552 SCIENCE FICTION
book incarnation was published by TSR during 1990–91, co-written by Flint Dille
(grandson of John Flint Dille) and Steven Grant (from a graphic novel by Grant), and
later Buzz Dixon. It lasted for 10 issues.
Th e next signifi cant work of science fi ction to appear in the comics was Flash Gordon,
which fi rst appeared on January 7, 1934, as a Sunday strip. It was conceived as a means
of competing with the popular Buck Rogers strip. It was created by Alex Raymond for
King Features Syndicate, with scripting duties taken up by Don Moore soon after,
which he continued with until the late 1940s. Moore was succeeded by a number of
writers, including Fred Dickenson. Th e strip gained a reputation exceeding that of Buck
Rogers, due in no small part to the seminal artwork created by Raymond, whose reputa-
tion holds strong to this day.
Th e Sunday strip was followed by a daily strip that fi rst appeared on May 27, 1940,
illustrated by Austin Briggs, who was previously Raymond’s assistant. Briggs later took
over from Raymond on the Sunday strip, fi nishing his run July 1948, to be followed
by Mac Raboy (1948–67), and then Dan Barry, assisted by artists including Frank
Frazetta and Al Williamson. However, the daily strip fi nished in June 1944, but was a
revived in November 1951 by Barry and Ric Estrada.
Flash Gordon, “a Yale graduate and world-renowned polo player,” and Dale Arden,
his female companion, are taken on a journey to the planet Mongo on Dr. Zarkov’s
spaceship, after their plane crashes near Zarkov’s observatory. On Mongo, they battle
against the emperor of the planet, Ming the Merciless. Th ey are helped in their struggle
by Barin, King of Arboria, and his wife Aura, who is also Ming’s daughter.
Th e visual appeal of Flash Gordon lay in the exotic alien scenery of locations including
the undersea kingdom and the ice kingdom, and the equally exotic supporting cast:
Tygrons, Wolvrons, and the Cerberus-inspired “ Tsak, the Two-Headed Guardian
of the Tunnel of Terror.” Other visually interesting supporting characters in the cast
were hawk men, lion men, and monkey men. Th is strip also shows evidence of formal
experimentation, gradually leaving behind standardized frames and speech balloons
and embracing a less defi ned, more consciously artistic style, in addition to replacing
balloons with narrative captioning.
A central motif in the strip has Flash and Dale representing a moral humanism
acceptable to its audience, with Ming epitomizing an amoral, inhuman, anti-human
stance, an uncomfortable echo of the ideas propagated by Adolf Hitler, who became the
Head of State in Germany in 1934, as well as the perceived threat of the “yellow peril”
or Asian immigration. Like much sf, Flash Gordon would provide a refl ection of the
times in which it was created.
Science fi ction proved to be an infl uential comics genre not only in the United
States but in Great Britain as well. Dan Dare—Pilot of the Future, appeared as the
lead feature in the very fi rst issue of Th e Eagle , a seminal British comic, published on
April 14, 1950. Th is feature occupied both the front and back page of this anthology
publication. Th e strip was created by artist Frank Hampson and produced by a team
of artists under his supervision. Th ey employed photographic references in the form
