steve canyon, vol. 4: 1953–1954 preview
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RETUR N
TO
DAM
MA
NINETEEN
53
54
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STEVE CANYON
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RIGHT: Caniffdrawing the
November 2, 1952Sunday in his New
City studio.
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IDW PUBLISHINGSan Diego
19531954
MILTON CANIFF
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Published by:IDW Publishinga Division of Idea and Design Works, LLC5080 Santa Fe StreetSan Diego, CA 92109
www.idwpublishing.com
Distributed by Diamond Book Distributors1-410-560-7100
ISBN: 978-1-61377-855-5First Printing, February 2014
IDW PublishingTed Adams, Chief Executive Officer/PublisherGreg Goldstein, Chief Operating Officer/PresidentRobbie Robbins, EVP/Sr. Graphic ArtistChris Ryall, Chief Creative Officer/Editor-in-ChiefMatthew Ruzicka, CPA, Chief Financial OfficerAlan Payne, VP of SalesDirk Wood, VP of MarketingLorelei Bunjes, VP of Digital Services
Photograph at left: Delivery vehicle for Marshall Fields ChicagoSun, the Field Syndicates flagship newspaper, announcing thestart of Steve Canyon, 1947.
Steve Canyon and 2014 The Estate of Esther Parsons Caniff, Harry Guyton, Executor. All rights reserved. The IDWlogo is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. All rights reserved. The Library of American Comics is atrademark of The Library of American Comics, LLC. All rights reserved. Stage Dressing 2014 Bruce Canwell. Withthe exception of artwork used for review purposes, none of the comic strips in this publication may be reprinted withoutthe permission of The Estate of Esther Parsons Caniff. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form,electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information and retrieval system, withoutpermission in writing from the Library of American Comics. Printed in Korea.
The strips reprinted in this volume were produced in a time when racial caricatures played a larger role in society andpopular culture. They are reprinted without alteration for historical reference.
THE COMPLETESTEVE CANYON
VOLUME 4: 19531954STORIES ANDART BYMilton Caniff
LETTERING BYFrank Engli
INTRODUCTION BYBruce Canwell
THE LIBRARY OFAMERICAN COMICSEDITED AND DESIGNED BYDean Mullaney
ASSOCIATE EDITORBruce Canwell
ART DIRECTORLorraine Turner
MARKETING DIRECTORBeau Smith
SPECIAL THANKS TO:Harry Guyton, John Ellis, and Russ Maheras;
and for supplying the material used in thisvolume, thanks to Jenny Robb,
Susan Liberator, Marilyn Scott, and thestaff of the Milton Caniff Collection atThe Ohio State University Billy Ireland
Cartoon Library and Museum.Additional thanks to Jackson Glassey
for scanning, Joseph Ketels and Valarie Jones
for production assistance, and toAjit Shenoy, Justin Eisingerand Alonzo Simon.
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FAR LEFT: Introductory page from the
first Ste ve Canyon co mic b oo k(Four Color #519). Art by WilliamOvergard, except the Canyon head byCaniff. Seven comic books featuringthe flyboy were published between1953 and 1959.
NEAR LEFT: Drawing for a 1949King Features promotional book.
BELOW:A no n-canon ical sp ecialtydaily prepared for Canadiannewspapers, June 12, 1954.
OPPOSITE: Caniff with syndicate
owner Marshall Field Jr, the man whoconvinced Caniff to quit Terry andthe Pirates and start his own strip.
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York or Chicago; Field was eager to service both metropolitan and suburban
populations. So for Milton Caniff, in the early 1950s, his Steve Canyonwas
appearing in many locations where Terry and the Pirateshad never been seen at
all. Transforming a character like April into Holly, or getting extra mileage from
shtick like the parade on arrival gag, made perfect sense, because a sizable
portion of Caniffs readership had never seen those first appearances and thosearound for both the original and the reworked versions likely had long forgotten
the earlier incarnations.
Audiences in the 21st Century, experiencing the work over a shorter
timeframe via a more focused presentation, may be aware of the refriesbut
Milton Caniff never gave two hoots about the 21st Century, anyway.
One thing Milton Caniff did care about was his reputation and professional
standing. After decades of hard work on projects ranging from The Gay 30sto
Dickie Dareto Terry and the Piratesand, finally, to Steve Canyonwith carefulattention to all facets of the cartooning business being paid throughoutMilton
Caniff had found success and security in equal measure.
