Finally, in the year 2440, a spaceship unearths the wreck, and its pilots restore Buck and Buddy to consciousness.

This abridgement of Universal's 12-episode serial Buck Rogers stars Buster Crabbe as Dick Calkins' famed comic-strip space adventurer. Buck and Buddy (Jackie Moran) and are recruited to battle against modernistic gangster Killer Kane (Anthony Warde), by Wilma Deering (Constance Moore) and Dr. Huer (C. Montague Shaw). The duo travels to Saturn to get help in their mission, and after Buck and Buddy quell the internal struggles of the Saturnians, Buck triumphs over Killer Kane and his cosmic thugs.

Planet Outlaws Feature link: youtu.be/UD3xKy42KUY

 

Link to all 12 Serial Episodes:

 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTtc-u3zFGk&feature=share&amp...

 

Starring Buster Crabbe, Constance Moore, Jackie Moran, Jack Mulhall, Anthony Warde, C. Montague Shaw, Guy Usher, William Gould, Philson Ahn. Directed by Ford Beebe, Saul A. Goodkind.

Buck Rogers and Buddy Wade are in the middle of a trans-polar dirigible flight when they are caught in a blizzard and crash. Buddy then releases a special gas to keep them in suspended animation until a rescue party can arrive. However, an avalanche covers the craft and the two are in suspended animation for 500 years. When they are found, they awake to find out that the world has been taken over by the outlaw army of Killer Kane. Along with Lieutenant Wilma Deering, Buck and Buddy join in the fight to overthrow Kane and with the help of Prince Tallen of Saturn and his forces, they eventually do and Earth is free of Kane's grip.

 

This is actually a pretty enjoyable serial, but it seems doomed to be forever overshadowed by the much superior Flash Gordon trilogy. Universal brought BUCK ROGERS out in 1939, in between their own chapterplays FLASH GORDON'S TRIP TO MARS and FLASH GORDON CONQUERS THE UNIVERSE; it also starred Buster Crabbe (but with his natural dark hair instead of Flash's golden curls) and although it is filled with space ships and weird gadgets, BUCK ROGERS lacks most of the elements that gave the Flash serials their intense emotional draw.

 

For one thing, there is none of the strong sexual charge that the Flash series had. Instead of nubile Dale Arden and sultry Princess Aura both competing for the hero's attention while the villain openly lusted for the heroine, Buck's epic featured Constance Moore as Col. Wilma Deering. Now, Moore is perfectly fine in her role, but she is after all a soldier in the resistance army and not a fair damsel in distress. She has a nice moment when she wrests a ray gun away from a guard and blasts her way out of her cell, but she and Buck seem to be merely chums on the same side.

 

Also, although BUCK ROGERS has plenty of futuristic gadgets (rayguns and buzzing spaceships which shoot sparks from their backs, teleportation tubes and invisibility rays), there are no grotesque monsters or nonhuman alien races on view. Prisoners have remarkably goofy metal helmets strapped on which turn them into docile zombies, and there are these homely goons called Zuggs moping around, but that's hardly as fascinating as Lion Men and Clay People and horned apes (that Orangapoid critter).

 

What's ironic about all this is that the comic strip BUCK ROGERS by Philip Nolan and Richard Calkins started in 1929, was immensely popular for many years and it success inspired the creation of Flash. Yet the Flash strip benefitted from the genius of Alex Raymond, one of the all-time great cartoon artists, and it produced stunning visual images (from the samples of Buck's strip I've seen, it was imaginative enough but pretty crude and drab). This contrast carried over to the serials.

 

Buck Rogers and his sidekick Buddy Wade (Jackie Moran) are pilots who crash in the Arctic in1938 and survive for 500 years because the 'Nirvano' gas they were carrying put them in a state of suspended animation. They both seem to adapt to waking up in the year 2424 pretty well, where I would think most people would be so traumatized it would take a while to adjust. In this dystopic future, the Earth is ruled by a mega-gangster called Killer Kane (another setback; Anthony Warde would be okay as a crimelord but he just doesn't have the imposing presence to convince me this guy can dominate an entire planet).

