National Cartoonist Society Profile: Alex Raymond

One of America's most influential comic strip and illustration artists, Alexander Gillespie Raymond is celebrated for his outstanding work on his Flash Gordon, Jungle Jim, Secret Agent X-9 and Rip Kirby for King Features Syndicate. Raymond is hailed by all as "an artist's artist," and his much-imitated, but seldom equaled style provided a legacy that would  inspire artists for generations to come. Here is his brief biography published by the NCS...He worked with Chic and Lyman Young for a while and then in 1934, the late Joe Connolly, president of King Features Syndicate, gave Raymond an idea for a Sunday page in color based on fantastic adventures similar to those of Jules Verne. This was Flash Gordon, the famed adventure feature. "I also did Jungle Jim as a top to the Gordon panel," Alex says, "and for about a year and a half I did Secret Agent X-9, but the strain grew too much and I dropped the later work." Comfortably settled as one of the nation's leading newspaper artists, Alex came to a crisis in his career: whether to remain a topflight cartoonist, or to go in for magazine illustration, for which he had shown a definite flair. He fiddled around with the latter medium, but after several years deliberation, made up his mind. "I decided honestly," he said, "that comic-art work is an art form in itself, it reflects the life and times more accurately and actually is more artistic than magazine illustration -- since it is entirely creative."

Society of Illustrators Profile: Charles Russell

Born in 1864 to an affluent family in Missouri, Charles Marion Russell, had ties to the old West as his great uncles were fur traders who excited the lad with stories of their many adventures. Never a good student, Russell quit school just shy of his 16th birthday and headed for the Montana Territory, soon making friends with cowboys, Indians,  trappers, and traders. During this time he travelled two years with a trapper on hunting expeditions making hundreds of sketches and soon became an expert an animal anatomy. His first job was wrangling at night, as Charles sketched during the day documenting his life as a cowboy and the events of ranch life in the 1890s. Often bartering a sketch to buy a meal or a round of drinks for his friends, Russell saw the Western frontier was quickly changing and decided to take up his paintbrush permanently.  Most adventurous of the Western painters with the use of color, the artist enjoyed the medium of watercolor and the many effects he could achieve. In 1896, Russell married and settled down as his pictures started appearing in the pages of Sports Afield, Field and Stream, and Outing. Soon his illustrations and painting were showcased in more mainstream magazine like McClure's, The Saturday Evening Post, Scribner's and Leslie's Weekly. Now creating for his own pleasure due to his financial success, Russell's paintings and bronzes were sought by collectors and museums alike and are still demanding high prices when offered to the public.

 

Buried Treasure: Tales of the Green Beret

With the success of Robin Moore's war novel, Tales of the Green Beret, in the mid-1960s, the Chicago Tribune-New York News Syndicate decided to adapt the story as a comic strip about a member of the U.S. special forces serving in Vietnam. Originally offered to Neal Adams to draw, he suggested DC's foremost war artist, Joe Kubert, would be a better choice for the star-spangled feature. After a few try-out dailies, Moore's gritty story lines coupled with Kubert's equally piercing illustrations was a hit as the strip debuted in the early months of 1966. The story revolved around a tough talking cigar-chomping Lieutenant Ross and his special commando unit based in Vietnam. Not wanting to pull any punches, the creative team presented  the horrors of war in full force, burning villages, savage Vietcong guerrillas fire fights, and fleeing civilians were common place in this serious war strip. As the feature promoted the heroism of the American soldiers in Vietnam, the war at home was growing more unpopular with the U.S. public. In response to the change of the national mood, Kubert quit the strip in late 1967, and was replaced by John Celardo who continued on until its cancellation in 1969.