Milton Caniff's Steve Canyon: 1948 (Steve Canyon Series) (Milton Caniff's Steve Canyon Series)
After abandoning the popular "Terry and the Pirates" strip in 1946, Caniff launched "Steve Canyon," a similarly red-blooded series featuring a globetrotting pilot who specialized in dangerous assignments in far-flung locales, vanquishing foes and breaking hearts wherever he went. If the new strip lacked its predecessor's romantic exoticism, it still sported the same strengths--high adventure, crackling dialogue, and gorgeous dames--and it showcased Caniff's boldly realistic drawing style and cinematic storytelling techniques. Inaugurating a series, these volumes reprint, from sharp black-and-white proofs, daily and Sunday episodes from the strip's first two years. The stories, taking Canyon from the Middle East to Burma, offer heavy doses of intrigue and derring-do, and largely avoid the jingoism the strip took on a few years later when, reflecting the cold war zeitgeist, Steve joined the air force and battled commies. Even then, Caniff's elan generally overcame the propaganda. Aficionados recognize Caniff as one of the field's most accomplished and influential masters; Checker's affordable reprints allow his talent recognition by a broader audience.Gordon FlaggCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved