We’re both thrilled and saddened that Rip Kirby Volume 4 will be on sale soon. Thrilled because…well, who isn’t thrilled to see more than two-and-a-half years of Alex Raymond art! Saddened because it’s the final volume collecting Raymond’s post-war modernist classic. In the course of producing the series, we borrowed photos from the daughter of Ray Burns, Raymond’s assistant. We didn’t have room for them all in the printed series so offer a couple here as an online bonus—two staged publicity shots of Raymond and Burns listening to the baseball game on the radio.
Raymond’s tragic death in 1956 left his final story unfinished. It was completed by John Prentice, who continued the strip for decades to come. Here’s a sample of Prentice’s work from October 1956.
And because we’re especially proud of our sequential cover designs, here they are—all four together, starting with the titular character all by his lonesome—then joined by one new character per cover.
