Tuesday, February 10, 2009

MILTON CANIFF NEWS

Volume 6 of 'The Complete Terry & the Pirates', which was scheduled for release last month, has been delayed. Checking Amazon, there is no new release date. Series editor Dean Mullaney, who I interviewed here, tells me it should be out 'any day now' and added the interesting fact that they are shipped by boat from South Korea.


The website for Hurlburt Field, home of the 1st Special Operations Wing of the USAF, has a nice article about Col. Phil Cochran. Other than his military feats, Cochran gained some renown for being the basis of Caniff's character Col. Flip Corkin in 'Terry & the Pirates'. Corkin figures heavily in Volume 5 of the current 'Terry' reprints, where he takes a leading role in serving as Terry Lee's pilot mentor.

'Steve Canyon' was being posted daily on Humorous Maximus. It looks like that site is gone, but the postings go on at Rip Haywire.com. There's something a little off about the strips, as if they are smaller pictures enlarged beyond clean pixel strength. The site also has Caniff's 'Male Call' strip, featuring popular G.I. pin-up Miss Lace, and his pre-'Terry' strip, Dickie Dare. 'Rip Haywire' is a current syndicated adventure strip by Dan Thompson.

Steve Canyon hats are back! In an effort to promote and propel the release of the "Steve Canyon" TV series on DVD, the Milton Caniff Estate released Steve Canyon caps in black and grey, which quickly sold out. Now the caps have returned on a limited basis, now with a neat inscription on the back. They can be ordered in the Steve Canyon Shoppe!.

'Spotlight on Milton Caniff', an exhibit at the Ohio History Center which I wrote about here, has been extended again to March 15th. Making it more worth your while are additional art exhibits on Norman Rockwell and the prints of Currier & Ives.

'Comic, Heroes, and American Visual Culture' is a current exhibit at the Flint Institute of Arts in Flint, Michigan. The artwork is from the collection Dan Howard, a retired art professor from Nebraska. It includes a hand-colored picture of Terry Lee, which Howard received from Milton Caniff in the mid-1940s in response to a fan letter.

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