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Cartoonists Celebrate Caniff!

Milton Caniff attended the Ohio State University from the fall of 1925 until he graduated in 1930.  While at OSU, Caniff was a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity, contributing artwork to The Magazine of the Sigma Chi, as well as to The Norman Shield, the fraternity’s pledgeship and reference manual. 

Pledgeship refers to the process in which potential new members pledge themselves to the ideals of the fraternity, fostering a deep commitment to the fraternity.  This clearly worked in Caniff’s case, as he was a lifelong supporter of Sigma Chi, even doing a short testimonial film for the fraternity in the late 1930s:

Caniff was also featured in the fraternity’s magazine from time-to-time over years, accompanied by wonderful cover illustrations and photos.  On at least one occasion, Noel Sickles provided the interior caricatures of Caniff for the accompanying article.  In the February-March 1945 issue of The Magazine of the Sigma Chi, the magazine went all-out, celebrating the 10th anniversary of Caniff’s wonderful Terry and the Pirates comic strip.  A whopping 48 cartoonists contributed full-page specialty cartoons and drawings celebrating Caniff’s achievement.  Curious how Hal Foster would draw Terry?  It’s in there.  Joe Shuster has Superman take Terry on a flight without Terry’s plane.  Interestingly, Noel Sickles did not contribute to this issue.  As far as I know, this is the first time all of these cartoons and drawings have been reprinted.  Without further ado, the images are pictured below in their order of appearance in the magazine. 

Cover of The Magazine of the Sigma Chi, February/March 1945
John McCutcheon, one of Caniff’s cartooning heroes
H.T. Webster, creator of The Timid Soul
Mel Graff and Secret Agent X-9
Frank King, with a drawing of Skeezix and caricature of Caniff
John Striebel’s Dixie Dugan
Walter Berndt’s usually sweet Smitty is not quite so sweet this time around
Harold Gray’s Little Orphan Annie and Sandy have an observation to make
Ernest Hix provides his celebratory drawing in feature format
Fontaine Fox brings many Toonerville Folks to the celebration
Gus Edson and Andy Gump
Dale Messick draws Brenda Starr and many of Caniff’s characters
Gus Arriola has some fun playing with the names of Caniff’s characters
Wally Carlson brings the risque to the drawing board
Raeburn Van Buren’s Abbie and Slats
A wonderful contribution from George Clark
Hal Foster’s take on Terry
Zack Mosley’s Smilin’ Jack, from one flier to another
Lank Leonard joins in the celebration
A wonderful image of Mr. O’Malley from Crockett Johnson’s Barnaby
Harold Knerr and the Katzies visit Terry
Pete the Tramp and CD Russell have some kind words for Caniff
A very rare specialty drawing by WE Hill, the first I’ve ever seen
FO Alexander brings his editorial cartooning chops to the celebration
George Baker’s Sad Sack. One WWII icon meets another
Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel make sure the celebration is a super one
Clarence Gray has Brick Bradford jump out of his strip. Notice the nod to Burma
Frank Engli, one of Caniff’s assistants, joins the party
Harold Teen and Shadow, along with Carl Ed, join the festivities
Tom Saunders congratulates a fellow fraternity brother
Al Posen adds his congratulations from the cast of Sweeney & Son
Lee Stanley offers an “interesting” contribution to the festivities
Jimmy Murphy adds his congrats from Toots and Casper
Leonard Sansone and his WWII character The Wolf came to the party
Alfred Andriola, a Caniff admirer and assistant, also joined in the fun with Kerry Drake
Chic Young offers his standard drawing of Blondie, while Hilda Terry creates a lovely specialty drawing of Teena
A stellar contribution by Bill Holman of Smokey Stover, Chief Cash U. Nutt and Spooky
Fellow Chicago Tribune cartoonist Ferd Johnson brings Dirty and Slim along
Dow Walling and Skeets add their best wishes to Caniff
The wonderful Edwina Dumm adds her narrative congrats to Caniff
Paul Plaschke and his little character add to the well wishes
A striking example from editorial cartoonist Jacob Burck
Art Huhta’s screwball characters chime in
Chicago-area cartoonist RC Dell brought a whole gang along to the party
George Lichty has a hilarious take on Pat and Terry’s golden years
Pin-up artist George Petty stopped by the party as well
Caniff’s longtime assistant Ray Bailey rounds out the well wishers

I welcome folks downloading these images. It took quite a bit of time to scan and clean up the images, so if you decide to share them, I would greatly appreciate a link back to this blog, or at least a mention of the blog.

I did not intend on the last two blog posts to be about Caniff, but when good material shows up, it’s time to act. Don’t be surprised if there is a third Caniff post in the works! Thanks for reading and take care.

Rob Stolzer has been collecting original comic strip and cartoon artwork for over 40 years. He has written numerous articles for Hogan's Alley, the CFA-APA and other journals. Stolzer taught art at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point for 33 years, where he taught Art Seminar, Drawing, Figure Drawing, Graphic Narration, Illustration, and Painting courses.

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