A Commission Account statement provided to the artist by Field
Enterprises/King Features shows the market for Steve Canyon reached from
Bangor, Maine to San Diego, California and included international clients such as
the Mexico City Newsand Romes Societa Editrice Atlantide. A single months
payment to Caniff totaled more than sixteen thousand early-1950s dollars (today,
accounting for inflation, the monthly pay-out would be more than five times that
amount).
Holding the cards for a financially-stable hand, Caniff began to alter the way
he worked, relying on assistants more heavily than ever before. He discussed thosechanges in a Sidebar piece published only seven months before his death, in
issue number eighteen of Kitchen Sink Presss Steve Canyon magazine, beginning
by saying:
Sharp-eyed readers might note that some backgrounds and
some secondary figures were not drawn by me in [the Indian
Cape story]. Dick Rockwellstarted doing bits and pieces for me
in 1953. He was doing comic books at the time, and he needed
extra work in addition to what he was doing
Richard Waring Rockwell would work on Steve Canyon for the next thirty-
five years, until the strip ended in 1988. Rockwell broke in through the comic
book market, with stories appearing in Lev Gleasons notorious Crime Does Not
Payand various other titles. Reportedly he applied for membership in the National
Cartoonists Society in 1952, submitting samples of his work along with his
application. As one of the NCS members reviewing applications, Milton Caniff issaid to have spotted the quality of the work, called Rockwell and told him his
membership was approved, while also asking if he would be available to help on
Canyon. Their partnership began with that phone call.
Caniff may have also learned that Dick Rockwell was the nephew of superstar
artist Norman Rockwell, and the lure of that connection could have factored into
his thinking in a minor way. If so, Norman was not as impressed as Caniff may
have been. Dick said, One day, when I met [my uncle] at the Illustrator's Club,
he said, Are you still drawing that guy's pictures for him?
There was more to Dick Rockwells career than either his famous relative or
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The Korean War made storytelling easier for Caniff. He liked
having his hero back in uniformit solved the problem of explaining
how Canyon made a living, since Steve was operating on Uncle Sugars
payrolland he was comfortable using and expanding his own spy
network of contacts throughout the armed services, people instrumental
in helping him make the work ring true enough so an unnamed airman
first class flying combat in Korea could observe, We like Steve becausehes up-to-date, right now, and not drawn with a peppermint stick.
The Indian Cape storyline that encompasses much of the first
half of 1953 is a perfect example of the authenticity Caniff layered into
his strip. The idea of conflict between a small town and the air force
base it hosts seemed an excellent story springboard. The problems of
small towns around the bases were very real, Caniff wrote in 1987,
when looking back at this continuity. There were sonic booms.
There were flights in the small hours of the morning, with people
losing sleep. Cows stopped giving milk because of the noise. There
were people who were taking advantage of this on a real estate level,
telling residents who lived near a new base that the noise drove the
property values down, and theyd better sell cheap to the agent. The
artist experienced some of these disruptions first hand when he visited
a friend, a general commanding a base in Missouri; the sound of jets
roaring away on regularly-scheduled overnight patrols threw a monkey
wrench into his own sleep patterns. As a result of his creators research,
ruminations, and experience, Steve Canyon became commander of the1420th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, stationed at Indian Cape; Caniff
then addressed an actual situation within a fictional framework.
Knowing his plot tapestry would need additional threads, he
wove in another true-to-life difficultyovercoming public apathy
and recruiting volunteers for the national Ground Observer Corps
(GOC)plus a pair of reliable stand-bys: good-looking gals in the
persons of Slippery Elm and her fellow school teacher, Georgia (as
well as Steves constant heartthrob, Summer Olson), plus a dash of
romance that inevitably comes when mixing charismatic heroes with
beautiful women. The result is one of Steve Canyons most memorablestorylines.
Indian Cape became the focus for a piece in the March 1954
issue of the Air ForcesAir Trainingmagazine. Lieutenant Robert A.
Hatch, the articles author, had this to say about the positive effects
of the story:
Within that [Indian Cape] sequence Caniff pounded
home the need for a strong GOC and a workable
community-relations scheme between military and
civilians. Information on variouscommunity relations
programs was cited in the strip to show how people inuniform and mufti could get along side by side.
The response was tremendousletters, editorials,
and quotations from the Caniff sequence brought
attention to the problems and helped the Air Force and
civil defense people sell their points.
