“I found another footlocker,” Bill Chadbourne wrote to us a few months ago – then a few weeks after that, the friendly UPS driver dropped off a big box of fascinating artifacts from that footlocker. We were so delighted with the contents we decided to showcase a portion of it now, as part of our occasional series devoted to items from our longtime Friend of LOAC’s personal collection, even though we haven’t yet finished offering examples of all the items Chad previously delivered. With the final volumes in our Terry and the Pirates: The Master Collection moving ever closer to release, this seemed a perfect time to share new Caniffana from Chad.
“School for Spies,” our Steve Canyon volume reprinting that series’ 1959-60 strips, contained Chad’s reminiscences about how, as an Airman First Class stationed in Tokyo, he and his friend, Sergeant Bob Fisher, met Milton Caniff and his wife Esther (“Bunny”) during their first vacation in the Far East.
In the book Chad gave us a first-hand account of the quartet’s meeting over dinner at the Imperial Hotel, followed by a tour of the Ginza conducted by Chad and Bob, then a post-tour visit in the Caniff’s hotel room, where Milt broke out the tools of his trade. Page 18 features a pair of photographs taken during that visit; here are three more snapshots taken while Caniff was drawing Steve Canyon for what would become an image of Colonel Canyon meeting Captain Comet, Chad’s character who starred in his base newspaper (also known as The Comet). Click each image throughout for an isolated view of each photo:
Comet coverage of the Caniffs’ visit appeared in mid-spring of 1960. Chad and Bob shipped several copies to Milton, who sent a letter of acknowledgement their way in early June …
… Followed quickly by another letter noting receipt of additional material, including the photos seen above and in “School for Spies”:
In addition to the photos and letters shown above, Chad sent us a pair of pieces he eventually acquired representing the many spot illos the Rembrandt of the Comic Strip delivered in support of U.S. military initiatives. Below are two of them – first, a 1959 team-up between Steve Canyon and Miss Lace to honor The Air Reservist magazine – note the scowling Poteet Canyon in the background, dressed in her Civil Air Patrol uniform from a late-1957 continuity …
… Then one of the stock Canyon images Caniff customized for a variety of purposes, in this case a tribute to the Exchange Service that made possible military base PXes:
Finally, as a reminder of Bill Chadbourne’s talents as a cartoonist, here’s a single-panel cartoon he sent to us that cracked us up:
The “big-screen TV” idea that serves as the linchpin of the gag was well ahead of its time. (Move over, Nostradamus!)
We hope you enjoyed seeing fresh Caniff material as much as we did – and previous installments of The Chadbourne Dossier can be found here: # 1, # 2, # 3, # 4, # 5, # 6, # 7, # 8, # 9, # 10, and # 11.
