Flash Gordon in the context of "Jim Raymond"

Pulp magazines (also referred to as "the pulps") were inexpensive fiction magazines that were published from 1896 until around 1955. The term "pulp" derives from the cheap wood pulp paper on which the magazines were printed. In contrast, magazines printed on higher-quality paper were called "glossies" or "slicks". The typical pulp magazine was 128 pages, 7 inches (18 cm) wide by 10 inches (25 cm) high, and 0.5 inches (1.3 cm) thick, with ragged, untrimmed edges. Pulps were the successors to the penny dreadfuls, dime novels, and short-fiction magazines of the 19th century.

Although many respected writers wrote for pulps, the magazines were best known for their lurid, exploitative, and sensational subject matter, even though this was but a small part of what existed in the pulps. Digest magazines and men's adventure magazines were incorrectly regarded as pulps, though they have different editorial and production standards and are instead replacements. Modern superhero comic books are sometimes considered descendants of "hero pulps"; pulp magazines often featured illustrated novel-length stories of heroic characters, such as Flash Gordon, The Shadow, Doc Savage, and The Phantom Detective.

Star Wars (also known as Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope) is a 1977 American epic space opera film written and directed by George Lucas, produced by Lucasfilm Ltd. and released by Twentieth Century-Fox. It is the first film in the Star Wars franchise and the fourth chronological chapter of the "Skywalker Saga". Set in a fictional galaxy under the rule of the tyrannical Galactic Empire, the film follows a resistance movement, called the Rebel Alliance, that aims to destroy the Empire's ultimate weapon, the Death Star. When the rebel leader Princess Leia is captured by the Galactic Empire, Luke Skywalker acquires stolen architectural plans for the Death Star and sets out to rescue her while learning the ways of a metaphysical power known as "the Force" from the Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi. The cast includes Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Peter Cushing, Alec Guinness, Anthony Daniels, Kenny Baker, Peter Mayhew, David Prowse, and James Earl Jones.

Lucas had the idea for a science fiction film in the vein of Flash Gordon around the time he completed his first film, THX 1138 (1971), and he began working on a treatment after the release of American Graffiti (1973). After numerous rewrites, principal photography began in March of 1976 in locations including Tunisia and Elstree Studios in Hertfordshire, England. Lucas formed the visual effects company Industrial Light & Magic to help create the film's visual effects. Star Wars suffered production difficulties: the cast and crew believed the film would be a failure, and it went $3 million over budget due to delays.

Buck Rogers is a science fiction adventure hero and feature comic strip created by Philip Francis Nowlan first appearing in daily American newspapers on January 7, 1929, and subsequently appearing in Sunday newspapers, international newspapers, books and multiple media with adaptations including radio in 1932, a serial film, a television series, and other formats.

The Buck Rogers strip, published 1929–1967 and syndicated by John F. Dille Co. (later called the National Newspaper Syndicate), was popular enough to inspire other newspaper syndicates to launch their own science fiction strips. The most famous of these imitators was Flash Gordon (King Features Syndicate, 1934–2003); others included Brick Bradford (Central Press Association, 1933–1987), Don Dixon and the Hidden Empire (Watkins Syndicate, 1935–1941), and Speed Spaulding (John F. Dille Co., 1940–1941). The Buck Rogers strip also probably inspired developing a strip based on John Carter of Mars (United Feature Syndicate, 1941–1943) which was introduced in 1941 though based on an Edgar Rice Burroughs character first seen in 1912.

A playlist is a list of video or audio files that can be played back on a media player, either sequentially or in a shuffled order. In its most general form, an audio playlist is simply a list of songs that can be played once or in a loop. The term has several specialized meanings in the realms of television broadcasting, radio broadcasting and personal computers.

A video playlist can also be a list of recorded titles on a digital video disk (DVD). On the internet, a playlist can be a list of chapters in a movie serial; for example, Flash Gordon in the Planet Mongo is available on YouTube as a playlist of thirteen consecutive video chapters.

Alexander Gillespie Raymond Jr. (October 2, 1909 – September 6, 1956) was an American cartoonist and illustrator who was best known for creating the Flash Gordon comic strip for King Features Syndicate in 1934. The strip was subsequently adapted into many other media, from three Universal movie serials (1936's Flash Gordon, 1938's Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars, and 1940's Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe) to a 1950s television series and a 1980 feature film.

Raymond's father loved drawing and encouraged his son to draw from an early age. In the early 1930s, this led Raymond to become an assistant illustrator on strips such as Tillie the Toiler and Tim Tyler's Luck. Towards the end of 1933, Raymond created the epic Flash Gordon science fiction comic strip to compete with the popular Buck Rogers comic strip. Before long, Flash was the more popular strip. Raymond also worked on the jungle adventure saga Jungle Jim and spy adventure Secret Agent X-9 concurrently with Flash, though his increasing workload caused him to leave Secret Agent X-9 to another artist by 1935. He left the strips in 1944 to join the Marines, saw combat in the Pacific Ocean theater in 1945, and was demobilized in 1946. Upon his return to civilian life, Raymond created and illustrated the much-heralded Rip Kirby, a private detective comic strip. In 1956, Raymond was killed in a car crash at the age of 46.

Buck Rogers is a 1939 American science fiction film serial, produced by Universal Pictures. It stars Buster Crabbe (who had previously played the title character in two Flash Gordon serials and would return for a third in 1940) as the eponymous hero, Constance Moore, Jackie Moran and Anthony Warde. Episodes were directed by Ford Beebe and Saul A. Goodkind. The serial was written by Norman S. Hall, Ray Trampe and Dick Calkins based on the Buck Rogers character created by Philip Francis Nowlan, who had appeared in magazines and comic strips since 1928.

Pulp magazines, also called "the pulps", were inexpensive fiction magazines that were published from 1896 until around 1955. The word pulp derives from the cheap wood pulp paper on which the magazines were printed. In contrast, magazines printed on higher-quality paper were called "glossies" or "slicks". The typical pulp magazine was 128 pages, 7 by 10 in (18 by 25 cm), and 0.5 in (1.3 cm) thick, with ragged, untrimmed edges. Pulps were the successors to the penny dreadfuls, dime novels, and short-fiction magazines of the 19th century.

Although many respected writers wrote for pulps, the magazines were best known for their lurid, exploitative, and sensational subject matter, even though this was but a small part of what existed in the pulps. Digest magazines and men's adventure magazines were incorrectly regarded as pulps, though they have different editorial and production standards and are instead replacements. Modern superhero comic books are sometimes considered descendants of "hero pulps"; pulp magazines often featured illustrated novel-length stories of heroic characters, such as Flash Gordon, The Shadow, Doc Savage, and The Phantom Detective.