Driving through my town late yesterday afternoon I saw a small sign stuck in the ground on the side of the road: Library Book Sale Today. So I went over to the library, parked, then walked down the grassy hill to the back door that, as long as I’ve been in this town, opens up to the used books room. A sign taped to the door read, C’mon In. Less than a minute after I walked in I was told that the sale was closing in a few minutes, “But please don’t leave without a book.”
With browsing out of the mix, I headed straight for the “Humor” boxes. Finding nothing of great interest (I almost picked up Charles Addams Half-Baked Cookbook, but decided against it), I was about to walk away and out the door, when I spotted the Terry And The Pirates book pictured here all by its lonesome on a table. As I paid, the woman manning the desk, said, “Ohh, that’s an oldie.”
I’ve never read a Terry and the Pirates strip. Don’t know anything about Terry or his storyline. The one thing I do know: Terry was created by Milton Caniff. When I saw the book I immediately thought of the late great Lee Lorenz, art editor of The New Yorker for twenty-four years (1973 -1997). Lee lifted a drawing of mine out of the magazine’s slush pile in 1977, thus launching my now near half century run as a New Yorker cartoonist.
When I interviewed Lee at the Westport Historical Society many years later we talked about his early influences. Two names came up immediately: Steinberg, and Milton Caniff. At the talk, when I brought up Caniff, I mispronounced his name, saying “Kay-niff.” (accent on the first syllable). Lee immediately corrected me: “Can-if” (accent on the second syllable.).
And so, standing in the library used book sale, I bought the Terry and the Pirates book. It would’ve been tough to walk away from it.
Another cartoonist came to mind as Caniff-inspired: Edward Frascino, The New Yorker’s second longest active contributing cartoonist (his first drawing appeared in the magazine in the issue of September 4, 1965). Mr. Frascino told me in a 2020 interview:
“When I was a kid many New York newspapers carried comic strips daily and full color comic sections on Sunday. After reading them I spent some time studying the art work and copying it. My favorite was Milton Caniff‘s “Terry and the Pirates.” I cut those strips out and pasted them in a scrapbook. As a teenager I drew my own strip heavily influenced by “Terry.” My neighborhood friends were my readers.”
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Further Lorenz reading: Richard Gehr’s 2011 interview in The Comics Journal, “Lee Lorenz: Cartoonist, Editor, Writer, Jazzbo”
Caniff’s impact on cartooning is inestimable. The way classic superhero comic book characters are designed is due to young cartoonists tracing Caniff. It was hard to be good enough in 1940 to land a syndicated strip, but if you could draw 1/4 as well as Caniff you could be hired to fill up pages of a comic book.