Terry and the Pirates (comic strip)
Encyclopedia
Terry and the Pirates was an action-adventure comic strip
created by cartoonist Milton Caniff
. Captain Joseph Patterson, editor for the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate
, had admired Caniff’s work on the children's adventure strip Dickie Dare
and hired him to create the new adventure strip, providing Caniff with the title and locale. (The precise reason behind including "the Pirates" in the title is a subject of some debate, but see Dragon Lady (stereotype)
for one plausible version.)
The daily strip
began October 22, 1934, with the Sunday color pages
beginning December 9, 1934. Initially, the storylines of the daily strips and Sunday pages were different, but on August 26, 1936 they merged into a single storyline. In 1946, Caniff won the first Cartoonist of the Year Award from the National Cartoonists Society
for his work on Terry and the Pirates.
with his friend, two-fisted journalist Pat Ryan. Seeking a lost gold mine they meet George Webster "Connie" Confucius, interpreter and local guide. Initially, crudely drawn backgrounds and stereotypical characters surrounded Terry as he matched wits with pirates and various other villains. He developed an ever larger circle of friends and enemies, including Big Stoop, Captain Judas, Cheery Blaze, Chopstick Joe, Cue Ball and Dude Hennick.
Most notable of all was the famed femme fatale
, the Dragon Lady, who started as an enemy and later, during the war
, became an ally. Caniff included a number of non-American women who fought the heroes and had the funny habit of referring to themselves in the third person. These included the Dragon Lady herself and crooks and spies like Sanjak and Rouge. In a rather bold move for a 1940s comic strip, Sanjak was hinted at being a lesbian and cross-dresser with designs on Terry's girlfriend April Kane.. Caniff purportedly named the character after an island next to the isle of Lesbos.
Over time, due to a successful collaboration with cartoonist Noel Sickles
, Caniff dramatically improved to produce some of the most memorable strips in the history of the medium. Ray Bailey, Caniff's assistant on Terry and the Pirates, went on to create his own adventure strip, Bruce Gentry
.
Pat Ryan: Terry's friend and mentor, a writer but also a man of action who helps his young protegee out of scrapes. When World War II begins, he joins the U.S. Navy and sees action in the Pacific.
Connie: George Webster Confucius, a Chinese man Terry and Pat hire as a guide. He speaks in Pidgin English
and refers to himself in the third person but is fiercely loyal to the duo. He eventually works with Pat as part of the Chinese resistance against the Japanese in the war.
Big Stoop: A 9 feet (2.7 m) Mongol who Connie helped when he was being picked on by bullies and sticks with the trio out of gratitude. Immensely strong and mute, he earns his nickname from "he stoops to conquer." It is revealed he was once a servant of the Dragon Lady, who cut out his tongue when he was young, earning her his hatred. He works with Connie in the Chinese resistance during the war.
The Dragon Lady: A beautiful but cold pirate queen who clashes with Terry and Pat constantly. As the Japanese invade China, she becomes a resistance leader, attacking Japanese forces, making it clear it is not out of patriotism but wanting to keep her riches intact. It is hinted she is in love with Pat but unable to give up her rule for him. After the war ends, she goes back to her criminal roots.
Burma: Real name unknown, a con artist, former pirate confederate and sultry singer but with a good heart. She meets up with Terry and Pat several times and she and Terry share a romantic connection but Burma is afraid of letting it go further. She's identifable by her habit of singing "St. Louis Blues."
Normandie Drake: The true love of Pat's life, an heiress who he grew close to when he worked for her father. However, her high-society aunt refused to see her marry a "commoner" and whisked her away to an arranged marriage to the weak-willed Tony Sandhurst. She and Pat meet again but she says she has to stick by Tony as she's pregnant with Tony's child. They meet again later during the War with Normandie's child Merilly now four years old. Despite the discovery Tony is working with the Axis
, Normandie still refuses to divorce him.
Raven Sherman: An heiress who used her fortune for missionary work in China, meeting with Pat. They seem romantic but she ends up falling for pilot Dude Hennick. She dies in Hennick's arms after sustaining injuries from Captain Judas and is buried in the China desert.
