Comic #135 : Money & Power(D147) - A 1987 Rip Kirby strip

 

Another Rip daily from the period of Indrajal Comics. This particular strip was published in the Indrajal Comics as a 2nd story(Vol. 25 No. 38-39; 1988 -  Bengali title was "Satarka Pratishodhdata(সতর্ক প্রতিশোধদাতা)" - I don't have the English version of these Indrajal issues).

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Basic Information:

Title/Serial No.: Money & Power(D147)

Writer/Artist: John Prentice

Publication Period(strips): 2-9-87 to 4-25-87(66 dailies)

Publication Period/Date(Indrajal Comics): Sept-1988 (Vol. 25 No. 38-39)

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Some inside pages from the Bengali Indrajal issues - 

"Amazon Andy" - A recurring-character of the Rip Kirby strips

 Every comic-strip has it's own strong-suit regarding the side-characters. In the strips like Phantom, Mandrake & Flash Gordon, we have seen many iconic characters - both friends & foes - reappeared for the several times throughout the respective periods of these strips. In the Rip Kirby, on the other hand, we have seen many colorful one-off characters in every new adventure and only few of them have made multiple appearances. In the Raymond's era, we were introduced with Pagan Lee & Mangler(personally I felt he was over used & later plots were repetitive) and in the Prentice era, we have Amur sisters(Tutu & Mumu) & Wiggers(who later became almost a regular character). Relatively lesser known but another interesting recurring character was "Amazon Andy".

 Amazon Andy was introduced in a 1970 strip titled "When Rubber Turned to Gold"(IDW title; D085), as a guide of the great Amazon rainforest. Rip and his friend were looking for a guide for their treasure hunt, and that's how Andy joined with them(Andy was first mentioned, as well as seen, in the strip dated 10-14-1970).

 While little rough and gabby at the exterior, old Andy was gradually revealed as a friendly & efficient guide. And at the end of the adventure, they have parted as friends(and later reunited for few more time). 

Now, as Rip Kirby was introduced in the Indrajal universe in 1982, we couldn't have this adventure there but fortunately, when Andy reappeared, quite unexpectedly in the Alaska as 'Bush-pilot', that strip(D139 - The Maluk Indians) was reprinted in the Indrajal in 1986 as the 2nd story in the issues of Vol. 23 No. 15-16.

And the strip-version, dated 2-21-1985..

After this adventure, Andy reappeared again few years later in the strip titled "Trip Through the Amazon(D148)", when he found an old map of hidden treasure, published in the Indrajal in 1988(Vol. 25 No. 37). Any adventure around the mysterious Amazon rainforest has to be interesting, and this was no exception! Indrajal fans were fortunate to read the colored book-version of this engrossing tale(also the fellow treasure-hunter "Pamela Forbes", who was introduced in the same 1970-strip with Andy, returned in this strip. So it was kind of re-union for all of them!).

                             
          

In fact, in the strip dated 4-30-1987, Rip made a reference of their previous adventures in the Alaska & Amazon. 

A few strips thru the journey..

While this was the last time we have this fascinating man in the pages of the Indrajal, Amazon Andy returned again in the '90s strips(D179 & 190, respectively).

Comic #134 : The Former Ambassador(D169) - A 1992 Rip Kirby strip

In this post, read 169th daily adventure of Rip Kirby. This is the 2nd shortest RK daily with only 36 strips(the 1975-daily Rebel Queen(D101) also ran for 6 weeks while Raymond's 1948-daily Major Mystery(D009) is the shortest among 197 RK dailies, ran for just 5 weeks(30 strips)).

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Basic Information:

Title/Serial No.: The Former Ambassador(D169)

Writer/Artist: John Prentice

Publication Period: 7-20-92 to 8-29-92(36 dailies)

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Comic #133 : The Scorpio Case(D152) - A Rip Kirby adventure from the late '80s

Another Rip daily and this time from the period of Indrajal Comics. This particular strip was the penultimate Kirby adventure published in the Indrajal(Vol. 26 No. 19; 1989 -  titled "The Cunning Scorpion"). Incidentally, Bengali version of this Indrajal - titled Kakra-bicher Hul(কাঁকড়া-বিছের হুল ) - was one of the earliest Indrajals I have purchased when I have had restarted the Indrajal-hunt, some around 20 years ago. Happy memory! :-)

Anyway, back to the story, it was a nice thriller, all was happening around a Caribbean casino. Like most Rip Kirby stories, there were some memorable one-off characters. Like Nina, who helped Rip to nab the frauds, and played as his better-half throughout the story! 

