Flash Gordon - Volume 1 1934-1935: Mongo, the Planet of Doom

Flash Gordon by Alex Raymond (Kitchen Sink Press) #1

by Alex Raymond

Collect strips 1-82 from January 7, 1934 to August 11, 1935

Genres: Science Fiction, Comics

112 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1990

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

[Bill Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alex Raymond's most accessible work is very well drawn, but what charmed me about this book is the wild swings in the story.

Within one eight panel page, Flash and Dale have attempted an escape and are plummeting from the Skyroom Harem of Vultan, King of the Hawkmen, only for a guard to see them and send more soldiers to recapture them. Upon landing, Flash punches out the soldiers, only to have the escape attempt thwarted. Dale is sentenced to the Harem again and Flash is sent to the Atom Furnace for the rest of his days.

That's a lot of story for one page.

Recommended.

[Alessandro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading Flash Gordon – Volume 1 (1934–1935): Mongo, the Planet of Doom today is like opening a time capsule from the very dawn of modern science fiction comics. These early strips, now ninety years old, inevitably make the modern reader smile at times: the breathless tone, the narrative shortcuts, the occasional inconsistencies, and above all Dale Arden’s impulsive and almost reckless devotion, which more than once places Flash in absurdly dire situations.
And yet, none of this truly diminishes the experience. On the contrary, it highlights how much of what we now take for granted in adventure and science fiction storytelling was being invented here, panel by panel. Alex Raymond’s imagination feels boundless: exotic worlds, baroque technologies, tyrants and rebels, strange creatures and epic vistas follow one another with relentless energy.
What truly makes this volume timeless, however, is the artwork. Raymond’s drawings are astonishing even by contemporary standards. His sense of composition, anatomy, movement, and atmosphere was decades ahead of its time. Each page radiates elegance and dynamism, and it is easy to see why Flash Gordon became such a powerful visual reference for generations of artists, filmmakers, and storytellers.
This is not just a historical curiosity, but a foundational work that still commands admiration. Despite its narrative naiveté, Flash Gordon remains a triumph of visual storytelling and imagination. For any fan of comics, adventure fiction, or the history of pop culture, this volume is essential reading—and a reminder of how truly immortal Alex Raymond’s art is.

[Ariel · Rating 4 out of 5]

how i learned to draw

[Brent · Rating 5 out of 5]

Space Opera, at it's best.