 

Luckily, Buck and Buddy have been found by the small resistance movement hopelessly trying to overthrow Kane from their hidden city. Here is Dr Huer (C. Montague Shaw, who I just saw in the UNDERSEA KINGDOM doing the same gig with his wild inventions) and Wilma Deering leading the good fight. For some reason I missed, everyone immediately puts all their trust in Buck and he pretty much takes over. (Maybe he's just one of those charismatic alpha males or something.) Most of the serial involves desperate trips back and forth to Saturn to enlist the aid of the isolationist Saturnians, and this means running the blockade of Kane's ships. The usual fistfights and explosions and captures and escapes normal for this sort of situation ensue. It's a lot of fun if you take it on its own terms, with a strong linear plot and likeable heroes, but it really never kicks into high gear and seems a bit drab.

 

It's interesting that some (but not all) of the Saturnians are played by Asian actors. Prince Tallen, who gets caught up in most of the fun, was portrayed by a very young Philson Ahn, and I thought for years this was the same guy who in 1972 impressed us as the head of the Shaolin Temple in TV's KUNG FU (he taught all the styles, really amazing if you think about it). Turns out that was Phiip Ahn, Philson's brother.

 

Dir: Ford Beebe and Saul A. Goodkind - 12 Chapters

 

BUCK ROGERS (1939): Director Ford Beebe, who also worked on Flash Gordon (1938), came straight from The Phantom Creeps (1939) and then went back to finish Flash Gordon Conquers The Universe (1940). Buck Rogers stars Buster Crabbe or, as his family knew him, Lawrence. Now, Lawrence ‘Larry’ ‘Buster’ Crabbe had previously starred in two Flash Gordon serials, a couple of Tarzan movies and a long string of westerns, so it was only natural for Universal to decide he was perfect as the heroic Buck Rogers, aka that blonde guy who saves the universe but isn’t Flash Gordon. Actually, Buster Crabbe wasn’t the first actor to play Buck Rogers in-the-flesh, so to speak.

That honour goes to an unknown man who played Buck in a Virginia department store, instead of their regular Santa Claus. Santa was off conquering Martians at the time, I think it was an exchange program of sorts. It strikes me that Buck Rogers is not unlike a male fantasy come to life. Just think of it – Buck gets to take a nice five-hundred-year-long sleep-in. With my busy schedule, I’m ecstatic if I can get twenty minutes nap on the weekend. Then, when he wakes up, Buck is the smartest, most dynamic guy around. In reality he’d be treated like something that’s escaped from the zoo. And finally, everyone needs Buck to go on exciting missions, fight the bad guys, test exotic equipment and crash rocket ships – out of the half-dozen flights Buck makes, he only lands successfully once. It’s easy to see the bullet cars used in the movie are the same ones from Flash Gordon’s Trip To Mars (1938), and even the script is rather suspect.

Planet Outlaws

This film is actually a compilation of the Buck Rogers serials that ran originally in 1939. The cliffhanger endings and recap beginnings have been edited out to make it flow better -- with partial success. Some new footage was shot for the introduction and summary. At the opening, there are some newspaper headlines about jets chasing flying discs, and the obligatory checkered V2 launch, etc. to add a modern segue. After that, it's pure 1939.

Sci-fi movie technology had come a long way in the 14 years since Buck's debut. Audiences had grown accustomed to sleek and pointy rockets, flying saucers, strange aliens, etc. The Buck Rogers style world-of-the-future must have looked oddly quaint. (if not laughable) Just why Universal Pictures thought re-releasing Buck Rogers was a good idea is a bit of a mystery. Kids who were 8 or so back in 1939 would be young adults in '53. Perhaps Universal was banking on those young adults would buy tickets for a trip down memory lane.

