Burma Print with added Original art by Milton Caniff 1943

Here is something really fun. The center of this is a hand colored print of Burma that I have multiple copies of. Everything else is original art including two planes in the background which are also hand colored. All the text on the piece is original too and the pasted on copyright note indicates that this would have likely been published as we see it. I have seen a few similar pieces with different backgrounds over the years in specialty journals including military ones. This might have been part of a yearbook for the graduating class of 43-14 San Angelo Bombardier School. Caniff was a big supporter of the US troops in all the wars he was alive for but especially World War II.

Most of the ones I have seen before like this have been with Miss Lace in support of the troops. A bit of background on the Male Call strip which Miss Lace was featured in and that was done specifically for the military. To help in the war effort Caniff produced a racier version of Terry and the Pirates for the army. This featured Burma in some pretty spectacular dailies. These started in late 1942 and when some of the domestic syndicates complained that they were paying for Terry and the Pirates and the military was getting them for free, the strip abruptly changed names to Male Call and Miss Lace was introduced after only 4 short months. This change happened in early 1943 so this one dated 1943 was probably still associated with the earlier version and Miss Lace had not become popular yet. In the extra images is an example of the the Military version of Terry with Burma as well as my example of Male Call and a few other examples of remarked prints.