 Alongside ghostwriter Don Moore , a pulp @-@ fiction veteran , Raymond created the visually sumptuous science @-@ fiction epic comic strip Flash Gordon . The duo also created the " complementary strip , Jungle Jim , an adventurous saga set in South @-@ East Asia " , a topper which ran above Flash in some papers Raymond was concurrently illustrating Secret Agent X @-@ 9 , which premiered January 22 , 1934 , two weeks after the two other strips . It was Flash Gordon that would outlast the others , quickly " develop [ ing ] an audience far surpassing " that of Buck Rogers . Flash Gordon , wrote Stephen Becker , " was wittier and moved faster , " so " Buck 's position as America 's favorite sci @-@ fi hero " , wrote historian Bill Crouch , Jr . , " went down in flames to the artistic lash and spectacle of Alex Raymond 's virtuoso artwork . " Alex Raymond has stated , " I decided honestly that comic art is an art form in itself . It reflects the life and times more accurately and actually is more artistic than magazine illustration — since it is entirely creative . An illustrator works with camera and models ; a comic artist begins with a white sheet of paper and dreams up his own business — he is playwright , director , editor and artist at once . " A. E. Mendez has also stated that " Raymond ’ s achievements are chopped into bite @-@ sized pieces by the comic art cognoscenti . Lost in the worthwhile effort to distinguish comics as an art form , the romance , sweep and beauty of Raymond 's draftsmanship , his incomparable line work , is dismissed . To many , it 's just pretty pictures . Somehow or another , it 's OK for people like Caniff and Eisner to borrow from film . That ’ s real storytelling . But for Raymond to study illustrators , well , that 's just not comics . " 