April Kane: A Southern belle who wins Terry's heart. She works as Pat's secretary when he is an agent of the Dragon Lady but leaves when she's blackmailed over (false) information on her brother. She returns in 1944, having spent the last few years in a Japanese prison camp. The experience has made her harder and she tries to manipulate pilot Flip Corkin to make Terry jealous and tries to set up an air field at an island the army is using for a base. However, she learns the army is pulling out and is last seen left alone on the island.
Flip Corkin: Terry's flight instructor for the Air Force, who delievers the famed Sunday page lecture on military duty.
Taffy Tucker: Flip's girlfriend, an Army nurse. She briefly develops amnesia and is rescued by Pat, the two connecting romantically. But she goes back to Flip after regaining her memory.
Hotshot Charlie: Charles C. Charles, an incredibly cocky and arrogant Boston pilot who becomes Terry's best friend in the Air Force. After the war ends, he is stifled by civilian life and jumps at the chance to help Terry out in post-war Asia doing government work.
Captain Judas: A debonair criminal who clashes with the heroes several times. A former partner of Burma's, he sustains severe facial burns when she throws a lamp in his face. He shoved Raven out of a truck, leading to her fatal injuries before being shot by Dude Hennick and presumably killed.
Papa Pyzon: A corpulent criminal Terry and Pat meet in China who later returns as an Axis agent during the war.
Nasty: Nastalathia Smythe-Heatherstone, a young heiress Terry and Burma rescue from a crashed plane. Her bratty and selfish attitude drives them crazy and nearly gets them killed. Years later, the now grown Nasty returns to involve Terry and Charlie in her efforts to ship food to Chinese refugees, which is really an attempt to win Terry. She tries to woo Charlie to get at Terry.
Tony Sandhurst: Normandie's rich but immoral husband, who puts himself above everyone. He tries to have Pat put in jail for ruining his business and is later revealed to be working for the Axis during the War and becomes a criminal kingpin in the post-war period.
Hu Shee: The Dragon Lady's aide and confidante who sometimes impersonates her for some missions. She seems interested in a romance with Terry. She is apparently drowned under a sinking ship with new love, pirate Johnny Jingo.
Cheery Blaze: Captain Blaze's hefty daughter who hates her father with a passion. She returns during the war working with the Axis but is arrested for her crimes.
Singh-Singh: A dim-witted would-be warlord who clashes with Pat and the Dragon Lady. He later marries Cheery Blaze but is arrested with her.
Chopstick Joe: An underworld figure who is a friendly rival of the Dragon Lady.
Dude Hennick: An old friend of Pat's, an ace pilot who helps the heroes out. He goes to work for Raven Sherman, the two falling in love but she ends up dying in his arms. He vanishes from the strip and a Christmas, 1945 strip has Caniff saying he based the character on a pilot friend, Frank Cliff, who was killed in Shanghai and "Dude died with him."
Sanjak: A Frenchwoman who dresses like a man, using a monocle to hypnotize people. She works for the Axis, impersonating a pilot to infiltrate Terry's Air Force base and is apparently killed in a crashing plane.
Jos Goode: A Southern soldier who serves with Pat, Connie and Big Stoop in the Pacific.
Snake Tumblin: A fellow pilot of Terry's, he's apparently killed in a crashing plane. However, Caniff's final strips show him seemingly alive but blinded.
Jane Allen: An Army nurse who falls in love with Snake. She and Terry seem to be getting closer but when she sees a picture of Snake alive, she leaves Terry on the tarmac in Caniff's final strip.
, but he was prevented by his syndicate from identifying the Japan
ese directly. Caniff referred to them as "the invaders", and they soon became an integral part of the storyline.
After America's entry into World War II
, Terry joined the United States Army Air Forces
. The series then became almost exclusively about WWII with much action centering around a US Army base in China. This change of tone is considered the end of the strip's prime, although it remained highly acclaimed. Terry gained a new mentor in flying instructor Colonel "Flip" Corkin, a character based on the real-life Colonel Philip "Flip" Cochran
of the 1st Air Commando Group
. Comic relief was provided by fellow flyer Hotshot Charlie. Pat, Connie and Big Stoop still made occasional guest appearances as marine commandos, while the Dragon Lady and her pirates became Chinese guerrillas fighting the Japan
ese.