Plot Synopsis

After a bit of modern ('53) footage about the wonders of modern progress and "flying disks," the old serial begins. Rogers and Buddy crashed in the arctic while on a transpolar flight. They were in suspended animation due to the cold and a vague gas. A patrol finds them in the year 2500 and revives them. In the world of 2500, a despot named Killer Kane is trying to take over the world. The forces of good are holed up in the "hidden city." Buck arranges a decoy maneuver to elude Kane's patrol ships. They fly to the planet Saturn in hopes of finding help. On Saturn, the Council sees Rogers and party as the rebels, and Kane as the rule of law. Rogers et al, escape Saturn, return to earth and seek to disrupt Kane's bamboozling of Prince Tallen, the Saturnian representative. Rogers sneaks into Kane's city, interrupts the treaty signing and convinces Tallen of Kane's evil by revealing Kane's "robot battalion" (slaves wearing mind-control helmets). Rogers and Tallen get to Saturn and the treaty is signed. Rogers escapes Kane's patrols via the Dissolvo Ray which rendered them invisible. Rogers and the war council plan for war. Rogers enlists the Saturnians to help. Meanwhile, Rogers sneaks into Kane's city and de-zombies Minister Krenco to lead an uprising of freed robot-slave-prisoners. Rogers storms Kane's palace and puts one of the robo-slave helmets on Kane. The End

The industrial vision of the future is delightful to watch. The heavily mechanical look of everything is so radically different from the sleek rockets and glowing acrylic audiences were growing accustomed to. The space ships look like they were built at locomotive factories or steamship yards. They spew roman-candle sparks and smoke and buzz as they fly. There are no computers, no radar or electronics. It's a fascinating snapshot of what pre-electronic-age people thought the future would be like.

When originally released in 1939, the Killer Kane character was a thinly disguised allusion to Hitler. In 1953, Kane was intended to represent a communist despot. It wasn't as tidy a fit. The narrator sums it up voicing a hope that scientists will develop the means for men to stand up to today's dictators and make the world safe for democracy. In the early 50s, there's little question of who they meant.

Simple Colors -- One endearing trait of Buck Rogers is the simplicity of the characterizations. The good guys do nothing but good. The bad guys are pure bad. The good guys are crack pilots and sharp shooters and tough as nails. The bad guys do nothing but bad, have trouble hitting a flying barn and are easily knocked out with one punch.

Industrial Baroque -- Somewhat like the baroque era's compulsion to decorate every square inch with swirls and filigree, Industrial Baroque sought to fill every space with heavy-duty hardware. The sets, and especially the rocket interiors are like flying boiler rooms. Valves, pipes, levers, dials, wheels, large flashing light bulbs. To look more "high tech" in the 30s meant cramming in more industrial hardware. Buck Rogers' ships show more affinity for Captain Nemo "steampunk" than the proto-space-age of the 50s.

Family Resemblance -- There is a noticeable similarity in the sets and costumes of Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers. Even serials of the early 50s, like Captain Video and the various Rocketman serials, look more like Flash and Buck than George Pal. The industrial baroque look and costuming are distinctive, making them almost a sub-genre of their own. In that regard, Buck has a timelessness.

Another take on the story and additional background info.

A round-the-world dirigible flight commanded by US Air Force officer Buck Rogers (Buster Crabbe) encounters dangerously stormy weather above the Himalayas; said weather, along with disastrous panic on the part of Rogers’ crewmen, causes the aircraft to crash. The cowardly crewmen ditch the ship and meet quick ends, but Rogers and young Buddy Wade (Jackie Moran), son of the aircraft’s designer, survive the crash. The pair use a cylinder of “Nirvano” gas to place themselves into suspended animation until a rescue party can reach them, but an avalanche buries the ship and all searches prove fruitless; the dirigible and its two dormant inhabitants remain beneath rocks and snow for five hundred years.

