LEGENDARY HEROES #23

TERRY AND THE PIRATES

"Terry and the Pirates" was created by Milton Caniff in 1934.  Captain Joseph Patterson, editor of the Chicago Tribune-NY News Syndicate, had admired Caniff's work on the children's adventure strip "Dickie Dare" and hired Caniff to create this new adventure strip.  Patterson provided Caniff with the title and locale and Caniff went to work creating one of the greatest comic strips ever.  Caniff (1907-1988) was born in Hillsboro, Ohio.  Uncertain if he wanted to be an actor or a cartoonist, he was advised "Stick to your inkpots, kid, actors don't eat regularly".  Caniff moved to New York City in 1932 and provided illustrations to the Associated Press and he assisted on the comic strip "Dumb Dora".  In 1933 he created his own comic strip "Dickie Dare" which brought him to the attention of Patterson.  Noel Sickles was a self taught illustrator in Ohio where he met and shared a studio with Caniff.  He followed Milton to NYC in 1933.  Sickles style was much admired and highly influential.  His compositions were cinematic, he had a brisk impressionistic style of inking, and he and Caniff worked together for two years, sometimes on each other strips.  Sickles was drawing his own aviation adventure strip called "Scorchy Smith".  Because of Sickles influence Caniff's art on "Terry" was much improved.  Sickles left the cartooning world when he was refused a raise on "Scorchy Smith" and Sickles went on to become one of the great illustrators in America, doing story art for LIFE, Look, Collier's, and The Saturday Evening Post, as well as advertising art for numerous commercial accounts.

"Terry" was a comic strip of action, high adventure, and foreign intrigue.  The story began with teenager Terry Lee arriving in mysterious China with his mentor Pat Ryan, a journalist and man of action.  Seeking a lost gold mine they enlist the help of George Webster "Connie" Confucius as interpreter and local guide.  His fierce loyalty to Terry and Pat resulted in him becoming a constant companion in their adventures.  Initially the strip was simply drawn and full of stereotypical Oriental characters, but thanks to Noel Sickles collaboration Caniff's art dramatically improved to produce some of the most dramatic strips in the history of the medium.  In addition to Terry, Pat and Connie there was Big Stoop, a 9 foot Mongol whom Connie rescued from bullies.  Big Stoop remained with the trio out of gratitude.  He was immensely strong and mute and his nickname came from the phrase "he stoops to conquer".  He was also once a servant to The Dragon Lady who cut his tongue out when he was young.  The Dragon Lady was probably the greatest femme fatale created in comics history.  She was a beautiful but dispassionate pirate queen in the Orient who constantly clashed with Terry and Pat.  The Dragon Lady's appearance was based on actress Dolores Del Rio and she made her first appearance in the first Sunday comic page of the strip.  She became the most complex of all the characters, as she could be heroic or Machiavellian.  She taught Terry how to dance, and there was romantic tension between her and Pat.  When the Japanese invaded China she became the leader of resistance fighters, but returned to her criminal activities after the war.  

And there were a bevy of beautiful female characters encountered by Terry and Pat.  There was Burma, a con artist and sultry singer who often sang "St. Louis Blues" and was a former pirate confederate.  Burma had a brief romantic connection with Terry.  Normandie Drake was an heiress and Pat's true love from many years ago, who married a weak willed scoundrel but refused to leave him.  Raven Sherman was an heiress who used her fortune to pursue missionary work in China.  Her death in October 1941 provoked an outpouring of letters and telegrams from readers.  And there was April Kane, a Southern belle who won Terry's heart.  With the Second World War coming to the Pacific, Pat Ryan joined the U.S. Navy, while Terry, a much matured young man, joined the Army to become a pilot.  Flip Corkin was Terry's flight instructor in the Air Force and was based on the real life Colonel Philip "Flip" Cochran of the 1st Air Commando Group.  One of the highlights of this period was the October 17, 1943 Sunday page known as "The Pilot's Creed".  In the context of the page Corkin gives recently commissioned Terry a moving, patriotic speech on his responsibilities as a fighter pilot.  That Sunday page was so moving that it was read into the Congressional Record, an honor that to my knowledge has never been bestowed upon a comic strip since.  Terry's best friend in the Air Force is Hotshot Charlie, real name Charles C. Charles, a comically flippant Bostonian.  After the war Terry and Hotshot work for the government in post-war territories and activities.