One of the highlights of this period was the October 17, 1943 Sunday page: Corkin gives the recently commissioned Terry a speech on his responsibilities as a fighter pilot
, including the need to consider all those who have contributed to the development of his plane, from the designers to the support crew, spare a thought for those killed in the fighting and respect military bureaucracy which, for better or for worse, has kept the American army going for over 150 years. In an unusual honor, the episode was read aloud in the U.S. Congress and added to the Congressional Record
.
The intensely patriotic Caniff, who donated design and illustration work to the military, created a free variant of Terry and the Pirates for the military newspaper Stars and Stripes
. Originally starring the beautiful adventuress Burma, it was racier than the regular strip, and complaints caused Caniff to rename it Male Call
to avoid confusion. Male Call was discontinued in 1946.
, an action-adventure strip that ran until shortly after his death in 1988.
After Caniff's departure, Terry and the Pirates was assigned to Associated Press
artist George Wunder
. Wunder drew highly detailed panels, but some critics, notably Maurice Horn, claimed that it was sometimes difficult to tell one character from another and that his work lacked Caniff's essential humor. Nevertheless, he kept the strip going for 27 years until its discontinuation on February 25, 1973, by which time Terry had become a full-grown man and reached the rank of Colonel
.
. The Dragon Lady was a Vietnam war orphan in this update. The Hildebrandt/Uslan team left the strip and was replaced on April 1, 1996 with Dan Spiegel taking over as artist and Jim Clark as writer. The strip ended on July 27, 1997.
, under their Flying Buttress Comics Library line, reprinted all of the Caniff Terry strips (10/22/34 to 12/29/46) in two hardcover series as well as in a series of trade paperbacks. The first 12-volume series contained all of the dailies and the Sundays in black and white. The second 12-volume series contained all of the Sundays in color with each page split between two pages. The daily strips were also printed by NBM in a 25-volume softcover edition (reprinting all of the dailies and the Sundays that ran concurrent storylines) with the strips in a smaller size and a lower quality than the hardcover volumes.
Kitchen Sink Press
began a new hardcover reprint series with dailies and Sundays (in color and presented complete on one page, including title bars in the strips from the first year that were omitted from the NBM series), but discontinued it after only two volumes. These out-of-print series can be hard to find.
In March 2007, IDW Publishing
announced a new imprint, the Library of American Comics. It published quarterly collections of six hardcover editions reprinting the Sunday strips with their original color alongside the daily strips. The books are 11” x 8.5” oblong and retailed at $49.99 each. The first volume, published September 2007, reprinted strips from October 1934 through the end of 1936. The sixth and last volume appeared in early 2009.
offered a "premium giveaway" with a case of its ginger ale—one minibook in a trilogy series of Terry and the Pirates strips by Wunder printed by Harvey Comics
. Other incarnations of Caniff's work included a television series and a radio
show. The August-September 1953 issue (#6) of Mad
featured a satire by Wally Wood
entitled "Teddy and the Pirates" where Teddy and Half-Shot Charlie encounter the Dragging Lady.
Terry and the Pirates is often cited by fellow comic illustrator Doug Wildey
as one of his main inspirations for the 1964 Hanna Barbera television cartoon Jonny Quest
. Robert Culp
admitted that the comic strip Terry and the Pirates was his inspiration for the "tone" and "spirit" and "noir heightened realism" of the 1965 NBC TV series, I Spy, when he was writing the pilot. Umberto Eco
's novel The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana
references Terry and the Pirates, and its title comes from the Italian translation of one of the various adventures.
In 1995, the strip was one of 20 included in the Comic Strip Classics
series of commemorative postage stamps. That same year an attempt was made to revive the strip using characters updated by Hollywood producer Michael E. Uslan and illustrated by Tim and Greg Hildebrandt
. The new version debuted on March 26 but only ran for two and a half years before being discontinued.
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....
created by cartoonist Milton Caniff
Milton Caniff
Milton Arthur Paul Caniff was an American cartoonist famous for the Terry and the Pirates and Steve Canyon comic strips.-Biography:...
. Captain Joseph Patterson, editor for the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate
Tribune Media Services
Tribune Media Services is a syndication company owned by the Tribune Company.The company has two divisions, "News and Features" and "Entertainment Products"...
