The Strange Death of Alex Raymond

"The Strange Death of Alex Raymond" (*SDoAR*) is an unfinished narrative by Dave Sim revolving around the interpersonal relationships of *Flash Gordon* and *Rip Kirby* creator Alex Raymond, culminating in Raymond's death in a car accident.

## History

### 2008-2012

"The Strange Death of Alex Raymond" finds its origins in the history of photo-realistic comics as presented by Sim in the pages of *Glamourpuss*. While the earliest installments focused on the nature of the style and its various practitioners and their differences, the narrative began to focus more and more on Raymond and his interpersonal relationships with other artists in the field.

### 2012-2015

Following the cancellation of *Glamourpuss*, Sim began reworking the material into an eighteen-part series for IDW Publishing. Feeling much of his earlier work was sub-par, Sim opted to start over from the beginning, reworking or redrawing the extant material. In 2015, Sim began suffering from a malady that made drawing painful, bringing work on the project to a halt.

### 2016-2020

In 2016, Sim decided to take on a collaborator to complete work on *SDoAR*, now envisioned as a five-volume series of graphic novels. Artist Carson Grubaugh was ultimately chosen from several candidates. In early 2020, Aardvark-Vanaheim published the "California Test Market Edition" of *The Strange Death of Alex Raymond, Volume One* for a book tour that did not occur due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Work on *SDoAR* continued until June of 2020 when Sim decided to cease working on the project, feeling that it was unviable and that he was unlikely to ever finish it. He gave Grubaugh clearance to complete the work as he saw fit and publish it, should he choose to do so.

### 2021

In 2021, Grubaugh partnered with Sean Michael Robinson at Living the Line to complete and publish *The Strange Death of Alex Raymond*, which Sim refers to as "Carson's Version". It includes the completed sections of the book, with a conclusion by Grubaugh closing the narrative. The book was highly acclaimed, being nominated for an Eisner Award for "Best Reality-Based Work", losing to *The Black Panther Party: A Graphic History*.

### 2022 - present

In late 2022 it was announced that Sim had resumed work on his version of *SDoAR*. Page mockups for the third volume, which carries the original narrative beyond the material published in 2021, are available via a GoFundMe set up to help finance the work. After meeting certain funding levels, "Giant-Size Ashcans" of the continued work are to be published under the title *The Strange Death of Alex Raymond 2023*.

## Related Publications

In addition to *Glamourpuss*, there are several ancillary books that have been published, all of them so far by Living the Line.

* *You Don't Know Jack!*, a one-shot comic book published via its own Kickstarter campaign, serves as a prequel to the Sim/Grubaugh version of *The Strange Death of Alex Raymond*.
* *The Preliminary Strange Death*, a collection of tracings used by Dave Sim to assemble pages of *The Strange Death of Alex Raymond*.
* *The Strange Death of Alex Raymond: The Mockups*, Dave Sim's mockups for the layout and dialogue for Volume Two and Volume Three of *SDoAR*.

## References

 1. ↑ "Dave Sim And IDW Bring Us The Strange Death Of Alex Raymond", Bleeding Cool
2. ↑ "BREAKING STRANGE DEATH OF ALEX RAYMOND NEWS!!!!!", A Moment of Cerebus
3. ↑ *Strange Death of Alex Raymond 2023*