Suddenly, Pat hurls himself at the maniac Weazel!
Can’t ask for much more excitement than that, don’t ya know… In fact, before even hitting Page 1, there’s a scary pop-up in which Connie must peel potatoes or lose his ears. Sounds like my childhood! Zowie! (Kidding there, Ma…)
Almost eighty-years ago, a young fellow named Milton moved to New York City. The kid could draw. Got himself a job with the Associated Press in the features department – that’s the bunch in charge of comic strips. The head of a competing art syndicate liked Milton’s work, and hired him to draw a comic strip he had envisioned.
It hit the papers in 1934. Terry and the Pirates.
Loads of action and adventure. Great artwork. Terry was a cabin-boy type on the ship of the worldly Pat Ryan, who had some outlandish confrontations with Dragon Lady, the Pirate Queen of the Orient.
Milton Caniff drew the comic strip for a dozen years, but – back in those days – the publication rights and ownership of the character belonged to the syndication group. Caniff was paid a salary for his efforts.
As anyone who has ever hoisted a Dilbert coffee mug will realize, there’s Gold in them-thar Marketing Rights.
Caniff quit adventure on the high seas and traded it for adventure in the clouds – leaving Terry and the Pirates and creating his own strip called Steve Canyon. The high-flying Air Force hero appeared in newspapers nationwide, enjoyed by millions of readers. He continued the comic until his death in 1988.
A year after Terry and the Pirates made its debut, Caniff wrote and illustrated a hardback book version, complete with three “Pop-Up” pictures. It’s not politically correct these days, but its Oriental dialogue-affectations might be compared to the dialects in Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer adventures.
Needless to say, the book is scarce in any condition. With all three pop-ups completely intact, it’s a rare find and nice addition to the shop’s offerings.
I’ve long been a fan of the newspaper comic strips. As a kid, I aspired to draw that sort of thing for my living. (Bligh’ me, yer a smart one Weazel! …another pipe dream, busted.) I remember admiring artwork like The Spirit, another action hero drawn by Will Eisner – a contemporary of Milton Caniff.
I still read the “funnies” in the Tulsa World, but the artwork just isn’t the same. You can click on the image to compare the portraits of Steve Canyon and “Dilbert” – the creation of cartoonist Scott Adams. (The humor in the Dilbert strip is as sharp as anything out there, and particularly sharp on the modern office culture.)
But it ain’t Terry and the Pirates:
THEN, out of the South came the great terror of the China Sea – TYPHOON!
Here that wind, Limey?” exclaimed Weazel. “We strike now!
And how they struck! They cut the ropes on all but two of the lifeboats, scuttled the ship, took command of the entire crew at the point of guns! Dmitri carried out his foul part of the scheme, too. Drawing a gun, he shoved Mr. Drake, Normandie, and Terry, who had come to warn them, into a closet and tied them up.
Suddenly Connie remembered something. He ran to the place he had hidden the life preservers. “Yipple Dipple!” he exclaimed. “Come now lickity-skip!”
It doesn’t get much more exciting than that, huh?
Come visit, lickity-skip!
McHuston
Booksellers & Irish Bistro
Rose District
122 South Main Street, Broken Arrow OK!