, had admired Caniff’s work on the children's adventure strip Dickie Dare
Dickie Dare
Dickie Dare was a comic strip syndicated by AP Newsfeatures. Launched July 31, 1933, it was the first comic strip created by Milton Caniff before he began Terry and the Pirates....
and hired him to create the new adventure strip, providing Caniff with the title and locale. (The precise reason behind including "the Pirates" in the title is a subject of some debate, but see Dragon Lady (stereotype)
Dragon Lady (stereotype)
A Dragon Lady is a stereotype of East Asian women as strong, deceitful, domineering or mysterious. The term's origin and usage is Western, not Chinese. Inspired by the characters played by actress Anna May Wong, the term was coined from the villain in the comic strip Terry and the Pirates...
for one plausible version.)
The daily strip
Daily strip
A daily strip is a newspaper comic strip format, appearing on weekdays, Monday through Saturday, as contrasted with a Sunday strip, which typically only appears on Sundays....
began October 22, 1934, with the Sunday color pages
Sunday strip
A Sunday strip is a newspaper comic strip format, where comic strips are printed in the Sunday newspaper, usually in a special section called the Sunday comics, and virtually always in color. Some readers called these sections the Sunday funnies...
beginning December 9, 1934. Initially, the storylines of the daily strips and Sunday pages were different, but on August 26, 1936 they merged into a single storyline. In 1946, Caniff won the first Cartoonist of the Year Award from the National Cartoonists Society
National Cartoonists Society
The National Cartoonists Society is an organization of professional cartoonists in the United States. It presents the National Cartoonists Society Awards. The Society was born in 1946 when groups of cartoonists got together to entertain the troops...
for his work on Terry and the Pirates.
Characters and story
The adventure begins with young Terry Lee, "a wide-awake American boy," arriving in contemporary ChinaChina
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
with his friend, two-fisted journalist Pat Ryan. Seeking a lost gold mine they meet George Webster "Connie" Confucius, interpreter and local guide. Initially, crudely drawn backgrounds and stereotypical characters surrounded Terry as he matched wits with pirates and various other villains. He developed an ever larger circle of friends and enemies, including Big Stoop, Captain Judas, Cheery Blaze, Chopstick Joe, Cue Ball and Dude Hennick.
Most notable of all was the famed femme fatale
Femme fatale
A femme fatale is a mysterious and seductive woman whose charms ensnare her lovers in bonds of irresistible desire, often leading them into compromising, dangerous, and deadly situations. She is an archetype of literature and art...
, the Dragon Lady, who started as an enemy and later, during the war
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, became an ally. Caniff included a number of non-American women who fought the heroes and had the funny habit of referring to themselves in the third person. These included the Dragon Lady herself and crooks and spies like Sanjak and Rouge. In a rather bold move for a 1940s comic strip, Sanjak was hinted at being a lesbian and cross-dresser with designs on Terry's girlfriend April Kane.. Caniff purportedly named the character after an island next to the isle of Lesbos.
Over time, due to a successful collaboration with cartoonist Noel Sickles
Noel Sickles
Noel Douglas Sickles was an American commercial illustrator and cartoonist, best known for the comic strip Scorchy Smith....
, Caniff dramatically improved to produce some of the most memorable strips in the history of the medium. Ray Bailey, Caniff's assistant on Terry and the Pirates, went on to create his own adventure strip, Bruce Gentry
Bruce Gentry (comics)
Bruce Gentry was an aviation adventure comic strip by Ray Bailey, distributed by the Post-Hall Syndicate. It debuted March 25, 1945, and by July the strip had expanded to 35 newspapers.-Characters and story:...
.
Major characters
Terry Lee: A young teenager when the series begins, excitable and loving adventure. As the series goes on, he matures and ends up joining the U.S. Air Force, becoming a pilot. After the war, he works for the government in the post-war territories.Pat Ryan: Terry's friend and mentor, a writer but also a man of action who helps his young protegee out of scrapes. When World War II begins, he joins the U.S. Navy and sees action in the Pacific.
Connie: George Webster Confucius, a Chinese man Terry and Pat hire as a guide. He speaks in Pidgin English
Chinese Pidgin English
Chinese Pidgin English is a Pidgin language between English and Chinese. From the 17th to the 19th centuries, there was also Chinese Pidgin English spoken in Cantonese-speaking portions of China...
and refers to himself in the third person but is fiercely loyal to the duo. He eventually works with Pat as part of the Chinese resistance against the Japanese in the war.
