Wednesday Comics: The Flash Gordon Comic Strip

Flash Gordon first appeared in the Sunday Comics section and was born of King Features Syndicate's desire to compete with Buck Rogers--and only after they had failed to acquire the rights to John Carter of Mars. Alex Raymond is given credit for its creation, though he was partnered with the (uncredited) writer/editor Don Moore.

Until recently Alex Raymond's original run was not fully available in reprint, to say nothing of the work various artists that came after him. Titan Books has been working on their "Complete Flash Gordon Library" and has the most comprehensive reprint series so far (well, at least since Kitchen Sinks' in the 90s) with Austin Briggs, Mac Raboy, and Dan Barry represented, but they are reproduced at a smaller size than the original strips.

For you purists, IDW has a solution, at least for the Alex Raymond years. Their four Definitive Flash Gordon and Jungle Jim volumes carry you through Raymond's entire 1934-1943 run, and the first storyline by Austin Briggs to end up in 1947. The real draw, though, is that they are reproduced slightly larger than original print size. (Some pedantry might come in regarding sizes and definitiveness. Earlier reproductions of only Flash Gordon split  the full pages into landscape pages, so they are not smaller than IDW's, but this comes at the sacrifice of faithfully reprinting the page.) IDW also included the paper dolls that occasional ran with the original strip.