)[2] Rip Kirby was based on the suggestion by King Features editor Ward Greene that Raymond try a "detective-type" strip.

Over the years of publication, the strip was ghosted and assisted by many artists and writers, including Frank Bolle[citation needed] (who completed the last episode), Al Williamson,[5] and Gray Morrow.

[6] Comics historian Don Markstein notes how the character of Remington "Rip" Kirby broke away from the usual pulp detective archetype: Circulation rose steadily during the strip's first few years — even tho' Rip wasn't the kind of private detective they were used to from pulp fiction.

If Rip was more sophisticated and urbane than the average fictional private eye, that's okay, because he was very successful — both for himself and for the people who wrote, drew and distributed him.

Issue #51 included a biography of Alex Raymond with a photograph showing him sketching an unnamed model for Honey Dorian.

[10] In 1983 Radio Television of Serbia produced an educational series about comics, which included live action sequences featuring Nebojsa Krstic as Rip Kirby and Predrag Milinkovic as his butler.

[13] In 2009, IDW Publishing started to reprint the Rip Kirby strip as part of its The Library of American Comics.