Rip Kirby daily strip 22.01.1963

In my opinion, John Prentice was a worthy successor to Alex Raymond, at least for the first 15-20 years or so. The evil and scheming crooks, the beautiful ladies and the cool detective himself all felt very raymondesque.
The story this strip is taken from is called Ming the Merciless. A bit confusingly for Raymond fans (I don´t believe there is any direct relation to the Mongo tyrant), or perhaps an in-joke. The ladies here are both crooks, one of them backstabbing the other.