Big Stoop: A 9 feet (2.7 m) Mongol who Connie helped when he was being picked on by bullies and sticks with the trio out of gratitude. Immensely strong and mute, he earns his nickname from "he stoops to conquer." It is revealed he was once a servant of the Dragon Lady, who cut out his tongue when he was young, earning her his hatred. He works with Connie in the Chinese resistance during the war.
The Dragon Lady: A beautiful but cold pirate queen who clashes with Terry and Pat constantly. As the Japanese invade China, she becomes a resistance leader, attacking Japanese forces, making it clear it is not out of patriotism but wanting to keep her riches intact. It is hinted she is in love with Pat but unable to give up her rule for him. After the war ends, she goes back to her criminal roots.
Burma: Real name unknown, a con artist, former pirate confederate and sultry singer but with a good heart. She meets up with Terry and Pat several times and she and Terry share a romantic connection but Burma is afraid of letting it go further. She's identifable by her habit of singing "St. Louis Blues."
Normandie Drake: The true love of Pat's life, an heiress who he grew close to when he worked for her father. However, her high-society aunt refused to see her marry a "commoner" and whisked her away to an arranged marriage to the weak-willed Tony Sandhurst. She and Pat meet again but she says she has to stick by Tony as she's pregnant with Tony's child. They meet again later during the War with Normandie's child Merilly now four years old. Despite the discovery Tony is working with the Axis
Axis Powers
The Axis powers , also known as the Axis alliance, Axis nations, Axis countries, or just the Axis, was an alignment of great powers during the mid-20th century that fought World War II against the Allies. It began in 1936 with treaties of friendship between Germany and Italy and between Germany and...
, Normandie still refuses to divorce him.
Raven Sherman: An heiress who used her fortune for missionary work in China, meeting with Pat. They seem romantic but she ends up falling for pilot Dude Hennick. She dies in Hennick's arms after sustaining injuries from Captain Judas and is buried in the China desert.
April Kane: A Southern belle who wins Terry's heart. She works as Pat's secretary when he is an agent of the Dragon Lady but leaves when she's blackmailed over (false) information on her brother. She returns in 1944, having spent the last few years in a Japanese prison camp. The experience has made her harder and she tries to manipulate pilot Flip Corkin to make Terry jealous and tries to set up an air field at an island the army is using for a base. However, she learns the army is pulling out and is last seen left alone on the island.
Flip Corkin: Terry's flight instructor for the Air Force, who delievers the famed Sunday page lecture on military duty.
Taffy Tucker: Flip's girlfriend, an Army nurse. She briefly develops amnesia and is rescued by Pat, the two connecting romantically. But she goes back to Flip after regaining her memory.
Hotshot Charlie: Charles C. Charles, an incredibly cocky and arrogant Boston pilot who becomes Terry's best friend in the Air Force. After the war ends, he is stifled by civilian life and jumps at the chance to help Terry out in post-war Asia doing government work.
Recurring characters
Captain Blaze: A boisterous English pirate who helps Terry and Pat out against the Dragon Lady, later returning to help Pat out in China.Captain Judas: A debonair criminal who clashes with the heroes several times. A former partner of Burma's, he sustains severe facial burns when she throws a lamp in his face. He shoved Raven out of a truck, leading to her fatal injuries before being shot by Dude Hennick and presumably killed.
Papa Pyzon: A corpulent criminal Terry and Pat meet in China who later returns as an Axis agent during the war.
Nasty: Nastalathia Smythe-Heatherstone, a young heiress Terry and Burma rescue from a crashed plane. Her bratty and selfish attitude drives them crazy and nearly gets them killed. Years later, the now grown Nasty returns to involve Terry and Charlie in her efforts to ship food to Chinese refugees, which is really an attempt to win Terry. She tries to woo Charlie to get at Terry.
Tony Sandhurst: Normandie's rich but immoral husband, who puts himself above everyone. He tries to have Pat put in jail for ruining his business and is later revealed to be working for the Axis during the War and becomes a criminal kingpin in the post-war period.
Hu Shee: The Dragon Lady's aide and confidante who sometimes impersonates her for some missions. She seems interested in a romance with Terry. She is apparently drowned under a sinking ship with new love, pirate Johnny Jingo.
