Definitive Flash Gordon and Jungle Jim Vol. 1: 1934-1936

Definitive Flash Gordon and Jungle Jim #1

by Alex Raymond

IDW's Library of American Comics is producing The Definitive Flash Gordon & Jungle Jim as part of the Ultimate Alex Raymond Collection. Edited by Eisner Award-winner Dean Mullaney, The Definitive Flash Gordon & Jungle Jim will present every Sunday by Raymond from both classic strips together for the first time, in the oversized 12" x 16" champagne edition format. Created by Raymond in 1934, Flash Gordon is arguably the most famous science fiction comic strip of all time. It follows the adventures of the title character and his companions, Dale Arden and Dr. Zarkov, as they leave Earth to discover the source of meteors that are threatening the planet, and get waylaid on the planet Mongo, where they battle the evil Ming the Merciless. The three Earthlings encounter one strange race after another, from the water-breathing Shark-Men of the Undersea Kingdom, the winged Hawkmen, and the ferocious Tusk-Men. All the while, Flash finds himself in the arms of one beautiful woman after another -- much to Dale Arden's chagrin.
Jungle Jim was created as a strip topper for Flash Gordon, and followed the life of Jim Bradley, who fought pirates, slave traders, and assorted villains in the exotic Southeast Asia of the 1930s. This neglected Raymond classic also features Jim's native cohort Kolu and femme fatale Lille DeVrille.

Genres: Comic Strips, Comics, Science Fiction, Adventure

176 pages, Hardcover

First published September 27, 2011

About the author

Alexander Gillespie Raymond was an American comic strip artist, best known for creating the comic Flash Gordon in 1934. The serial hit the silver screen three years later with Buster Crabbe and Jean Rogers as the leading players. Other strips he drew include Secret Agent X-9, Rip Kirby, Jungle Jim, Tim Tyler's Luck, and Tillie the Toiler. Alex Raymond received a Reuben Award from the National Cartoonists Society in 1949 for his work on Rip Kirby.

Born in New Rochelle, New York, Alex Raymond attended Iona Prep on a scholarship and played on the Gaels' football team. He joined the US Marines Corp in 1944 and served in the Pacific theatre during World War II.

His realistic style and skillful use of "feathering" (a shading technique in which a soft series of parallel lines helps to suggest the contour of an object) has continued to be an inspiration for generations of cartoonists.

Raymond was killed in an automobile accident in Westport, Connecticut while driving with fellow cartoonist Stan Drake, aged 46, and is buried in St. John's Roman Catholic Cemetery in Darien, Connecticut.

During the accident which led to his untimely demise, he was said to have remarked (by the surviving passenger of the accident) on the fact that a pencil on the dashboard seemed to be floating in relation to the plummet of the vehicle.

He was the great-uncle of actors Matt Dillon and Kevin Dillon.

Reviews

[Bob Fish · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is so good!
:)

Quick comparison between Titan & IDW LoAC :
https://youtu.be/Uj0gR0CBzyQ

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

I paid full price for this bad boy ($75), and I won't do that for the three remaining volumes, if I decide to pursue them. The art's gorgeous, and the reproduction mostly good. The stories are ... aged. Both Flash Gordon and Jungle Jim are colossal asshats - Flash starts a war over his wounded pride and kills thousands of people, for example, and if Dale ever showed a scrap of personality beyond blind devotion to Flash... I'd wonder what she sees in him, but she's a prop and sees nothing but him.

Jungle Jim is, hilariously, a poacher - okay, he's a legal game hunter, but let's not split hairs here - he captures (and kills!) wild animals for adventure and sport, and lucky for him, gets paid by zoos and circuses to do so!

These two heroes are about as far from Rip Kirby as imaginable! Haha

Also, the book's huge - the tallest comic I own, surpassing Spiegelman's Shadow of No Towers and Fanta's Popeye volumes.

[John Sgammato · Rating 4 out of 5]

Astounding science fiction! The highest level of space opera, clear antecedents to Star Wars.

[Dominick · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd like to give this a higher rating, as it has definite virtues, but I simply can't. As a physical object, it is fairly impressive, what with a size that does justice to the art, though not quite as big as an actual newspaper page. And the reproduction is fairly good, though the fact that they had to work from scans of strips does lead to some occasional inconsistency and some loss of detail and clarity. Still, it's a handsome volume. And Raymond does some stunning things with the art, though he's coming into himself here--it doesn't really begin to get truly impressive until a fair way into the book. Narratively, though, it's all pretty laughable--not merely implausible but downright ridiculous science (a rocket ship crashing on a planet can divert its movement; people fire "gas rays" or shovel raw radium into furnaces to burn it as fuel; in Jungle Jim, we have lions and tigers in the same jungle, etc). Plotwise, it's pretty derivative and cliche (I think every time either Flash or Jungle Jim meets a new nubile female, she falls in love with him, for instance). It's racially very dubious--it's bad enough that Ming and company are fairly evident versions of the Yellow Peril, but the natives in Jungle Jim run the gamut from innocent children to vicious savages, without much in between--and (polo-playing Yale grad) Flash's unhesitant acceptance of kingship seems more than a bit bizarre, especially since there are clear references to slavery here and there. It's kind of wish fulfuillment romance stuff without much thought to real-world politics or implications for actions, all of which is entertaining enough, as long as you can laugh at it without getting enraged by it. Much violence and action, plenty of scantily clad women (and men), occasionally being flagellated, but not much in the way of depth or subtlety.

[Ronald · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sunday strips in color