In a way, Raymond influenced my own preference as a boy for more realistically drawn and painted strips. When I first encountered American comics I wasn't impressed by over-muscled figures, the lack of depth offered by shadows and cross-hatching, and the awful flat colours. I much preferred Don Lawrence.
All of which rambling brings me to the opening essay in the latest issue of Illustrators, a lengthy look at the artist who co-created 'Flash', 'Rip' and 'Jungle Jim', a strip I'm less familiar with. Raymond began his career assisting Russ Westover ('Tillie the Toiler'), Chic Young ('Blondie') and Lyman Young ('Tim Tyler's Luck'). Raymond struck out on his own with the Sunday Page that combined 'Jungle Jim' and 'Flash Gordon' before adding 'Secret Agent X-9', written by Dashiell Hammett. Hammett's huge fee ($500 a week) dwarfed the $20 earned by Raymond for six daily panels.
Eventually he bailed and continued with Jim and Flash until World War 2, in which he served as a marine. Returning to King Features in 1946, he was offered a large incentive to create a new strip, out of which came bespectacled, pipe-smoking Rip Kirby, the antithesis of the usual hardboiled private eye characters. Raymond's beautiful artwork was enhanced by his ability to tell a story in the daily 3-panel format (a skill Hammett lacked on X-9).
Sadly, Raymond was killed in 1956 when the car he was driving left the road at high speed and smashed into a tree. His passenger, Stan Drake ('The Heart of Juliet Jones') was severely injured and spent months in hospital. Raymond was killed outright.
Peter Richardson's look back over Raymond's all-too-short career is enhanced by numerous illustrations of original artwork. You can really see how skillfully Raymond wielded a brush.
Bob Eggleton grew up reading science fiction and watching monster movies in the 1960s and 1970s. These were also the days of NASA and the early space missions that culminated with man's first steps on the Moon... but even the Saturn V rocket was disappointing compared to the spaceships Eggleton could see on book and magazine covers.
Artists like Frank Kelly Freas, John Schoenherr and Ed Emsh inspired him to enroll in art college. A desire to find work caused him to leave early and before long he was painting book covers. Since then he has also worked on character design and concept art for movies, won eight Hugo Awards and nearly a dozen Chesley Awards. There is also a fantastic book of his work, Greetings From Earth, if this article inspires you to find more of his paintings.
Jacques Terpent is a comic strip artist and illustrator who arrived alongside a group of young new talents who brought their schooling in figurative art at Saint-Etienne Fine Arts School to the pages of Metal Hurlant in the late 1970s. When the magazine folded in the late 1980s, most artists moved away from comics, but Terpent was able to subsidise his comics through advertising work.
A fascination with the historical novelist Jean Raspail led to a six-volume series adapting Sept Cavaliers (2008-10) and Le Royaume de Boree (2011-14). He has recently been working with Jean Dufaux on further literary adaptations.
The winner of the Prix Saint-Michel in 2011, Terpent is an artist I knew nothing about, so Diego Cordoba's article is especially interesting. Illustrators is a great place to discover new artists and this issue will hopefully inspire its readers to explore the works of this trio of incredibly talented pen- and brush-men.
For more information on Illustrators and back issues, visit the Book Palace website, where you can also find details of their online editions, and news of upcoming issues. Issue 36 will have features on Thomas Fluharty, Arantza Sestayo, Caran d'Ache and Jose Luis Salinas.
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