngster had dropped out of high school and became an order clerk with a brokerage firm in Wall Street. Although Raymond showed an early interest in drawing, he held several jobs to support his family after his father passed away in 1922. His father - an engineer working in the Woolworth Building - strongly supported his son's artistic talents. Together with his contemporaries Hal Foster, Milton Caniff and Burne Hogarth, Raymond left a lasting mark on realistically drawn, serious comic series.Īlexander Gillespie Raymond was born in 1909 in New Rochelle, New York, into a family of Irish-American descent.

Alex Raymond is widely praised for his realism, elegant depictions of women and clever use of black and white. Other Raymond (co-)creations like the jungle adventure comic 'Jungle Jim' (1934-1954) and the spy series 'Secret Agent X-9' (1934-1996) have become classics too. With his epic space opera 'Flash Gordon' (1934-2003) he redefined the science fiction genre, while his post-war detective series 'Rip Kirby' (1946-1999) stood out for its contemporary realism and cosmopolitan look and feel. Alex Raymond was one of the most influential American newspaper comic artists of all time.

The Crawling Wood by Casey Lucas