Finally, in the year 2440, a spaceship unearths the wreck, and its pilots restore Buck and Buddy to consciousness. The holdovers from the 20th century soon learn that their rescuers are soldiers from the “Hidden City,” a pocket of resistance to the super-criminal who is ruling the 24th-century Earth–one “Killer” Kane (Anthony Warde). Rogers immediately pledges his support to Air Marshal Kragg (William Gould) and Scientist-General Dr. Huer (C. Montague Shaw), the leaders of the Hidden City exiles, and is soon en route to Saturn, hoping to convince that planet’s rulers to aid the Hidden City in freeing the Earth from Kane’s tyranny. To cement the Saturian alliance, Buck must battle Kane’s legions at every step of the way, with able assistance from Buddy and from Dr. Huer’s trusted aide Lieutenant Wilma Deering (Constance Moore).

 

Ever since its original release, Buck Rogers has stood in the shadow of Universal’s Flash Gordon serials; the studio encouraged such association by casting Flash Gordon star Buster Crabbe as a different sci-fi hero, obviously hoping that the chapterplay would capitalize on the goodwill generated by Flash Gordon and Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars. The serial did succeed in reminding audiences of the Flash outings–but it reminded them of how much they had liked those serials and forced inevitable comparisons that were not in Rogers’ favor. Universal’s plans for a second Buck Rogers serial were quickly scrapped when the first outing failed to please matinee audiences; the intended Buck sequel was then replaced on the studio’s production schedule by–what else?–a third Flash Gordon chapterplay. Even today, Buck is typically dismissed by fans as a pale echo of the great Gordon serials.

It’s easy to see why Buck Rogers came as a disappointment to audiences expecting an outing in the Flash Gordon tradition. Its production design, while futuristic, is less quirky and more uniform than that of the Gordons; there are no monsters and no weird semi-human races besides the rather uninteresting Zuggs; there are also no supporting characters as developed or as interesting as Dr. Zarkov, Ming, King Vultan, the Clay King, Princess Aura, Prince Barin, and other major figures in the Flash Gordon chapterplays. And yet, taken on its own terms, Buck Rogers is far from a failure; it does not approach the Flash Gordon trilogy in quality, but then few serials do.

Buck Rogers’ script, by former Mascot writers Norman Hall and Ray Trampe, is fast-moving and manages to avoid repetition for most of its length. The trip to Saturn, the attempts to convince Saturnian leader Prince Tallen (Philson Ahn) of the justice of the Hidden City’s cause, the subsequent rescue of Tallen from Kane’s city, the second journey to Saturn to cement the alliance, and the attempts of Kane’s henchman Laska (Henry Brandon) to sabotage it–all these incidents keep the narrative flowing very nicely for the serial’s first eight chapters. As in many of Trampe and Hall’s Mascot scripts, however, the writers seem to run out of plot before the serial’s end. While Chapters Nine and Ten remain interesting (with Buck being converted into a hypnotized robot, Buddy’s rescue of the hero, and an infiltration of the Hidden City by one of Kane’s men), the last two chapters have a definite wheel-spinning feel to them, throwing in a redundant third trip to Saturn and an unneeded flashback sequence.

The last-chapter climax is also something of a disappointment, with Kane being overthrown quickly and undramatically instead of being definitively crushed. Here, Trampe and Hall seem to have been leaving room for the sequel that never came and trying to avoid duplicating the dramatic but very final destruction of MIng which closed the first Flash Gordon serial (and which needed to be explained away in the second). The other weak spot of the scripting is Buck and Buddy’s rather calm reaction when they realize that their old world (and everyone in it) is dead–and their extraordinarily quick adjustment to their new one. One wouldn’t have wanted the writers to dwell on our heroes’ plight (which would be absolutely crushing in real life), but I do wish Trampe or Hall could have given Buck and Buddy a few emotional lines about their displacement before getting on to the main action; Hall in his scripts for other serials (Hawk of the Wilderness, Adventures of Red Ryder), showed himself capable of far more dramatic moments.

