On Blondie

That the drawing in Blondie fluctuated not a stroke when Chic Young died is remarkable only because we may not have realized that Jim Raymond had been drawing the strip since Chic's eyes went bad in 1950. Sharing a byline since 1974, Raymond has been with Blondie since 1935. And in 1937, Raymond both wrote and drew the strip for a year while Young, recovering from the shock of his first son's death, escaped to Europe. (At the time, the strip was loaded with jokes featuring Baby Dumpling, the Bumstead's first-born-a too painful coincidence.)

Jim Raymond's more well-known brother, Alexander, also worked on Blondie for the first three years of the strip, leaving to create Flash Gordon, Jungle Jim, Secret Agent X-9, and, later, Rip Kirby. (When Baby Dumpling was eventually given name, he was named after the elder Raymond brother.)