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Flash Gordon Volumes 1-3
If your experience is anything like mine (previous to reading these books
that is), the name Flash Gordon conjures up Freddie Mercury singing about
how Flash will "save everyone of us" in the 1980 movie that for a certain
time seemed to be in endless syndication on Saturday afternoon television.
Or maybe you've seen some of the old movie serials of Flash
Gordon. What I've only more recently learned is that Flash Gordon started
in January of 1934 as a Sunday comic strip drawn by relative newcomer Alex
Raymond. It was created as a competition for the then popular Buck
Rogers strip (another that is now more known for its screen
adaptations). Raymond's artwork starts out unremarkably but as time passed
he become one of the most well-regarded of comics artists. His artwork makes
Flash Gordon more than just another rather silly science fiction
strip (albeit one of the originals in the genre). The set-up of the story in the first couple strips is quite a mess. A
comet/world is going to crash into the Earth. Scientist Dr.
Zharkov works feverishly to save the Earth. Flash Gordon (Yale graduate and
champion polo player) and Dale Arden ("passenger" is all we learn of her)
are in an airplane crash. Flash saves Dale and they run into Zharkov at his
secret lab. For unclear reasons he thinks they are spies and forces them
into his rocket which he is going to use to crash into the comet and save
the Earth. They crash on the planet, Mongo, and adventures ensue... and
after reading three volumes (four and a half years of Sunday strips) I still
don't know if Mongo crashed into the Earth (and none of the characters have
brought it up). Maybe they get back to it later. Anyway, Flash, Dale, and Zharkov face a never-ending trial from the
monsters and men of Mongo, mostly from the Emperor Ming the Merciless (whose
whole Empire seems to represent some kind of "yellow menace", down to the
yellow/green hue of their skin). Everywhere they go on the planet there is a
new type of "man"--the hawkmen, the cavemen, the underwatermen--or
monster--invariable a slightly altered variation of some earth creature like
a tiger with a horn ("tigron")-- that threatens or befriends them, not to
mention the various queens, witches, and plain women who fall in love with
Flash, much to the anger and jealousy of Dale. With the amount of forests,
swamps, and caves that Flash's adventures take him to, this is as much
Tarzan or Conan as what one comes to expect from science fiction adventure
(Flash uses swords and clubs as much if not more than he uses ray guns). It's all quite ridiculous, really, in an old pulp sci-fi way but also
entertaining and fun. I laughed at the absurdity of the characterization or
lack thereof (characters fall in love or become the best of friends at the
drop of a hat), but I still wanted to keep reading, to know what happened
next, and to see more of Raymond's art. As the strip progresses Raymond's art became more and more dynamic and
realistic. His figure drawing is exquisite as is his attention to clothes
(though showing skin through lack of clothing is almost as important
considering the number of times Flash and his male comrades go shirtless).
Just about any panel will show his skill with posing and placing figures. I
don't know anything about Raymond's methods, but I wonder if there were
models involved (or photographic reference). Raymond uses a lot of parallel lines for shading, thin lines that move
with the shape of the object. At times, particularly during the strips in
Volume 2, the lines are so numerous as to create a feeling of almost
constant movement. This is done to excellent effect in a sequence involving
an undersea kingdom. The lines create the effect of swirling water, ever
moving around the scene. A strip from June 16, 1935 features a flight of hawkmen swooping down on
a ground army. The lines and hatching are such that they remind me of an
etching by Blake, perhaps of Lucifer and his angels falling from heaven
(sorry, the image takes up almost the whole page and is too big for my
scanner). The environment in Flash Gordon is a surreal altered Earth
landscape. The forest kingdom is filled with giant trees, in which buildings
can sit, and mad "squirlons" that attack like vampire bats and look like
flying squirrels. Buildings, objects, and vehicles are all streamlined,
curved versions of Raymond's late-thirties era. The inhabitants of Mongo
zoom around in phallic shaped rockets that look like wingless airplanes. It
is the classic look of science fiction, familiar to many, and Raymond brings
it to glorious life. The whole strip uses both narration and word balloons. The narration is
used to bridge the gaps between the panels, as the Sunday strip style is
generally more compressed than most comics, even more than daily strips,
which work with smaller units of time.
Unlike another illustrative strip of the same period, Prince Valiant
(which I've discussed at my blog), Flash Gordon
makes use of word balloons for character's speech. The use of dialogue slows
down the movement of the strip; time does not always pass at a quick pace,
but when it does the narration provides what the pictures cannot. Checker has published these volumes in rather large-sized hardcovers
(unlike their microscopic reprints of Milton Caniff's Steve Canyon)
on glossy paper. The biggest disappointment is the quality of reproduction.
For an artist of Raymond's stature and skill, one can only wish for the best
of reproductions, but sadly, these are occasionally muddy and often off
register. It's hard to fault Checker as the work involved in finding
originals or cleaning up the art would be extensive and costly. Still,
having seen some of Raymond's art in black and white, I almost wish for a
black and white reproduction to better show off his art. His careful use of
spot blacks (often eschewing them altogether) means his uncolored ink work
sits rather lightly on the page, but without the color one can clearly see
the line work and how subtly it creates shape and depth (see this example). Each of these volumes covers more than a year of Sunday strips (each
successive volume has been about a month longer than the
previous) collectively spanning January 1934 to June 1938. Two more volumes
are expected from the publisher, according to their website, and one hopes
they will release more volumes to finish out Raymond's run on the strip,
which lasted through 1944 when he entered the military. I'd personally
recommend Volumes 2 or 3 (or look for Volume 4, which I believe is due out
this month). Skip Volume 1 unless you really want to follow the story from
the beginning because the art in that book is sub-par. If you want to sample some of the artwork, I'd suggest this Spanish site
which has panel reproductions from each of the years of Raymond's tenure
(scroll down and click on the links for different years).
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