Sunday 4 May 2014

The Strange Death Of Alex Raymond: Origins


The Raymond School: An Appreciation
by Dave Sim
The Comics Journal Special: Winter 2002 Vol 1
(Click images to enlarge)
GARY GROTH:
(from the introduction, The Comics Journal Special: Winter 2002 Vol 1)
...Originally I was going to ask artists to do a strip about anything their heart desired, but quickly came upon the diabolical plan of forcing them into a theme, specifically cartoonists on cartooning. What could be more appropriate for the first volume of a coffee-table magazine devoted to -- cartooning? Apparently this subject was more difficult than I'd anticipated, but everyone came through with a gem. Needless to say, we think the comics in this issue fairly represent the stylistic diversity and wide-ranging potential of the form; if you're a life-long reader of the Journal, we hope you enjoy this extravagant departure and if you're picking this up out of perverse curiosity, welcome.


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Originally serialised within the pages of the self-published Glamourpuss #1-26 (April 2008 to July 2012), The Strange Death Of Alex Raymond is an as yet uncompleted work-in-progress in which Dave Sim investigates the history of photorealism in comics and specifically focuses on the work of comic-strip artist Alex Raymond and the circumstances of his death on 6 September 1956 at the wheel of fellow artist Stan Drake's Corvette at the age of 46.

1 comment:

Travis Pelkie said...

Strangely enough, later in the day that this piece was posted, I actually found this TCJ special at a large local library book sale. I also scored beat up copies of volumes 2 and 6 of Swords of Cerebus, and the lady at the checkout even mentioned that there was a better copy of volume 2, I think, in the "collector's corner", which was unfortunately closed at that time. But I spent about 8 bucks on those 3 items, which is pretty dang good, I think.

Also got an older copy of the ADS v2 Ascendent, too, by the by, since we've been mentioning it. Cuz y'all care....