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Basic Information:

Title/Serial No.: The Scorpio Case(D152)

Writer/Artist: John Prentice

Publication Period(strips): 4-25-88 to 7-16-88(72 dailies)

Publication Period/Date(Indrajal Comics): 4-7-89 (Vol. 26 No. 19)

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The cover & some inside pages of the Bengali Indrajal issue...

Comic #132 : Big Boy the Fighting Farmer(D159) - A Rip Kirby adventure from 1990

 One more Rip Kirby daily strip from the '90s, another unpublished RK adventure from the post-Indrajal era, and this time you will find Honey Dorian, who became very infrequent in the later RK strips.

As usual, I have to use different source-materials than the already available lot for clearer version(I had to re-construct many strips using multiple versions, just to get the best possible strip we can have at present), plus I have added all missing strips from the earlier version.

PS - I have maintained the title given by the original uploader/blogger years ago(as no RK strips was ever given any official title, so any appropriate title will do very well!).

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Basic Information:

Title/Serial No.: Big Boy the Fighting Farmer(D159)

Writer/Artist: John Prentice

Publication Period: 1-22-1990 to 4-14-1990(72 dailies)

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Comic #131 : The Perfect Alibi(D174) - Another Rip Kirby adventure from the '90s

 Another Rip Kirby daily strip from the early '90s, so one more unpublished RK adventure from the post-Indrajal era, when John Prentice was doing both script & art duty, and his story-telling was very refreshing(and probably to handle this dual-duty, sometimes he re-used old plot-lines, plus, occasional strips were completely drawn by some ghost-artists(those without his signature)).

As usual, I have used different source-materials than the already available lot for clearer version(saying this, I had to edit few strips using two versions, just to get the best possible strip we can have at present).

Good news is, if everything goes well, I can have all/majority RK strips till the mid-'90s, in the relatively better condition. The only thing is, it will take little time in culling & then editing them by myself. While my major target is to get as many post-Indrajal RK strips as possible, occasionally I will post few strips already published in the Indrajal & among my favorite stories - so readers can have unedited strip-version of those Indrajal stories.

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Basic Information:

Title/Serial No.: The Perfect Alibi(D174)

Writer/Artist: John Prentice

Publication Period: 8-30-1993 to 11-27-1993(78 dailies)

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Comic #130 : The Missing Briefcase(D168) - A Rip Kirby adventure

 A Rip Kirby daily strip from the early '90s. A strip never reprinted anywhere in English.

I have used a different source-material than the already available lot(see the previous post). While we now have all RK strips, most of the later strips are more or less smudged, and this version may be considered as a somewhat clearer version(I have used a few strips from that lot to complete the story & intend to do same in the future - hence a big thanks again for those involved!).

Time to time, I will try to post few more strips whenever possible. 

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Basic Information:

Title/Serial No.: The Missing Briefcase(D168)

Writer/Artist: John Prentice

Publication Period: 5-4-1992 to 7-18-92(66 dailies)

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Comic #129 : All 197 Rip Kirby daily-strips in English

 Finally it has been achieved - the availability of all 197 RK strips in English, specifically the last 40 odd strips from the late '80s to late '90s, when this series was cancelled after the sudden demise of John Prentice. While the first 131 strips were already available long time ago, and as strips from D119-153 were reprinted in the Indrajal Comics in English & other regional languages, so only those post-Indrajal strips were left to be tracked down(except few of those were reprinted elsewhere/e-vers posted online). And this has been finally achieved within the last few months, so I thank every person involved in the whole process of finding and sharing these too elusive strips!

Now, the quality of the strips, specifically of those later ones, are only 'readable' but that's ok, as it was primarily required to have all RK strips at least, and now that has been done, hopefully better quality strips will be tracked down eventually! The current publisher of the RK strips, IDW has released 11 volumes(D1-103) till now, and still 9 volumes are required to complete the whole run - i.e. total 20 volumes. Few months ago, publisher Dean Mullaney told me via mail that they have no immediate plans for next RK volumes - probably due to the ongoing pandemic situation - and hence we can safely assume that we have to rely on the online strips for the post-Indrajal period(D154-197) for quite sometime, if not forever!