Cheery Blaze: Captain Blaze's hefty daughter who hates her father with a passion. She returns during the war working with the Axis but is arrested for her crimes.
Singh-Singh: A dim-witted would-be warlord who clashes with Pat and the Dragon Lady. He later marries Cheery Blaze but is arrested with her.
Chopstick Joe: An underworld figure who is a friendly rival of the Dragon Lady.
Dude Hennick: An old friend of Pat's, an ace pilot who helps the heroes out. He goes to work for Raven Sherman, the two falling in love but she ends up dying in his arms. He vanishes from the strip and a Christmas, 1945 strip has Caniff saying he based the character on a pilot friend, Frank Cliff, who was killed in Shanghai and "Dude died with him."
Sanjak: A Frenchwoman who dresses like a man, using a monocle to hypnotize people. She works for the Axis, impersonating a pilot to infiltrate Terry's Air Force base and is apparently killed in a crashing plane.
Jos Goode: A Southern soldier who serves with Pat, Connie and Big Stoop in the Pacific.
Snake Tumblin: A fellow pilot of Terry's, he's apparently killed in a crashing plane. However, Caniff's final strips show him seemingly alive but blinded.
Jane Allen: An Army nurse who falls in love with Snake. She and Terry seem to be getting closer but when she sees a picture of Snake alive, she leaves Terry on the tarmac in Caniff's final strip.
During World War II
Caniff became increasingly concerned by the contemporary Second Sino-Japanese WarSecond Sino-Japanese War
The Second Sino-Japanese War was a military conflict fought primarily between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. From 1937 to 1941, China fought Japan with some economic help from Germany , the Soviet Union and the United States...
, but he was prevented by his syndicate from identifying the Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese directly. Caniff referred to them as "the invaders", and they soon became an integral part of the storyline.
After America's entry into World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Terry joined the United States Army Air Forces
United States Army Air Forces
The United States Army Air Forces was the military aviation arm of the United States of America during and immediately after World War II, and the direct predecessor of the United States Air Force....
. The series then became almost exclusively about WWII with much action centering around a US Army base in China. This change of tone is considered the end of the strip's prime, although it remained highly acclaimed. Terry gained a new mentor in flying instructor Colonel "Flip" Corkin, a character based on the real-life Colonel Philip "Flip" Cochran
Philip Cochran
Philip Gerald Cochran was an officer in the United States Army Air Corps. Cochran developed many tactical air combat, air transport, and air assault techniques during the war, particularly in Burma during operations as co-commander of the 1st Air Commando Group...
of the 1st Air Commando Group
1st Air Commando Group
The 1st Air Commando Group is an inactive United States Air Force unit. It was last assigned to the Army Service Forces, based at Camp Kilmer, New Jersey. It was inactivated on 3 November 1945....
. Comic relief was provided by fellow flyer Hotshot Charlie. Pat, Connie and Big Stoop still made occasional guest appearances as marine commandos, while the Dragon Lady and her pirates became Chinese guerrillas fighting the Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese.
One of the highlights of this period was the October 17, 1943 Sunday page: Corkin gives the recently commissioned Terry a speech on his responsibilities as a fighter pilot
Fighter pilot
A fighter pilot is a military aviator trained in air-to-air combat while piloting a fighter aircraft . Fighter pilots undergo specialized training in aerial warfare and dogfighting...
, including the need to consider all those who have contributed to the development of his plane, from the designers to the support crew, spare a thought for those killed in the fighting and respect military bureaucracy which, for better or for worse, has kept the American army going for over 150 years. In an unusual honor, the episode was read aloud in the U.S. Congress and added to the Congressional Record
Congressional Record
The Congressional Record is the official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress. It is published by the United States Government Printing Office, and is issued daily when the United States Congress is in session. Indexes are issued approximately every two weeks...
.
The intensely patriotic Caniff, who donated design and illustration work to the military, created a free variant of Terry and the Pirates for the military newspaper Stars and Stripes
Stars and Stripes (newspaper)
Stars and Stripes is a news source that operates from inside the United States Department of Defense but is editorially separate from it. The First Amendment protection which Stars and Stripes enjoys is safeguarded by Congress to whom an independent ombudsman, who serves the readers' interests,...