Hatchs piece was titled The Air Forces Super-Salesman and it
referenced the gratitude the Air Force felt toward Caniff and his flyboy
heroes. One spokesman was quoted in the piece as saying, We couldnt
ABOVE: Twoillustrations forthe Air Forces
Air Trainingmagazine, 1954.
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buy the space to tell our story, and we couldnt tell it nearly as well as Milton
Caniff does. Caniffs receipt of the Air Forces 1953 Arts and Letters Award
was also noted. One of the cartoonists boyhood heroes, General Jimmy Doolittle,
bestowed the honor, which read in part, translation [of the Air Forces position
in modern life] into story form capable of holding a mass audience requires
genius. Milton Caniff has this genius. Through the medium of the daily comic
strip he presents the air power requirement to millions of avid readers with great
artistic skill, technical accuracy, and dramatic impact.
The article concluded with a heartwarming story that hammered home the
magnetic pull Canyon exerted on its most ardent followers:
A prime example of some of the strange requests [Caniff ] gets
came from a mother who wrotethat her fifteen-year-old boy, a
Steve Canyon addict, had run away from home. The mother
didnt know whether the boy would try to join the Air Force, or
whatbut she did know hed be reading Stevewherever he was.
Could Caniff help her?He re-drew one of his daily strips, put in an orderly room
scene, and on the bulletin board pinned a note to the boy to call
home, collect. A few days after the strip appeared another note
came from the mother. The boy had gotten in touch with his
folks. The message from Canyon had turned the trick.
The strip in question, the January 2, 1953 daily, can be seen on page 20 of
this volume. The cartoonist placed other secret messages on that board. One is
addressed to his nephew: Harry Guyton, do you know anyone from Boston?
When asked about it for this book, Harry said, Milt always put us in his strips.
Neil Corbitt is my brother-in-law and Phyllis was my sister, referring to anothermessage on the board. The final name on the board is that of cartoonist Frank
Springer, who may have assisted Caniff on some strips.
One hopes young Butch Fogarty was on his way home by the time Pipper
the Piper debuts, two days later. Many Caniff students have remarked on Pippers
physical resemblance to charismatic war hero (PT109), then-freshly-minted U.S.
Senator, and eventual U.S. President John F. Kennedy; less widely discussed is the
friend whose personality served as the template for Pippers brash, devil-may-care
attitude.
David McCallister Jr. met Milton Caniff in the 1940s, during World War II,
and while not as publicly-celebrated a contact as Frank Higgs or Phil Cochran,
McCallisters colorful career and larger-than-life presence made a deep impression
on both Terry and the Pirates and Steve Canyon.
McCallister began his aviation career for his country by instructing gunnery
personnel in Florida before becoming a fighter pilot and shipping overseas into
the European theater, where he flew as part of the fighter escort in Americas first
daytime bombing run on Berlin. Based at Kings Cliffe in the United Kingdom,
Davey Mac used both his skill with the stick and his glib tongue to draw the
assignment to test fly Gloster Meteor, the Allies sole operational jet fighter at that
time. McCallister and Caniff began a correspondence during the Second World
War that led to a memorable face-to-face meeting, one that helped Caniff
coalesce in his minds eye a character soon to be introduced to the Terry and the
PiratescontinuityHotshot Charlie.
After the war McCallister served in the Delaware Air National Guard and,like Steve Canyon, was called back to active duty in 1951 as part of the
mobilization for Korean combat. Four years later, with the country back on a
peacetime footing, he participated in the Earl T. Ricks Memorial jet fighter cross-
country race, winning it during his second run, in 1956, aboard the Cindee Lind,
a jet he personally modified and named after his two daughters.
The colorful flyboy appealed to Caniff not only because of his skill in the
cockpit, but also his talent at the typewriter: McCallister wrote numerous non-
fiction articles throughout the 1950s. Working with writer Linda Boyes, he
authored the novel Sabres over Brandywine, with Caniff producing artwork for the
books cover. McCallister unfortunately did not live to see the publication of that
storyhe died at age forty-one, bringing down a crippled jet in an unpopulatedarea. An advance copy of Sabres over Brandywinewas buried with him in 1961.
