Product Description

The first of seven full-color volumes collecting the entire output of comics great Alex Raymond on his signature strip, Flash Gordon. Thanks to Raymond's unrivaled gift for gorgeous sprawling artork and rapid-fire plotting set on a world of unrivaled wonder - the mysterious planet mongo - Flash Gordon quickly became a house-hold name which still resonates in film, literature and cartooning to this day.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #382128 in Books
• Published on: 2004-05-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 98 pages

From Publishers Weekly
This mammoth volume, the first of three, chronicles the newspaper adventures of Flash Gordon from the character's inception in 1934. Flash, of course, rose to fame in the movies, but his origins are these lavish drawings by adventure illustrator Raymond for the newspaper comic strip. Most, if not all, of this material has been seen before, and this edition adds little to the mix. The stories are swashbuckling adventures of Flash, "Yale graduate and world-renowned Polo player," and the lovely Dale Arden, who become stranded on the planet Mongo, a fierce place ruled with an iron fist by Ming the Merciless. Their pulpy adventures went on for years, and Raymond's line work becoming progressively more baroque and overdone. The editors at Checker have made some odd choices for this book, e.g., surrounding panels from the strip in a sea of black ink and rearranging panels from the original strips, reproducing the art at a tiny size, which doesn't do justice to Raymond's lush renderings and stylized fantasy. The reproduction quality is fairly rough as well: panels and colors are frequently muddy and blurry. Readers will hope for better quality in future volumes.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
Alex Raymond s original serialized comic strip, reprinted in a series of top-quality, rectangular, oversized hardbacks, ensuring high collectibility, with this seventh being the final. Rod Lott --Oklahoma Gazette

His eponymous newspaper strip, which recounted his, his girlfriend Dale Arden's, and the brilliant scientist Dr. Zarkoff's adventures as they battled the evil warlord Ming the Merciless on the planet Mongo, made a lasting impact on the pop-cultural landscape. --Booklist

Customer Reviews

Publisher's Note on the PW review
Normally, Checker does not rebut reviews, but in this case I felt the need to clarify some points brought up in the Publishers Weekly review above. First, every criticism within the review is 100% valid FOR THE REVIEW COPY PROVIDED TO PW.

As readers may or may not know review copies are provided the media four to five months prior to publication. With full color comic strip collections the quality of the REVIEW COPY is a difficult thing to measure. Subsequent to Checker mailing review copies, we chose to delay the publication of the collection and revamp the book format and design to better reflect its original published format. The end book is something wholly different than what we provided to the editorial staff at Publishers Weekly. We are confident that fans will relish this watershed of comics history in their collections.

Be sure to read the comment below from the publisher.
Alex Raymond created Flash Gordon as a full page comic strip on January 7, 1934. The strip continues today, though only in reprint form, alas. There have been reprints from Kitchen Sink (these are the best), Dark Horse, Comics Revue, and many other publishers. Some of these are still in print, others can be found on ebay. This book, from Checker, reprises the Kitchen Sink material.

The strip had its ups and downs, but most collectors agree that it was in its prime in three eras, the Alex Raymond era from 1934 to 1944, the beginning of a revived daily strip, by Dan Barry, Frank Frazetta, Jack Davis, Wally Wood, Harvey Kurtzman, and just about the whole E.C. Comics gang, from 1951 to 1955, and the Harry Harrison era, from roughly 1958 to 1964. (Harry Harrison also contributed to E.C. Comics, and wrote The Stainless Steel Rat.)

It is good to see these strips back in print.

Great start for this series
Checker has another hit on their hands with their reprint series of Alex Raymond's FLASH GORDON. Presented in oblong 12 x 9" hardcover format, this makes for an attractive, if somewhat awkward, format for collecting these classic strips. I say "awkward" because oblong editions don't store easily on the bookshelf, but the benefit is that you get the strips in their original format. In any case, it's great to see Raymond's original strips back in print. This edition introduces Flash Gordon and his travelling companions Dale Arden and Dr. Zarkov, as well as the interplanetary comrades and enemies we all know and love (or love to hate). Reproduction is fair: the linework is a bit light, and the colors are too soft for my tastes. Better reproduction quality, plus a higher page count, would have netted this book five stars.