On Saturday I went into DC and visited the Library of Congress. I was a bit disappointed I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have a readers card to access the reading rooms (AMAZING!) and that they didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have their \u00e2\u20ac\u0153American Treasures\u00e2\u20ac\u009d exhibit open (apparently they had lent a lot of things to the Ford Theater for their anniversary celebration of Shakespeare), but I did get to see the Miens Bible (what is supposedly the last handwritten Bible) and the Guttenberg Bible as well as an exhibit called \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Cartoon America.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I was surprised to find a comic called Secret Agent X-9<\/I>, written by Dashiell Hammett. So of course, I had to take a picture to post to my blog! To make viewing a bit easier, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve broken the strip down into three images. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve also transcribed what the explanation plate beside it said: <\/p>\n
In this airplane sequence the title character, Special Agent X-9, stands at the cockpit aiming his machine gun at a plane carrying \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Mask.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Dashiell Hammett wrote the script and Alex Raymond (1906-1956) drew the hard-boiled detective comic strip. Hammett left after writing four stories, and Raymond too, stopped drawing the strip to devote his time to Flash Gordon<\/I>. Raymond transformed the art of the comic strip from tight pen-and-ink drawing to loose dry brush strokes to create a sense of dynamic action. He was drawing his strip about a scientific detective, Rip Kirby<\/I>, when he died in an automobile accident. (The strip was published December 7, 1934)<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blogs.elsweb.org\/marycarolyn\/files\/2007\/02\/dsc01527.JPG\")
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I think what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s great about this strip is that you can tell its done in Hammett\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s style; the spars prose and coloring really suits him. I also love the progression in the framing of the panels. First, we have a fairly close, tight shot, packed with a lot of people and a good amount of things going on. But, this is scene is all about setting up the story. Next, the scene becomes a bit simpler, focusing on just two characters with a third, threatening object in the background. Here we get a slight sense of upward motion as the scene builds, especially with Raymond\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s use of quick, blurred lines in the body of the plane. Finally, we reach the strip\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s climax, with a plane literally shooting upwards, mimicking the drastic upward motion of the end of Hammett\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s paragraphs, where the most important and thrilling piece of information is revealed or action takes place. So, like the film adaptations and the novel, the comic strip has the same rising action \u00e2\u20ac\u0153graph.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
For comparison, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve included a 1941 strip; a strip from after the time Hammett stopped writing the story lines. Here we see more of the romance of the strip, but we see the narration seems to have strayed slightly from what was characteristic of Hammett. <\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blogs.elsweb.org\/marycarolyn\/files\/2007\/02\/flash.jpg\")
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I also went to the National Portrait Gallery, where a portrait of Hammett was included in their \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Twentieth Century Americans\u00e2\u20ac\u009d exhibit. Alas, then I walked across the street to the Spy Museum where I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see anything relevant to Hammett. Though maybe I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t look hard enough \u00e2\u20ac\u201c they have a LOT of cool spy things!<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blogs.elsweb.org\/marycarolyn\/files\/2007\/02\/dsc01546.JPG\")
\nVery dapper Dashiell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On Saturday I went into DC and visited the Library of Congress. I was a bit disappointed I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have a readers card to access the reading rooms (AMAZING!) and that they didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have their \u00e2\u20ac\u0153American Treasures\u00e2\u20ac\u009d exhibit open (apparently … Continue reading