Alex Raymond (1909-1956) is regarded, with Milton Caniff and Hal Foster, as one of the three giants of newspaper adventure strip artists. Raymond apprenticed with Chic Young on Blondie , and Lymon Young on Tim Tyler's Luck . The year 1934 was a major turning point in his career: he illustrated X-9 , a new detective comic strip written by Dashiell Hammett, and then created Flash Gordon and Jungle Jim . Rip Kirby , created in 1946, signaled a grand departure, both thematically and artistically, from the science fiction classic. He promulgated a new art style--one of cinematic photo-realism--that influenced such artists as Stan Drake, Leonard Starr, Al Williamson, and Neal Adams.