This series is the first comprehensive archival collection of Alex Raymond’s post-war, post-modern classic. Created by Raymond in 1946, it was a fresh approach to the crime genre, an about-face from the prevailing hard-boiled style of detective fiction. Rip Kirby was smart and sophisticated, but still a man’s man. Highly conscious of the fashions of the day, Raymond also brought post-war and early-’50s chic to the comics page. When Raymond tragically died in a car accident in 1956, John Prentice began drawing the strip and continued it for the next forty-three years.