. Originally starring the beautiful adventuress Burma, it was racier than the regular strip, and complaints caused Caniff to rename it Male Call
Male Call
Male Call was a comic strip created and drawn by Milton Caniff on a volunteer basis, exclusively for US military publications during World War II. The strip began January 24, 1943...
to avoid confusion. Male Call was discontinued in 1946.
Caniff leaves the strip
Although Terry and the Pirates had made Caniff famous, the strip was owned by the syndicate, which was not uncommon at the time. Seeking creative control of his own work, Caniff left the strip in 1946, his last Terry strip being published on December 29. The following year he launched Steve CanyonSteve Canyon
Steve Canyon was a long-running American adventure comic strip by writer-artist Milton Caniff. Launched shortly after Caniff retired from his previous strip, Terry and the Pirates, Steve Canyon ran from January 13, 1947 until June 4, 1988, shortly after Caniff's death...
, an action-adventure strip that ran until shortly after his death in 1988.
After Caniff's departure, Terry and the Pirates was assigned to Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
artist George Wunder
George Wunder
George S. Wunder was a cartoonist best known for his 26 years illustrating the Terry and the Pirates comic strip....
. Wunder drew highly detailed panels, but some critics, notably Maurice Horn, claimed that it was sometimes difficult to tell one character from another and that his work lacked Caniff's essential humor. Nevertheless, he kept the strip going for 27 years until its discontinuation on February 25, 1973, by which time Terry had become a full-grown man and reached the rank of Colonel
Colonel
Colonel , abbreviated Col or COL, is a military rank of a senior commissioned officer. It or a corresponding rank exists in most armies and in many air forces; the naval equivalent rank is generally "Captain". It is also used in some police forces and other paramilitary rank structures...
.
Revival
On March 26, 1995, the Brothers Hildebrandt did a revised, updated version of the strip under the direction of Michael UslanMichael Uslan
Michael E. Uslan is the originator of the Batman movies and was the first instructor to teach "Comic Book Folklore" at an accredited university...
. The Dragon Lady was a Vietnam war orphan in this update. The Hildebrandt/Uslan team left the strip and was replaced on April 1, 1996 with Dan Spiegel taking over as artist and Jim Clark as writer. The strip ended on July 27, 1997.
Reprints
NBMNBM Publishing
NBM Publishing is an American publisher of graphic novels. The company specializes in non-superhero comic genres and has translated and published over 150 graphic novels from Europe and Canada, as well as several works by Americans...
, under their Flying Buttress Comics Library line, reprinted all of the Caniff Terry strips (10/22/34 to 12/29/46) in two hardcover series as well as in a series of trade paperbacks. The first 12-volume series contained all of the dailies and the Sundays in black and white. The second 12-volume series contained all of the Sundays in color with each page split between two pages. The daily strips were also printed by NBM in a 25-volume softcover edition (reprinting all of the dailies and the Sundays that ran concurrent storylines) with the strips in a smaller size and a lower quality than the hardcover volumes.
Kitchen Sink Press
Kitchen Sink Press
Kitchen Sink Press was a comic book publishing company founded by Denis Kitchen in 1970. Kitchen owned and operated Kitchen Sink Press until 1999. Kitchen Sink Press was a pioneering publisher of underground comics, and was also responsible for numerous republications of classic comic strips in...
began a new hardcover reprint series with dailies and Sundays (in color and presented complete on one page, including title bars in the strips from the first year that were omitted from the NBM series), but discontinued it after only two volumes. These out-of-print series can be hard to find.
In March 2007, IDW Publishing
IDW Publishing
IDW Publishing, also known as Idea + Design Works, LLC and IDW, is an American publisher of comic books and comic strip collections. The company was founded in 1999 and has been awarded the title "Publisher of the Year Under 5% Market Share" for the years 2004, 2005 and 2006 by Diamond Comic...
announced a new imprint, the Library of American Comics. It published quarterly collections of six hardcover editions reprinting the Sunday strips with their original color alongside the daily strips. The books are 11” x 8.5” oblong and retailed at $49.99 each. The first volume, published September 2007, reprinted strips from October 1934 through the end of 1936. The sixth and last volume appeared in early 2009.
