Milton Caniff's Steve Canyon: 1947 (Steve Canyon Series) (Milton Caniff's Steve Canyon Series) [Paperback]

Milton Caniff (Author)

Book Description

Series: Milton Caniff's Steve Canyon Series | Publication Date: October 1, 2004

The entire first year of the great Milton Caniff's landmark action and adventure strip featuring all-American flyboy Steve Canyon. Contain four stories which mark the beginning of a forth-year run in the pages of newspapers throughout the world. Contains Copperhead, Delta, Easter's Oil and Jewels of Africa

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Any reader interested in graphic storytelling would do well to pick up this collection of all the daily and Sunday installments from the first year of Caniff's legendary adventure comic strip. After developing his skills as a writer and artist on Dickie Dare and Terry and the Pirates, which were owned and controlled by big syndicates, Caniff launched Steve Canyon right after WWII to show what he could do solo. The eponymous strapping blond hero is a an ex-Air Force pilot who just wants to start an independent air freight company along with some fellow vets, but it seems that every business contract leads to a romantic adventure in an exotic locale. These first few episodes show Caniff finding his way as the strip's sole proprietor, with an overabundance of quirky supporting characters at the beginning before salty old Happy Easter becomes Steve's permanent sidekick. Still, even from the strip's start, Caniff was at the top of his storytelling form. The dialogue is top-grade snappy patter, the pacing gripping, and the lush brush-and-ink washes are marvelous. Caniff knew how to move the reader's eye from panel to panel, moving, for example, from long shots to close-ups (in fact, Steve Canyon has more cinematic technique than many movies). Alas, the publishers have had to squeeze the strips into less space than they were intended to fill, which means less fine detail. At 6" x 11.5", the dailies are almost as small as today's papers' dreadfully cramped strips. This makes the book both tantalizing and frustrating to read, but it is nevertheless an essential work.
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Review

Surprisingly insightful and character driven, the plots serve to put the characters through interesting challenges. But the emphasis is on personalities and relationships, which is probably why the strip connected with an international audience every day for almost half a century. Prof. Challenger --Ain't It Cool News

There are wordless fight sequences and car chases; gorgeous, high-kicking, high-cheek-boned femme fatales; the use of montage and other cinematic effects. Paul Kane --Compulsive Reader

Any reader interested in graphic storytelling would do well to pick up this collection of all the daily and Sunday installments from the first year of Caniff's legendary adventure comic strip. --Publishers Weekly

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Product Details

• Paperback: 148 pages
• Publisher: Checker Book Publishing Group (October 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0971024995
• ISBN-13: 978-0971024991
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 6.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,093,931 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Steve Canyon was a classic strip, August 22, 2005

By 

Frederick Norwood "Rick Norwood" (Mountain Home, TN USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Milton Caniff's Steve Canyon: 1947 (Steve Canyon Series) (Milton Caniff's Steve Canyon Series) (Paperback)

Milton Caniff left Terry and the Pirates to create his own comic strip, Steve Canyon, and these early adventures are some of his greatest work.

All but a few years of Steve Canyon have already been reprinted, by Kitchen Sink, in the Menomonee Falls Gazette, in Comics Revue monthly, and in Carl Horak's Caniffites, but it is good to have the beginning of the strip back in print from Checker Books. Until his support of American troops in Vietnam lost him many of his readers, Milton Caniff was one of the most popular cartoonists in the world. His snappy dialog and interesting characters, especially his female characters, make his strips well worth seeking out.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Caniff was such a master!, May 13, 2006

By 

Samuel B. White "Tuttle" (Lawton, OK) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Milton Caniff's Steve Canyon: 1947 (Steve Canyon Series) (Milton Caniff's Steve Canyon Series) (Paperback)

For years, I have been more familiar with Caniff's "Terry & the Pirates" than with "Steve Canyon". Having bought this volume, though, I can't wait to get more. Milt knew how to tell a story and was an incredible artist. As a cartoonist myself (I draw the strip "Tuttle's") I am envious of the freedom Caniff had. Not just in space, but that he was apparently given more than a month at the beginning just to establish the characters. Now, if a strip hasn't grabbed the readers by day 2 (it seems) it's gone.

I want to give praise to the publishers of this book, too: Checkers. Some reprints of cartoons lately have gone to such lengths to present the strips in a large format that the cost of the volumes became prohibitive. Especially for people who aren't comicphiles. Checker has done a great job of presenting the cartoons in a crisp print that's readable and affordable. I can't want to get more editions!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A hard copy of the late forties, December 7, 2006

By 

John Bleau (Quebec, QC Canada) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Milton Caniff's Steve Canyon: 1947 (Steve Canyon Series) (Milton Caniff's Steve Canyon Series) (Paperback)

As a paperboy in the sixties, I was always fascinated by the adventure strips in the newspapers I delivered, but unfortunately I only managed to read them sporadically and missed their continuity. It was also the time of their decline and today, the adventure strip is not what it was in its heyday during the previous decades and has largely disappeared. I often wished I could revisit those times. A number of high-quality reproductions have recently come out, restoring these great strips, and it is now time for me to delve. Since there is much agreement that the giant among the adventure strip artists was Milton Caniff, I gave the 1947 Steve Canyon a try.

The post-war years had their special appeal, reflected in the visual arts - and especially Hollywood, with its Lauren Bacalls, Bette Davises, Katharine Hepburns, Agnes Mooreheads, Joan Crawfords, and scores of other individuals and femmes fatales, and the leading men of the time, and secondary characters and sidekicks - there is something about the visual style of the people, cars, planes, design and architecture of the time that is very pleasing. The look of those times is stunningly captured in Caniff's panels, little chiaroscuro masterpieces (Caniff was called the Rembrandt of cartooning), with the artist's own stable of femmes fatales, villains and supporting characters issuing from his imagination, complemented by gripping plots.

This Checker restoration is well-bound and well-printed on glossy paper, and the art comes through in delicious detail, though it is admittedly a little small, due to the need to fit enough of it on each page. The panels are all beautiful and some are masterpieces so detailed that it is worth looking at them with a magnifying glass. The balloons are very wordy, however, and crowd the art. The pacing and imaginativeness of the adventures is superb. There is more depth to the stories than one would find in any of the superhero comics past or present (possibly a very few exceptions nowadays). You will find strategy and planning, tactical execution to get out of situations, technical knowledge, plot twists, and very little deus ex machina. The femme fatales have distinct personalities; Caniff did not get them all from the same mould.

Obviously, one does not discuss matters of taste, but if the chiaroscuro renderings of a very special era by a recognized master appeals to you, then by all means get this hard copy of the late forties.