Milton Caniff

Milton Arthur Paul Caniff (February 28, 1907-April 3, 1988) was an American cartoonist famous for the Terry and the Pirates and Steve Canyon comic strips.

Early life

Caniff was born in Hillsboro, Ohio. He was an Eagle Scout and a recipient of the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award from the Boy Scouts of America. Caniff had done some cartoons for local newspapers as a teenager. Shortly after matriculating at Ohio State University, from which he graduated in 1930, Caniff began a career in journalism by applying to the Columbus Dispatch. There he worked with the noted cartoonist William "Billy" Ireland until Caniff's position was eliminated.

While at Ohio State, Caniff joined the Sigma Chi Fraternity, and later provided illustrations for The Magazine of Sigma Chi and The Norman Shield (the fraternity's pledgeship/reference manual).

Cartoonist

In 1932, Caniff traveled to New York City and was hired by the Associated Press to produce the adventure fantasy strip Dickie Dare. The strip was an action serial with a young male hero and was the prototype for Caniff's later work.

In 1934, Caniff was hired by the New York Daily News to produce a new strip, Terry and the Pirates, the strip which made Caniff famous. Like Dickie Dare, Terry began the strip as a boy. But over the years the character aged and by World War II he was old enough to be portrayed as serving in the Army Air Force.

During the war, Caniff began a second strip, a special version of Terry and the Pirates without Terry and featuring a female star named Burma. Caniff donated all of his work on this strip to the armed forces -- the strip was only available in military newspapers. After complaints from a paying customer, the Miami Herald, the strip was renamed Male Call. Male Call featured more adult situations than Terry and the Pirates, including the character of Miss Lace, an attractive woman who was often drawn in sexually suggestive poses. Caniff ended Male Call in 1946.

The year 1946 also saw the end of Caniff's association with Terry and the Pirates. While the strip was a major success, it was owned by the newspaper not Caniff. Caniff decided to start a new strip based on characters which he would own. Caniff produced his last strip of Terry and the Pirates in December 1946 and introduced his new strip Steve Canyon in the Chicago Sun-Times the following month.

Steve Canyon

Like his previous strip, Steve Canyon was an action strip with a pilot as its main character. Canyon was originally portrayed as a private pilot but he joined the military during the Korean War and remained so for the rest of the strip. While Steve Canyon never reached the popularity that Terry and the Pirates had at its height, it was a successful comic strip and Caniff continued it for over forty years until his death.

Recognition and awards

Caniff was one of the founders of the National Cartoonist Society and served as its President in 1948 to 1949. He also received the society's first Cartoonist of the Year Award in 1946 for Steve Canyon. Caniff would later also be awarded the Reuben Award in 1971 (again for Steve Canyon), and be named to the Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame in 1988. He received the National Cartoonist Society Elzie Segar Award in 1971, the Award for Story Comic Strip in 1979 for Steve Canyon, the Gold Key Award (the Society's Hall of Fame) in 1981, and they have since named the Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award in his honor.

Caniff died in New York City.