Synopses & Reviews
Celebrating the centennial of cartoonist Milton Caniff's birth, IDW Publishing will publish a six-book series, collecting the entirety of Caniff's groundbreaking newspaper adventure strip
Terry and the Pirates. The Sunday pages will be reproduced in their original color, alongside the daily black-and-white strips.
Volume One contains more than 800 consecutive strips, from the series' beginning in October 1934 through the end of 1936.
Review
"It's historically the first, and for my money, greatest example of what we do. The evolution of what Caniff did with Terry in his first year is unbelievable. It's pure core storytelling." Howard Chaykin, from the Introduction
Review
"[A]rguably the greatest of all adventure strips....Discover the strip for yourself in volume one of The Complete Terry and the Pirates: 19341936, which takes Terry from its slightly shaky start in 1934...to close to full maturity in 1936, by which time Caniff's rich gift for chiaroscuro has come into play..." The Washington Post
Review
"Caniff's work is notable for its reliance on character instead of plot to dictate the action....Terry also was notable for its art work, which was rarely anything less than sumptuous....[R]eading Terry today, despite its dated references and cultural attitudes, it's hard not to be awed by Caniff's abilities as a storyteller and artist. He was that good." Harrisburg Patriot News (Pennsylvania)
Synopsis
Terry and the Pirates debuted on October 22, 1934. For the next twelve years, Terry would weave a spell of exotic adventure, sex appeal, and humor as its creator, Milton Caniff, became the consummate storyteller who forevermore would be known as -The Rembrandt of the Comic Strip.- No cartoonist has so heavily influenced his medium as has Milton Caniff, and no comic strip has had more imitators than Terry and the Pirates.
The Sunday pages are reproduced in their original color, alongside the daily black-and-white strips. Volume One contains more than 800 consecutive strips, from the series' beginning in October 1934 through the end of 1936. This extraordinary graphic narrative introduces Terry Lee, Pat Ryan, their sidekick Connie, and an array of unforgettable brigands such as Captains Judas and Blaze, and the two toughest women to ever sail on the China Seas: the alluring Burma and the inimitable Dragon Lady.
WINNER OF THE 2011 EISNER AWARD for BEST ARCHIVAL COMIC STRIP COLLECTION
Synopsis
Celebrating the centennial of Milton Caniff's birth, IDW Publishing will publish a fully authorized six-book series collecting the entirety of Caniff's groundbreaking newspaper adventure strip
Terry and the Pirates. The Sunday pages will be reproduced in their original color, alongside the daily black-and-white strips.
No cartoonist has so heavily influenced his medium as has Milton Caniff, and no comic strip has had more imitators than Terry and the Pirates. He is considered the great American novelist of the comics medium.
"In Terry and the Pirates," wrote Jerry Robinson in The Comics, "all the storytelling techniques of the adventure strip fused and a classic style emerged. Caniff developed and integrated the narrative and its visual expression into a uniform aesthetic balance." Jules Feiffer noted, "Before Caniff introduced the Dragon Lady to Pat Ryan, before Burma and Raven Sherman and Normandie Drake fell for our hero, there was not a hint of sex to be found in the American newspaper strip. Caniff changed all that."
Terry and the Pirates provided the vehicle for Caniff's maturation both as an artist and as a storyteller. He set the strip in exotic China, where historic events then occurring in the region during the 1930s provided the raw material from which he blended fantasy and reality to create an extraordinary graphic narrative. Howard Chaykin, who has written the introduction to Volume One, says, "It's historically the first, and for my money, greatest example of what we do. The evolution of what Caniff did with Terry in his first year is unbelievable. It's pure core storytelling."
The story introduces young Terry Lee, his adult pal Pat Ryan, their sidekick Connie, as well as an array of unforgettable brigands such as Captains Judas and Blaze, and the two toughest women to ever sail on the China Seas: the alluring Burma and the inimitable Dragon Lady.
Volume One contains more than 800 consecutive strips, from the series' beginning in October 1934 through the end of 1936. An informed essay provides biographical material, and places Caniff's seminal work in the context of both comic strip history and of the real-world events reflected in the stories.
About the Author
Milton Caniff earned worldwide acclaim at the helm of Terry and the Pirates in the '30s and '40s, but eventually rebelled against his syndicate's editorial oversight and ownership of copyright to his work. Leveraging his global reputation, Caniff launched Steve Canyon in 1947 under his own copyright and syndicated it himself. Canyon ran until 1988.