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Few years ago, much before all of these happened, I have had culled out last RK-Indrajal & few post-Indrajal strips(D153-155, 157) from a USA newspaper's archive. I have previously shared these & now re-sharing here. Plus, there was an old blogger who have shared few more(D159 & onwards) from his own newspaper cutting(although majority were incomplete). Quality wise, these are slightly better(and in places, inferior too!) than the above lot, and definitely fall under "readable" quality too, but there is no harm having a 2nd version of these rare strips(plus, you will find few "missing dates" from that lot in this version).

DOWNLOAD D153

DOWNLOAD D154

DOWNLOAD D155

DOWNLOAD D157

DOWNLOAD D159

DOWNLOAD D160

DOWNLOAD D176

DOWNLOAD D196

DOWNLOAD D197(last)

Comic #117 : A RIP KIRBY Adventure : The Hunt for Cinderella(RK-115) from late '70s

 One of the vintage and rare RIP KIRBY dailies from the period of '70s. Recently I have received many a rare RK dailies from a friend, who sent me those links as a friendly gesture, but obviously for personal use only. So while I wouldn't post those links at this blog, I am doing this just as an exception.

This story - The Hunt for Cinderella - was appeared in Bengali in one of the teen-mag's Puja-annual(Anandamela 1981) and as the history suggests, it is the only Goyenda Rip adventure ever published in that magazine!

So it's quite special and while I yet to read the Bengali version, have enjoyed this original English  version and hopefully, you will feel same way! (I have already shared this strip at a Anandamela related FB group,but as not many visitors follow those groups,here it is for all)

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The first page of the Bengali version :

Original strip-version(the first two dates were skipped in Anandamela) :

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Rip Kirby Strips AND the Amur Sisters...

 In India, Rip Kirby was introduced through the newspapers and a lesser-known comic-series in the '70s but the proper(and vast) introduction happened when ToI added adventures of this sophisticated detective in their then-active comic series Indrajal Comics....on 1982. 
 And soon after, readers became familiar with Rip and his friends like Desmond, Honey Dorian and...Amur sisters(Tutu and Mumu)!! Well,Indrajal readers will have to put no effort to remember these beautiful and wealthy sisters who were quite frequent in the Rip's adventures. But then, Amurs were introduced in the strips way before their appearances in the Indrajal-pages, on 1961.
 In the '80s they were portrayed as quite sober and bit rich-girls-have-nothing-to-do sort. They used to accompany Rip in his adventures, always jovial and the good rapport within the sisters was quite visible.

BUT....it was NOT the same back in the swinging '60s, when they used to take each others as sore rivals, were quite wild and...men-hunters!!

Besides, they were more beautiful back then.. :-))

Amurs were first appeared in the strip titled 'Too Much Amour(D054)' on 1961, drawn by John Prentice. It was quite a story to read where nobody knew how to handle these wild beauties!! And yes, in that strip Wiggers was also introduced.
[This strip, along with 7 others were published in the 296-pager RIP KIRBY Vol.6(1959-1962) edition by IDW. I would recommend this edition for every Rip fan.While IDW's some of the previous editions were not upto-the-mark(reproduction-quality wise), this 6th vol.is just fine(it will cost some around 2,500 INR from on-line Indian book-stores)]

Posting some of the moments from that story....as the book is quite big so scanning was almost impossible,so I had to click from this book...

  First...the introduction!! And what an introduction??

 They are both outta grab Rip and poor Rip,he couldn't bear either of Amur girls... :(

 Then...Tutu and Mumu were plotting quite a devilish scheme!! And both ended up adding themselves in an expenditure on ancient Mayans with Rip... 

 That wasn't a peaceful nor a smooth expenditure...

 And finally,they had some hard time there which somehow changed their perspective towards life...(I wudn't spoil the fun by divulge the climax here,so read by yourself!)

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 Now another Rip Kirby strip.From Alex Raymond's era - RK08 : Terror at Thames(1948). This has been already appeared in the 1st vol. of IDW's reproduction,but the IDW versions' panels were chopped at the bottom and,some of the finer lines were blurry.So I am posting some pages that I got from a fan who is collecting from different sources, just to show you how the originals strips were back then...
 Story is just fine, about a madcap wealthy woman,who is fond of gambling and hence got the nickname..Betya!!