Both Pipper the Piper and Steve Canyon directly benefited from Caniffs
relationship with Light Colonel McCallister: Peter Pipper inherited Davey Macs
pilots instincts and his insouciant approach to life. And Canyon? He took
command of the 1420th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron only months after
McCallister became top kick of the 142nd Fighter Squadron. Art imitates Life,
even if by necessity it sometimes carries an extra digit
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Life also has a way of affecting Art in surprising ways. Milton Caniff
learned this lesson in 1941-42, while his Terry and the Piratescast was embroiled
in an escapade set in Hong Kong when, in real life, the Japanese invader had
overrun and seized control of the real Hong Kong on Christmas of 41. With
his story written and drawn weeks in advance, Caniff could do nothing but
let the tale play out as planned, asking forbearance (which his devoted fansoverwhelmingly granted) because the fiction was at odds with the new normal
in that Far Eastern locale.
From the beginning of the Indian Cape story, Milts original intent for
the strips next adventure was to transfer Steve and his squadron to Korea; the
Air Force reportedly went so far as to draw up traveling orders for the 1420th.
Newspapers of the day, however, were filled with headlines about peace talks
and a possible cessation of hostilities. Those talks had dragged on for two years
of protracted diplomatic wrangling, first being held in Kaesong before moving
to Panmunjom. Early in 53 reports of significant movement began to appear,
causing Caniff to scuttle his plans to ship out the 1420th. Doing this avoided a
repeat of the Terry/Hong Kong glitchthe formal armistice ending the Koreansituation was signed on July 27, 1953, and there seems little doubt had the artist
stayed with his initial vision Steve Canyon, Peter Pipper, Murky Murphy, and
their cohorts would have been depicted still fighting the Korean War long after
their flesh-and-blood brethren had obeyed orders and stood down.
Caniff instead embarked on a course correction that allowed Canyon to serve
as a one-man military troubleshooter. His crossing paths with the Halls and Cobra
Johnny in the final four months of 1953 introduced new faces into the mix, but
otherwise Steve renewed a string of old acquaintances. He spent 1954 trying to
pin a dope smuggling charge on the villainous Herself Muldoon (Caniffs treatment
of the drug trade and heroin addiction was provocative for its time, yet as the
artist later remarked, my audience went along with it in great style. I never got
into any sort of trouble for depicting drug addiction) before getting into a hearts-
and-flowers triangle with Summer Olson and the mysterious Clarke Netherland,
then once more spending time in the North Woods with the irrepressible Miss
Mizzou, ending the year reuniting with the 1420th, Colonel Sam Index, and his
conniving wife, Delta.
Before that string of escapades, Steves immediate jumping-off point following
his departure from Indian Cape was the pocket nation of Damma and renewed
contact with anti-Communist rebel leader Princess Snowflower; her chief advisor,
the disgruntled American, Doagie Hogan; and old friend and instant comedy
relief Happy Easter. The lead-in to this 1953 saga also allowed Caniff to insert
another quick contest within the body of his story.
Beginning inside the May 17th Sunday page, a message in code is revealed
that is directed at Steve Canyon. Those serving in the armed forces were invited to
take a shot at cracking the code, with a one hundred dollar Savings Bond awardedto both the first correct domestic and foreign-based response (Canyon ran on a
delayed basis overseas, leaving those stationed abroad at a disadvantage, hence
their separate prize).
This stunt received far fewer responses than 1949s Pick the Movie
contest, but Caniff was perfectly all right with that. I wasnt trying for a general
readership in this instance, he later reminisced, because most of the clues were
from manuals that would be almost impossible for a civilian to get. The puzzle
wasnt for the fifth grade reader; it was for the military reader. A brisk amount of
mail nevertheless flowed in from those in service as well as from retired cryptologists
who kept up with the science for pleasure. John F. Connors, also known as
KOHOP, president of the Albany, New York Code and Cipher Club and amember of the American Cryptogram Association, was an example of the latter.
Connors, a Navy cryptologist honorably discharged at the end of 1944,
admitted having never read the series before spotting the May 20th entry, but
enthused, If you will continue to give us this kind of delightful fare in your Steve
Canyon strip, I shall be a regular reader of it. Lacking any knowledge of Steves
history, KOHOPs guess is wide of the markThe nose indicates possibly [that
four presumed landing fields] are Russian fields (long nose) or in the north (cold
nose). The hut, on a guess, means Chinese village, or possibly means the airfields
are camouflagedbut he cannot resist tweaking the cartoonist in his last
paragraph: Incidentally, it seems to me your characters say contradictory things.
In one panel they call [the mysterious message] a simple substitution, in another it
is referred to as code. How can it be both? Code and cipher are mutually exclusive
terms, if it is one, it cant be the other. Can it?
