Tuesday, February 10, 2015

CANIFF NEWS - FEBRUARY 2015


The Complete Steve Canyon Volume 5: 1955-56 came out last month on January 20th.  These exciting years feature the return of old friends and loves, some new ones, and the introduction of Steve's kissin' cousin - Poteet!  Little did Steve (or Caniff) know that this young gal would be co-leading the strip in later years.  The book includes an introductory essay by Bruce Canwell on what Caniff was doing in that era, replete with examples of artifacts of the time.


The December 2014 issue of Comics Revue reprints the Steve Canyon daily and Sunday strips from May 13th to June 9th, 1973.  Steve is on assignment in an unnamed Asian city to follow up on the rumor that a U.S. official with top secret info has gone missing in the mountains.

Also in this issue are "Tarzan" by Russ Manning, "Flash Gordon" by Mac Raboy and a four month continuity from "The Phantom" dailies of 1960.  Ask your comics dealer!



John Ellis of the Milton Caniff Estate has been giving updates on the release of Volume 3 of the "Steve Canyon" TV series on DVD.  Here's the update from February 8th.   Ellis has been restoring this series frame by frame and his long trek is nearly complete.  He hopes to have it out in the next couple of months.


Hermes Press announced the upcoming release of volume two of  "Terry and the Pirates by George Wunder".  Volume One appears to have sold out, as Amazon has none and they sell for cover price or better on Ebay.  Don't expect two full years of continuity from the title, as the first volume was under 14 months of strips.  I felt the first volume was terrific adventure stuff, thought Wunder stumbled in his attempts to match the Caniff wit, and Pat Ryan was kind of a third wheel.  I'm interested to see how the strip progressed.  The book is scheduled for release on March 10th.

The current exhibit at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum focuses on comic strip syndicate King Features.  King of the Comics: William Randolph Hearst and 100 Years of King Features.  The exhibit will examine the newspaper magnate and a century of bringing newspaper comics to the masses.  The promotional material for the exhibit doesn't mention if anything from "Steve Canyon" will be included.  Even though "Canyon" was owned by Field Enterprises, Field had a distribution deal with King, and it was treated like a King strip in their promotional materials.  I hope to get up to the exhibit this month, and I'll let you know!