Secret Agent X-9: The Gala Wedding of the Pulps to the Comics by Bill Blackbeard
Originally published in the 1976 Nostalgia Press edition of Secret Agent X-9.
Dozens of comic strip thrillers were in print by 1930 but the January 1934 introduction of the King Features adventure, Secret Agent X-9, proved to be the gala wedding of pulp fiction to the comics medium. It was a landmark collaboration between the leading detective fiction writer of the timeâDashiell Hammett and the highly talented and prolific adventure strip artist, Alex Raymond.
X-9 was almost certainly the end product of syndicate competition. The snowballing success of the News Syndicateâs detective strip, Dick Tracy, after 1931, and the appearance in September, 1933, of Publishers Syndicateâs Tracy imitation, Dan Dunn: Secret Operative 48, had caught the major strip syndicate, King Features, flatfooted. The giant Hearst syndicate, had no crime or detective strips to field, and by late 1933 the situation was clearly desperate. Will Gould was swiftly signed by King to do Red Barry, a close parallel of Tracy, as were Charlie Schmidt and Eddie Sullivan for Radio Patrol, the first strip to feature uniformed police as heroes. But King apparently felt that something extra was needed to counteract Tracy, which meant signing up the finest story and art talent available for the projectâan old King Features/Hearst habit. When Kingâs bush-beaters discovered that Dashiell Hammett, then at the peak of his pulp and hard-cover fame as the author of The Maltese Falcon and The Glass Key, was amenable to scripting a new comic feature, they signed him at once and made the wire services hum with the fact.
Meanwhile, to find the perfect artist, King sponsored a contest among professional cartoonists. The winner was an artist already deeply involved with King Features: the young but obviously talented Alex Raymond, who had been working as a âghostâ on the Chic Young Blondie and Lyman Young Tim Tylerâs Luck for years, and who had just independently sold King the idea for a Sunday science fiction page called Flash Gordon.
X-9, the hero of the piece, came from a long line of hard-boiled tough guys. King Features needed a figure with more authority than plainclothes Tracy and more dash than Secret Operative Dan Dunn. They got what they wanted.
Hammett, himself a former agency âopâ, had introduced the public to a pair of fictional former cops, Sam Spade and Nick Charles. The authorâs earliest narrator-hero from the detective pulp, Black Mask, had been known as the Continental Op in a series of stories which ran for nearly a decade. X-9 was a tough-talker with federal clout and the public, fed a heavy dose of the clandestine mystique in films, plays, novels and radio serials, was more than ready for him.
The characterâs true identity and his status were not established early-on. In the beginning (episode #5) X-9 says, âCall me Dexter. Itâs not my name but itâll do.â The underworld denizens (episode #1 & #12) know him as âsome kind of gum-shoeâ who uses âsix or seven names.â Police authorities seem to know his reputation, but little about the man. Forty years later, the agent and the strip has changed its name to Secret Agent Corrigan and his serial number is the mystery.
Artist Alex Raymond was a busy man in the early days of the X-9 strip. He was producing three strips: X-9 on a daily basis, and Flash Gordon Sunday with a Jungle Jim topper. The page must have been grueling.
The first 24 strips of the Iron Claw Gang Case are by another artist, perhaps Austin Briggs, who later took over the X-9 strip and who ghosted Raymondâs Flash Gordon dailies and Sunday when he went to war.
Hammettâs authorship of X-9 was ended in 1935. Raymond is said to have temporarily filled the gap until another famous mystery writer, Leslie Charteris (The Saint), briefly took over the scenario. Then, Raymond too, left the strip to concentrate on his classic Flash Gordon. He was to create still another strip, Rip Kirby, after returning from his stint in the marines during WWII. All but Jungle Jim are still in production today.
by Bill Blackbeard, San Francisco Academy of Comic Art