  

As already mentioned, the serial’s visuals are less varied than those of the Flash Gordon serials, but that’s not to say they aren’t impressive by serial standards. Pains seem to have been taken to avoid duplicating too much of Gordon’s “look;” the spaceship miniatures are completely different than the ships in the Gordon trilogy, while Kane’s stronghold–probably the best miniature in the serial–is not the quasi-Gothic palace of Ming but rather an ominous, futuristic-looking version of New York City, complete with towering skyscrapers. The Hidden City’s great rock gates are also nifty, and the massive Saturnian Forum (a life-size set, not a miniature) is very visually impressive. The barren Red Rock Canyon area works well as the Saturnian landscape, but I think it was a mistake to also use the Canyon as the area between the Hidden City and Kane’s capital; Saturn and Earth shouldn’t look so similar.

 

The only major prop or set reused from the Gordon serials are the “bullet cars” from Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars; they’re just as fun to watch in action here as in the earlier serial. Other incidental props and sets–Kane’s robot room, his mind-control helmets, the various televiewing devices, the anti-gravity belts, Dr. Huer’s invisibility ray, and the Star-Trek-like molecular transportation chamber–add further colorful touches to the serial., and are respectably represented by Universal’s always above-average array of sets and props. The Zuggs, the “primitive race” ruled by the Saturnians, are somewhat disappointing, however; while suitably grotesque-looking, they’re nowhere near as menacing or memorable–in appearance or demeanor–as their obvious inspiration, the Clay People in Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars.

The serial’s action scenes are brisk and energetic, suffering not at all from a general lack of fistfights–thanks to the swift-moving direction of Ford Beebe (a Mascot veteran like writers Trampe and Hall) and his co-director Saul Goodkind (usually an editor). The few hand-to-hand tussles–most of them on the rocky hills of Saturn–are executed routinely but skillfully by Dave Sharpe, Tom Steele, Eddie Parker, and other stuntmen; the best of the bunch is the fight between Buck and a Kane man in the control room of the Hidden City, although this is more exciting for the suspenseful situation (Buck trying to close the gates that the henchman has opened to Kane’s oncoming armada) than for any particular flair in the staging.

Most of the action sequences consist of protracted chases and pursuits (both on foot and in rocketships), with occasional quick combats thrown in. Many of these lengthy chases are very exciting–particularly the long incursion into Kane’s city that occupies most of Chapters Three and Four, a great combination of action and suspense. Buddy’s later stealthy visit into Kane’s fortress to rescue Buck from the robot room, and the following escape, is also good, as are Buck’s skillful and repeated elusions of the rebellious Zuggs in Chapter Eight and the bullet car getaway in Chapter Six.

  

The cliffhanger endings are generally well-staged, with proper build-ups, but too many of them involve spaceship crashes that our heroes rather implausibly live through. The impressive collapsing forum at the end of Chapter Eleven and the bullet car crash at the end of Chapter Six provide nice variety amid the spaceship wrecks, but (alas) are also resolved by mere survival. Still, this is preferable to the blatantly cheating resolution of what is otherwise one the best chapter endings–Killer Kane’s pursuit of Buddy in a darkened council chamber and his apparently lethal zapping of the young hero. At least the resolution features a good stunt bit by Dave Sharpe.

The leading performances in Buck Rogers are all excellent (although most other critics would make a single exception; see below). Buster Crabbe, as always, makes a perfect serial hero–both genially cheerful and grimly serious, unassumingly polite and aggressively tough. As in the Flash Gordon trilogy, his down-to-earth attitude also helps to make the wild sci-fi happenings seem perfectly normal.

Jackie Moran (oddly “reduced” to serial acting only a year after playing Huck Finn in David O. Selznick’s big-budget classic Adventures of Tom Sawyer) does a fine job as Buddy Wade, handling his character’s frequent “golly, gee-whiz” lines in a low-key fashion that keeps Buddy from coming off as too naïve; his chipper but calm demeanor complements Crabbe’s well, and he has no problems carrying an entire chapter and part of another on his own.

Constance Moore, despite being saddled with perhaps the most unflattering costume ever worn by a serial leading lady (basically coveralls and a bathing cap), manages to come off as charming. Her Wilma Deering is self-possessed and capable-seeming but never too coldly efficient; she remains warmly likable even when piloting spaceships or explaining technology to Crabbe.