The first daily strip appeared on October 22, 1934, and a Sunday page followed on December 9, 1934.  Initially the dailies and Sundays had separate storylines but they merged on August 26, 1936.  Over the next 12 years "Terry" would enjoy a readership of 31 million subscribers.  "Terry and the Pirates" made Caniff famous, but the strip was owned by the syndicate which was the norm for the time.  Local Chicago store magnate Marshall Field went into the newspaper business while merging The Chicago Sun and the Times.  He decided to launch the Field Syndicate, because that was where the real money was.  And he approached the four best known cartoonists employed at the Tribune to pitch them the idea of coming to his syndicate, where he promised them a big salary and sole ownership of their creations.  The cartoonists were Chester Gould (Dick Tracy), Harold Gray (Little Orphan Annie), Zack Mosley (Smilin' Jack), and Milton Caniff.  Seeking creative control of his own work, Caniff jumped ship.  His last Terry page appeared on Sunday December 29, 1946, and a few weeks later his new comic strip "Steve Canyon" appeared in the Sun-Times.  After Caniff's departure the Terry strip was assigned to cartoonist George Wunder who kept the strip going for another 27 years until it was discontinued by the Trib on February 25, 1973.  The Brothers Hildebrandt did a revised, updated version of the strip from March 26, 1995 until July 27, 1997.

Like other popular strips "Terry" was seen in Big Little Books and comic book reprints, most notably the Harvey and Charlton Comics from 1947-1955.  Terry arrived on radio as a 15-minute series that aired at 5:15 on weekdays on the NBC Red Network.  Sponsored by Dari-Rich it ran from November 1, 1937 to June 1, 1938, with Agnes Moorehead providing the voice for The Dragon Lady.  The show switched to the Blue Network on September 26, 1938 to March 22, 1939.  Prior to Pearl Harbor "Terry" could be heard throughout the midwest on the Tribune's WGN radio from October 16, 1941 to May 29, 1942.  The show was sponsored by Libby's and ran five days a week.  Each episode began with the stroke of a Chinese gong which was followed by nonsensical sounds that were supposed to represent the Chinese language.  Finally the announcer would declare "Terry and the Pirates" followed by the Chinese gong and a man singing the theme song while playing the ukulele.  During the war years the radio drama became so popular that the NBC Blue Network hired them back on February 1, 1943 and was sponsored by Quaker Puffed Wheat and Puffed Rice.  The popularity waned after the war and the show ended on June 30, 1948.  In 1940 Columbia released a 15-chapter movie serial that starred William Tracy as Terry, Jeff York as Pat, Joyce Bryant as Normandie Drake, Allen Jung as Connie, Victor DeCamp as Big Stoop, and Sheila Darcy as The Dragon Lady.  Caniff hated the movie adaptation, stating "I saw the first chapter and walked out screaming".  A syndicated TV series ran for 18 episodes from June 26-November 21, 1953.  It was sponsored by Canada Dry Ginger Ale which offered a premium giveaway of a Terry comic book when consumers purchased a case.  John Baer was Terry, a pilot for Air Cathay, a cargo and passenger line owned by Chopstick Joe (a not always honest man).  Hotshot Charlie was played by William Tracy who played Terry in the serial, Burma was played by Sandra Spence, and The Dragon Lady was Gloria Saunders.  

In 1951 producer Sam Katzman obtained the film rights to "Terry and the Pirates" from Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., but no film was produced.  I remember in a 1979 issue of Variety seeing a 4-page color spread by Drew Struzan announcing a new Terry film, but, alas, it was not to be.  In 1946 Milton Caniff received the first award for Best Cartoonist of the Year, bestowed by the National Cartoonist Society.  Doug Wildey cited "Terry and the Pirates" as an inspiration for the Jonny Quest animated series, and Robert Culp credited the strip for establishing the tone and style of the 1965 NBC TV-series "I Spy".  In fact it was Culp's ambition to write, produce and direct a movie based on the comic strip.  He died in 2010 without realizing his dream.  Caniff's drawing style, known as the Caniff Style, had a tremendous influence on cartoonists of the mid-20th Century.  Jack Kirby, Frank Robbins, Johnny Craig, and Doug Wildey all cited Caniff as an influence.  I believe that Noel Sickles was the real creator of the Caniff Style, but with Sickles departure from comics it was Milton Caniff who popularized the look.