Maybe then, he glanced down, and noticed the engraving on the document he’d been musing over.  The classical iconography and idealism were created to broad specifications, certainly, in hopes of inspiring confidence in the bearer with his investment.  But the engraver was an artisan, apprenticed since boyhood, paid well certainly, but never enough to play about in the stock market. With exacting detail, he had put the desires of his clients, through his own lens, ON the paper. It was permanent, not fleeting. Whims might bring the image into or out of favor as time passed, but it was entire, and sought to express truth. The artist’s intent, the bit of truth which had guided his hand through the delicate, intricate lines would radiate forever from the work. And as last week’s millionaires rained penniless from ledges, young Alex Gillespie Raymond made his decision, enrolling in New York’s Grand Central School of Art.

A career in art, however the decision was reached, was the general plan, but only happenstance would shepherd Raymond toward the funny pages. Not wishing to narrow his prospects in the bleak economy of the early 1930s, he pursued all manner of illustrative opportunities. But it was a cartoonist, Russ Westover, whose need for an assistant coincided with Raymond’s need for employment. Westover was overburdened with the demands of two popular strips which he sold through King Features Syndicate, the daily Tillie the Toiler and a Sunday feature, The Van Swaggers. He ghosted Tillie for Westover until some time in 1931, when he was hired away by Lyman Young and his brother Chic assisting the former on Tim Tyler’s Luck and the latter on Blondie, which is still a staple of comics....