and Caniff’s art and storytelling ability lived up to the advance billing. Terry and the Pirates was an instant sensation, and its young creator a celebrity.

Caniff was gregarious and sociable by nature, a stage performer from his high school days, and dealt with his fame with a comfortable bemusement, not reclusive but never succumbing to the glitz and glamour that might keep him from his drawing table.  By 1937, Terry had spread from the newspaper page to NBC radio, and dozens of other licensing deals were being made by the syndicate to maximize revenue from this cash cow. Caniff was not party to these transactions, nor was he compensated for them.  Terry and the Pirates was owned part and parcel by the syndicate, and however well he was paid for the daily production of the hit strip, it would always remain syndicate property once it left his studio. The point was driven home for Caniff in 1940 when he attended a screening of the serial movie rendition of Terry. It was so awful, he couldn’t sit through it.

World War II temporarily put Caniff’s misgivings about Terry on the back burner, as he contributed to the war effort the best way he knew how (he was unfit for service due to a medical condition), with a GI version of Terry and the Pirates, donated to the syndicate servicing the U.S. military.

After a few months, he abandons this project and debuts a new strip for servicemen called Male Call, a racy stag strip featuring a raven-haired minx named Miss Lace. He would produce it faithfully until seven months after V-J Day, finally signing off in March, 1946.