Raymond, Alex - Photo of him drawing the layouts for the 03-07-49 Rip Kirby daily

This photograph originates from the historic archive of William Randolph Hearst's San Francisco Examiner newspaper. In addition to being the flagship of Hearst's newspapers, it was his original paper which he took over in 1887, and was the basis for the 1941 Orson Welles film, Citizen Kane. The date stamp indicates it was catalogued for the Examiner's Reference Library on January 31, 1950. The dialogue reads: "So good of you to join us Mr. Kirby. Why don't you take a vacation and join us at 'Blackwater'" To which Kirby responds "Impossible Mrs. Beaumont... I've work to do." The dialogue appears to be in Raymond's own hand. His published strips always employed the use of a letterer. The next panel is barely roughed in and the third panel is blank. On the top right is the script from which Raymond is working has the panels numbered "a" "b" and "c". with dialogue for all the panels. The third panel (unfortunately not even sketched in) was to feature an exchange between Honey Dorian and Kirby. The strip was for 03/07/1949 - so the article must have been in the works for a while! I've never seen any of Raymond's work at this preliminary a stage before, so I find it quite enlightening!