CANIFF OHS EXHIBIT

The Ohio Historical Society has an exhibit on Milton Caniff at the Ohio Historical Center in Columbus. Spotlight on Milton Caniff runs through March 2nd. I was able to see it as part of my "Caniff Day" back in October.

The exhibit does not concentrate on his art, but rather on artifacts from his life and some of his tools of the trade, displayed in a series of showcases. I found this collection of weapons, which Caniff used for reference, to be of particular interest. He was a stickler for detail, and so were his devoted readers. Weapons, uniforms, and military equipment all had to be right because part of the realism of the strip hinged on Caniff's accuracy.

Center stage at the exhibit is a continuous slideshow that uses blow-up panels, along with limited animation, from a biographical strip by Caniff to tell his story as he did, in brief. To coincide with the exhibit, a Caniff cover story highlights their quarterly magazine, TIMELINE. The magazine article is by Lucy Shelton Caswell, friend of Caniff and curator of the Cartoon Research Library, which I'll write about next time.

If Caniff's not your thing, you can always visit the other museum exhibits, such as the mammoth skeleton or the two-headed calf.