In popular culture
In 1953, Canada DryCanada Dry
Canada Dry is a brand of soft drinks owned since 2008 by the Texas-based Dr Pepper Snapple Group. For over a century Canada Dry has been known for its ginger ale, though the company also manufactures a number of other soft drinks and mixers...
offered a "premium giveaway" with a case of its ginger ale—one minibook in a trilogy series of Terry and the Pirates strips by Wunder printed by Harvey Comics
Harvey Comics
Harvey Comics was an American comic book publisher, founded in New York City by Alfred Harvey in 1941, after buying out the small publisher Brookwood Publications. His brothers Robert B...
. Other incarnations of Caniff's work included a television series and a radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
show. The August-September 1953 issue (#6) of Mad
Mad (magazine)
Mad is an American humor magazine founded by editor Harvey Kurtzman and publisher William Gaines in 1952. Launched as a comic book before it became a magazine, it was widely imitated and influential, impacting not only satirical media but the entire cultural landscape of the 20th century.The last...
featured a satire by Wally Wood
Wally Wood
Wallace Allan Wood was an American comic book writer, artist and independent publisher, best known for his work in EC Comics and Mad. He was one of Mads founding cartoonists in 1952. Although much of his early professional artwork is signed Wallace Wood, he became known as Wally Wood, a name he...
entitled "Teddy and the Pirates" where Teddy and Half-Shot Charlie encounter the Dragging Lady.
Terry and the Pirates is often cited by fellow comic illustrator Doug Wildey
Doug Wildey
Douglas S. Wildey was a cartoonist and comic book artist best known for his co-creation of the 1964 animated television series, Jonny Quest for Hanna-Barbera Productions.-Early life and career:...
as one of his main inspirations for the 1964 Hanna Barbera television cartoon Jonny Quest
Jonny Quest (TV series)
Jonny Quest – often casually referred to as The Adventures of Jonny Quest – is an American science fiction/adventure animated television series about a boy who accompanies his father on extraordinary adventures...
. Robert Culp
Robert Culp
Robert Martin Culp was an American actor, scriptwriter, voice actor and director, widely known for his work in television. Culp first earned an international reputation for his role as Kelly Robinson on I Spy , the espionage series in which he and co-star Bill Cosby played a pair of secret agents...
admitted that the comic strip Terry and the Pirates was his inspiration for the "tone" and "spirit" and "noir heightened realism" of the 1965 NBC TV series, I Spy, when he was writing the pilot. Umberto Eco
Umberto Eco
Umberto Eco Knight Grand Cross is an Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist, best known for his novel The Name of the Rose , an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory...
's novel The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana
The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana
The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana is a novel by Italian writer Umberto Eco. It was first published in Italian in 2004, and an English language translation by Geoffrey Brock was published in spring 2005...
references Terry and the Pirates, and its title comes from the Italian translation of one of the various adventures.
In 1995, the strip was one of 20 included in the Comic Strip Classics
Comic Strip Classics
The Comic Strip Classics series of commemorative postage stamps was issued by the US Postal Service in 1995 to honor the centennial of the newspaper comic strip....
series of commemorative postage stamps. That same year an attempt was made to revive the strip using characters updated by Hollywood producer Michael E. Uslan and illustrated by Tim and Greg Hildebrandt
The Brothers Hildebrandt
The Brothers Hildebrandt are American twin brothers who collaboratively worked as fantasy and science fiction artists. They produced illustrations for comic books, movie posters, children's books, posters, novels, calendars, advertisements, and trading cards...
. The new version debuted on March 26 but only ran for two and a half years before being discontinued.
See also
- List of Terry and the Pirates comic strips
- Terry and the Pirates (radio serial)Terry and the Pirates (radio serial)Terry and the Pirates was a radio serial adapted from the comic strip of the same name created in 1934 by Milton Caniff. With storylines of action, high adventure and foreign intrigue, the popular radio series entralled listeners from 1937 through 1948...
- Terry and the Pirates (serial)Terry and the Pirates (serial)Terry and the Pirates was the 10th film serial released by Columbia. It was based on the comic strip Terry and the Pirates created by Milton Caniff...
- Terry and the Pirates (TV series)Terry and the Pirates (TV series)Terry and the Pirates is a short-lived American adventure series based on Milton Caniff's popular comic strip, was telecast from June 26, 1953 to November 21, 1953. The syndicated series ran for 18 episodes and was produced by Don Sharpe Enterprises...