Raymond Alexander entered the comics field in the early 1930s as the art assistant to Kirby Jackson, who was already established as a legend. “Ray” had been working for the man he always called “Mr. Jackson” for several years when Jackson and Lee Stanford created Doc Stalwart in 1937. Jackson’s biography later referred to Raymond as “the third creator” of Doc Stalwart, although he was never officially credited as such. When Stanford and Jackson joined the military in 1939, Raymond, who was only sixteen at the time, was left behind. A variety of health issues meant that Raymond would never follow into a military career.
In what remains one of the most unusual agreements in comics history, Stanford and Jackson offered to hand over control of Doc Stalwart to their young protege. He had already developed some skill as a draftsman, and was contributing to the writing of Doc Stalwart as well (they later credited him as being the creator of the Army Ants, for instance). However, he was not comfortable with this, explaining in an interview shortly before his death, “Doc was theirs. I could not - still cannot, really - see anyone else orchestrating Doc’s adventures”. This was taken at the time as something of a dig towards Byron John, although the two never expressed any public animosity, and Byron John once referred to Raymond as a ‘capable storyteller’, which may have been a backhanded compliment.
However, Raymond had previously suggested a story about Doc’s father, a time-traveling hero named Sky Stalwart, who would share many characteristics with his son, but who would travel across ‘the boundaries of time and space itself’ to take part in a series of adventures. They had actually plotted a story, planned as The Astounding Doc Stalwart #19, that would have seen Doc meet his own time-traveling father. Raymond asked if he could pursue this character’s adventures instead, using the design they had already devised, and the name Sky Stalwart. A gentleman’s agreement was reached, hands were shaken, and that was that.
Remarkably, that agreement endured decades of legal wrangling and lawyerly prodding, remaining intact for the lifetimes of all involved.
Now on his own, Raymond began shopping this idea to several syndicates, hoping to secure a daily comic strip instead of a monthly comics magazine. He felt at the time that the stories he envisioned would better fit the daily newspaper. All of the major syndicates rejected him, and he was about to give up entirely when he received a telegram from Mid-City Syndicate, a new syndicate looking for a strip. The heads of the syndicate met with Raymond and told him, in no uncertain terms, that they were looking to have a comic that could compete with “those other space comics”. Desperate to see his story come to life, Raymond agreed to tone down some of his wilder ideas, and to focus more on the adventures across ‘space’, and less on those across ‘time’.
The first installment of Sky Stalwart: The Man Who Fell From Earth appeared in four newspapers on January 1, 1940. While it never achieved the success of some of its contemporaries, it proved among the most lasting. Sky Stalwart appeared daily, without interruption, from its launch until Raymond Alexander retired the strip on its fortieth anniversary, on January 1, 1980. It added a color Sunday strip in 1942, and this was also part of its entire run thereafter. Sky Stalwart never appeared in more than forty newspapers, but still built a core following that allowed it to persist.
A short-lived radio serial followed in the early 1940s, but only a dozen episodes aired before this was abandoned. In total, Raymond Alexander crafted 12,345 different strips. He set that as a goal some time in the 1960s, and pushed himself to that finish line despite deteriorating health in the last few years.
By the 1980s, Mid-City Syndicate only existed to continue as a vehicle to distribute Sky Stalwart, and it folded shortly thereafter; its entire catalog was purchased by New Stalwart Press, ending any potential for legal drama between the two entities.
When Skye Stalwart: The Girl Who Fell From Earth was launched in 1986, it was blessed by Raymond Alexander, who was asked to draw the cover for the first issue, which he did despite drawing being quite painful at this point. Although this story canonically followed the daughter of the modern age Doc Stalwart rather than the father (as the golden age stories had implied), these made no pretense about how deeply this new book was indebted to the storytelling of the man referred to as “Mr. Alexander” in the new book’s introductory text.
Raymond died in 1987, but he had thankfully given an interview to the Comics Inquirer shortly before his passing, and this revealed a bounty of fascinating background. This sparked something of a resurgence in public awareness of Sky Stalwart, and an appreciation for the work its creator had done. New Stalwart Press has begun to catalog and re-release Sky Stalwart’s classic strips in book form, to be seen by a new generation.
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