The character of Hip Flask first appeared in a number of advertisements for Comicraft comic book fonts in the late 1990s in which he was originally depicted as a private detective (this has since changed in the pages of his own comics). The character was created by Starkings when he failed to receive authorization from Marvel or DC Comics to use their characters in his Comicraft ads. He later graduated to his own series of one-shots by writers Richard Starkings, Joe Casey and artist Ladrönn.