While he undoubtedly won points for anal retentiveness, Mr. Connors did
not come away with the prize. Neither did Camp Lejeune Staff Sergeant Arthur
Buckley, who interpreted the codes RLS to mean Red Landing Strip, the
flower to stand for camouflage, and the nose to mean odar [sic] or smell.
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PAGES 13-15: Six pages fro m a May 1953 feature in Coronet magazine.
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By the start of July the winners had been chosen, the prizes had been
awarded, and a personal letter from Milton Caniff complimented the winners.
Lt. John C. Harralson of the Marine Corpss 790th Quartermaster Reclamationand Maintenance Company received this message, postmarked from New York:
It gives me great pleasure to inform you that your correct
solution to the cryptogram recently published in my Steve
Canyon contained the earliest postmark of all the mail received
from overseas personnel and you are the winner of the $100 U.S.
Savings Bond mentioned in the Sunday page of May 24th.
I am grateful, indeed, for your interest in my work and I am
happy to enclose herewith your award.
All good wishes
The full solution originally ran in both the May 31, 1953 Sunday and again,
in compressed fashion, in the June 1st daily, and appears here on page 84.
Milt truly did have nothing but good wishes for the men and women in
uniform who formed such a loyal segment of his fan-base, but he knew he could
not appeal strictly to the military readership. Caniffs office staff carefully tracked
the incoming mail and he was aware of how people responded to Steves romantic
entanglements, especially with Summer Olson. Three decades later, the artist
observed that during the 1950s he averaged roughly twenty-five pieces of mail
each day, but when Steve and Summer were in the midst of a soap opera crisis,
the flow jumped to a thousand letters daily. Little wonder, then, that the summer
of 1954 was also the summer of Summer, with Steves blonde heartthrob torn
between her longtime beau and a wealthy playboy newcomer, with the action
set against the backdrop of a fancy resort hotel. It was a total departure from any
Canyon story previously told, but it not only resonated with Dizzy Gillespie, it
sharpened the focus of female readers, who could not be neglected if one was to
keep ones strip among the upper echelon of popular newspaper features. The
Steve-Summer-Clarke triangle gave way to a more traditional Canyon adventure,
though this one also featured the striking of a few sparks between the series star
and that quintessential Caniff dame, Miss Mizzou. The mysterious case Steve
was sent north to crack was the backbone of the story, but what kept womenreadingand doubtlessly writing letters of condemnation or approval, depending
on their individual preferencewere the scenes involving clinches and lines like
the one where Steve tells Mizzou, She [Summer] dearjohned me the last time I
saw her. From the outset Caniff had said Steve Canyon was the sort of guy who
could have girls at every port of call; the artist certainly capitalized on that during
1953-54, building feminine interest every time he placed a new potential
romantic partner in Steves path.
Paying attention to the distaff segment may have also been a case of fair
is fair, since Caniff had ample opportunity to cater to his male fans, including
a feature aimed squarely at men everywhere that began with an extended
correspondence between the cartoonist and a newcomer to the publishing game.On June 8, 1953, writing from 6052 S. Harper; Chicago 37, Illinois,
Mr. Hugh M. Hefner wrote to Caniff saying:
We would like to do a feature on your fabulous Miss Lace
and would appreciate permission to reproduce five or six of the
originalMale Call strips in an early issue of Stag Partya new
mens magazine beginning publication this fall.
We think alot [sic] of ex-G.I.s have a warm spot in their
hearts for Miss L. (we admit to one ourselves) and would enjoy
seeing her again.
The letter goes on to inquire about the availability of pin-up drawings, any
anecdotal material, and the few strips the army never got around to okaying
that have never appeared in print.
Three days later, Caniff penned a letter to one of his contacts at King
Features asking that the syndicate check out Hefner and the type of publication
they are planning to put out. Also of passing interest is Caniffs mention of
an exhibit in Chicago in 1947 that featured many examples of the slightly-
salaciousMale Callstrip the cartoonist had produced free of charge for military
newspapers during World War II.
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By the time of the next letter, on July 20th, Hefner had had Stag Party:
The New Magazine for Men stationery printed, and he used a sheet of it to
repeat hisMale Callinquiry to Caniff, adding that he had a convivial telephoneconversation with the syndicate representative, and ending, Thanks in advance
for your every consideration from a fan of long standing.
Before the end of the month Caniff sent Hefner a package of Miss Lace
pin-up art, adding that the clip sheet showing the final strip is my only copy
and I will be grateful if you will arrange to return it to me when it has served
your purpose.
