Hip Flask | 1940

Richard Edgar Alan was born in Cross Plains, Texas in 1918. He dropped out of High School in 1933 to work as a cub reporter for the Cross Plains Herald. In 1939, his short story RAGING RICK RYAN was published by the pulp quarterly T.K.O, and was followed by a string of tales featuring his hard hitting hero in and out of the boxing ring. But it was not until the publication of Alan's sci-fi classic INVASION SQUID FORCE — featuring his hard boiled hippopotamime hero, Hieronymous "Hip" Flask — that Richard Alan secured himself an entry in the annals of American pop cultural history alongside Robert E. Howard, Raymond Chandler and Philip K. Dick.

Alan was famously embarrassed by the success of Hip Flask. He told THE WRITER'S GAZETTE in 1955 that he didn't really come up with the character as much as the character came up to him. "I was much more interested in Rick Ryan, but Hip wouldn't leave me alone. Even after I killed the character off in GLADE RUNNER, there were still stories he wanted me to tell." But when Bell books were bought out by the Furst newspaper conglomerate in 1948, Alan, who had unwittingly signed away the rights to Flask when he cashed the first check for SQUID FORCE in 1940, was separated from his character forever.