Word: caniff
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Patterson stalked out to her office, stared coldly at Caniff and asked: "Ever do anything on the Orient?" Caniff hadn't. "You know," Joe Patterson mused, "adventure can still happen out there. There could be a beautiful lady pirate, the kind men fall for. . . ." In a few days Caniff was back with samples and 50 proposed titles; Patterson circled "Terry" and scribbled beside it "and the Pirates...
...tips on the horses-and compelling, habit-forming comics. Most of the strips that helped his lusty tabloid grow were named by him (Dick Tracy, Orphan Annie, Moon Muttins, etc.), often after a thoughtful thumbing of the telephone book. All the artists felt his sensitive, shrewd touch. From Caniff he wanted adventure, suspense, and pretty women...
Keep It Crisp. "I didn't know how to draw women at first," Caniff, admittedly no anatomist, recalls. "Women are always harder to draw than men. And there's the nudity problem . . . you just have to know how much is in good taste. Once in a while, if I hadn't had a good-looking babe in the strip for a while, Patterson would send me a note saying how about bringing in the Dragon Lady or some other chick. And he used to hate it when the balloons were too long. ... I didn't agree...
...times Caniff ever preached to his readers was when he had Terry Lee win his wings in China. Terry and the readers got a long, stern graduation speech from his commander Flip Corkin on courage, skill and honor among airmen. That Sunday page was read into the Congressional Record. An aide showed it to Patterson, who growled: "Who does Caniff think he is, Robert Emmet Sherwood?" ("He had to go and name a playwright I admire," says Caniff.) Once Caniff, excited by the morale value of his strip, suggested that the Daily News be sent free to remote post exchanges...
...Caniff seldom heard more than querulous peeps out of Colonel Bertie McCormick's Chicago end of the Tribune-Daily News axis. Sample: early in 1941 he was informed that Colonel McCormick "objects to Defense Bond stamps being used in the comics, so will you please refrain from using them." And once McCormick and Patterson, reading Terry together, came to a sequence where the lissome Burma was carrying on with a German named Keel. "Why," said the Colonel, turning to his cousin in alarm: "Burma is living with that...