Encouraged by this show of support from one of his cartooning idols,
Hefner was emboldened in his August 8th letter. In addition to promising to
return the tear sheet of the finalMale Callinstallment and provide copies of
the completed feature (It has been tentatively scheduled for our February
issue), Hefner went on to ask:
Have you ever given any thought to doing magazine pin-up
work? Your strip and other activities may keep you much too busy
and perhaps its nothing that would interest you. Im thinking of
the girlie-gag-type thing that Esquireused to run a lot of [Editors
Note: Hefner started in publishing as a copywriter at Esquire]
though in your case, something [rendered] in line, with just spots
of color. We could supply the gag material, so it would be just an
art problem.
I just toss the thought out as something that might interestyou. We couldnt pay very much for anything during the first few
issues (short shoestring operation herefinancially speaking), but
if youre interested, we could delay it a few months until we can.
Caniff needed exactly zero time to consider Hefners offer. His August 10th
response says, in part, the pressure of my daily schedule precludes the possibility
of my taking on such a pleasant task.
Four months passed before the next communication between the two men.
For Hefner it was a busy four monthsthe already-extant mens adventure
magazine Staghad heard about his proposed launch and threatened to sue for
copyright infringement if
Hefner hit the stands with
the name Stag Party.Brainstorming with family
and friends generated
several alternate titles such
as Gentleman, Satyr, Top
Hat, Pan, and Bachelor
before Playboywas
ultimately settled upon.
It was under this heading
(though new letterhead had
yet to arrive, apparently) that
Hefner returned theMale Call
material to Caniff in a brief
message dated December 3rd,
along with advance copies of
the new mens entertainment
magazine Playboywith the
feature on your fabulous Lace.
Hefner goes on to say, Ive been a Caniff fan since the days when Terry was just
a little shaver traveling under the guidance of Pat Ryan and Pat was a mighty
unhappy boy because his one true love was hitched up with that old SOB
Sandhurst.In the early 21st Century, with Playboy and Milton Caniff continuing to
attract attention, it is intriguing to look back at the middle of the 20th Century,
when Caniff was far more of a household name than was Hugh Hefner. It would
hardly surprise Caniff that the emphasis on female sex appeal was a crucial
element in allowing both Hefner and him to continue to be relevant deep into
The Communication Age.
After all, Milton Caniff never gave two hoots about the 21st Century, but
he knew that a pretty girl could always attract an audience.
RIGHT:A pag e f rom the 1954 calend ar distribute d to po tent ial advertise rs in Sunday co mics se ctionsby the Metropolitan Sunday Comics Group, a consortium of newspapers that banded together tooffer a nationwide audience to advertisers. In 1953 Metropolitan boasted forty-two Sundaynewspapers that had a total reach of eighteen million homes.
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Steve & Summer
Gil Hall Hollister Hall Herself Muldoon Clarke Netherland
Meena Miss Mizzou Delta Copper Calhoon
Are they onor are they off?These star-crossed lovers dontknow themselves, and if theCopperhead has any say
Pipper the Piper is a realhotshot pilot who literallyrushes into a burning buildingfor his C.O.
The patriotism of this well-meaning small town school-marm and her mechanic beaufar exceeds their common sense.
A gutsy medic who makesboth Snowflowers and DoagieHogans hearts beat fasterfortwo very different reasons.
The nanny of Summers young
son, she encourages heremployer to stand by hermanboth of them!
This blonde-bombshell chanteuse
is still in the North Woods, stillhanging with Steveand stillwearing that trenchcoat!
Steve hits the nail squarely:
Colonel Sam Indexs wife isstill playing the angles, to themisfortune of many.
The Copperhead keeps toying
with Summer and Stevebutthis time she may have finallygone too far
Though without her vision,Gil is both perceptive andfar-seeinghandy qualitiesfor a diplomats wife.
Gils teenaged belle of adaughter springs Steve out ofjail, then tries to sentencehim to matrimonial prison.
Is she running an independentairline or a heroin-smugglingoperation? Steve suspects theleopard doesnt change its spots
His carefree ways and sunnydisposition brighten Summersdays and darken Steves nights.Does he hide a troubling secret?
Peter Pipper Slippery Elm Dr. Louis Shu
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January 1-3, 1953
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January 5-7, 1953
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January 8-10, 1953
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24 January 11, 1953