Steve Canyon, Daily Strip, June 6, 1949
How big a deal was it when Milton Caniff left Terry and The Pirates to create Steve Canyon, a new comic strip that he would own exclusively?
It made the cover of Time Magazine.
Time, the most important news magazine in the world in the mid-20th century, also featured Gandhi, Princess Elizabeth, Eva Peron, The Shah of Iran and Jackie Robinson on its covers that year.
One of America’s best-loved comic strip creators had declared his independence.
The big newspaper syndicates would no longer control the rights to Caniff’s cartooning.
In the days when star cartoonists were pretty much rock stars (popular comics helped drive newspaper sales), “The Rembrandt of the Comic Strip” was now fully in charge of his own destiny.
It was indeed a big deal.
To this day, when you want to reprint Steve Canyon, or chose to produce some lovely retro Canyon merch., you make a deal with the Caniff estate directly.
Milt Caniff — one of the medium’s greatest creators — leaves behind a legacy of independence that hundreds, if not thousands, of cartoonists and storytellers embrace on an ongoing (and not at all risk-free) basis.
Happy Independence Day.
