A year before his death, Milton Caniff assembled favorite characters from fifty-five years of newspaper strips, for a celebratory meal. Because the two series were produced for rival syndicates, there can't be many examples out there with such a large sampling from both as Caniff gives us here:
Terry and the Pirates characters:
Standing left: Chopstick Joe, Big Stoop, and Connie
Left side and far end: Dragon Lady, Hotshot Charlie, April Kane, Pat Ryan, Burma, Captain Blaze, Nastalathia Smythe-Heatherstone, Terry Lee
Steve Canyon characters:
Near end and right side: Steve Canyon, Summer Olson, Reed Kimberly, Delta, Shanty Town, Poteet Canyon, Pipper the Piper
Standing right: Happy Easter
I am not 100% sure on all these character attributions, so if any Caniff experts want to chime in, feel free! Copper Calhoon and Delta look rather similar, for instance. I'm listing it as "unpublished" unless anyone knows otherwise.
The image is constructed across two sheets of paper overlapping about two inches, with a horizontal seam near the bottom. Pencils remain near Steve's feet showing how they were roughed in a slightly different pose. A brown vertical stain runs from Pipper's head up the right side of the mantel clock to the top border. The heads of Pat Ryan, Shanty Town, and Pipper were redrawn. Only Dragon Lady and Burma expose décolletage. The back is stamped with Caniff's name and address on East 45th Street, at a 30 story condominium built in 1977.
Milton Caniff originated influential strip "Terry and the Pirates," in 1934, eventually winning the first Cartoonist of the Year Award from the National Cartoonists Society for his efforts in 1946. At the end of that same year, he left Terry (in which he had no ownership interest) to found a similar adventure strip, "Steve Canyon" (in which he did), which became his life's work, with more than forty years of stories. Along with Hal Foster and Alex Raymond, Caniff developed the tropes and visual vocabulary of action-oriented comic book art.
Norman Rockwell’s nephew Dick was Caniff’s uncredited art assistant from 1952 onward, handling backgrounds, so he was likely involved in this piece produced the year before Caniff’s death. Possibly "involved" to the extent of ghosting the whole thing?