Henry Brandon is very good as Killer Kane’s chief henchman Captain Laska–suave and sly when acting as Kane’s ambassador to Saturn, haughtily arrogant when threatening people, and nervously jittery in the presence of his overbearing leader. Hard-bitten tough guys Wheeler Oakman and Reed Howes, along with the slicker Carleton Young , form Brandon’s backup squad.

As Killer Kane himself, perennial henchman actor Anthony Warde has been almost universally panned by critics as “miscast.” I have to dissent strongly, however; Warde does a fine job in the part and plays Kane with a memorable combination of viciousness and uncontrollable anger. The character is not a diabolical schemer like Ming, but rather a super-gangster who’s blasted and bullied his way to the top–and Warde’s bad-tempered, aggressive, and thuggish screen personality fits the part perfectly. He veers between intimidating ranting and harshly sinister sarcasm–as when he describes himself as a “kindly ruler” just after wrathfully sending a formerly trusted councilor to the robot room–but is quite menacing in both aspects.

Philson Ahn, brother of frequent serial and feature actor Phillip Ahn, does a good job as Prince Tallen of Saturn; he possesses his sibling’s deep and distinctive voice, which serves him well as a planetary dignitary. His manner also has a slightly tougher edge to it than his refined brother’s, which helps to keep the viewer in uncertainty in the earlier chapters as to whether Tallen will turn out to be friend or foe. Guy Usher plays Aldar, the head of Saturn’s ”Council of the Wise,” and does his best to seem suitably imposing and dignified, despite the almost comical way in which the “Wise” continually change their opinions–backing Kane, opposing him, giving into his demands, defying him, etc. Cyril Delevanti is enjoyable as a grumpy subordinate member of the Council.*

C. Montague Shaw has limited screen time, but is very good as Dr. Huer, balancing statesmanlike dignity with shrewdness and a touch of enjoyable scientific eccentricity (the last is particularly noticeable during his demonstration of his invisibility gas in Chapter Five). Energetic Jack Mulhall is typically affable and enthusiastic as Captain Rankin of the Hidden City, while Kenne Duncan has a rare good guy role as Mulhall’s fellow-officer Lieutenant Lacy. Perennial screen “underworld rat” John Harmon also plays against type as a Hidden City soldier, as does Stanley Price as a Hidden City pilot rescued from existence as a human robot. The dignified but stolid William Gould is good enough as Air Marshal Kragg, but I would have preferred a more dynamic actor in the role–Kragg is, after all, the top military leader of Kane’s enemies. Mulhall could have handled it well, as could Wade Boteler–who does an excellent job as the grim and concerned Professor Morgan in the first chapter, intensely instructing Buddy and Buck in the use of the Nirvano gas.

Lane Chandler also appears in the first chapter, as a military officer who demonstrates the Nirvano gas to a reporter played by another old pro, Kenneth Harlan. An unusually subdued Theodore Lorch is one of Kane’s councilors, while Karl Hackett has a good part as another councilor who gets into an argument with Kane that leads to Hackett’s being converted into a human robot (his terrified pleas as he’s dragged out of the council chamber are quite chilling). Al Bridge has some memorably sinister lines (“when this helmet is in place, you’ll never think or speak again”) in his periodic scenes as the slave-master of Kane’s human robots.

Unusually for Universal, several bit roles are filled by stuntmen; Eddie Parker and Tom Steele pop in as various soldiers and officers, but aren’t as noticeable as Dave Sharpe, who’s given multiple speaking roles as a Kane soldier, a Hidden City soldier, a Saturnian officer, and a Saturnian soldier. His ubiquity can get a little distracting at times, particularly since some of his appearances follow right on the previous one’s heels; he also seems to have a bit of trouble with the formal-sounding Saturnian dialogue, coming off as much more stiff and affected than in his co-starring turn in Daredevils of the Red Circle.

The serial’s music score, like most other Universals of the period, is an eclectic but usually effective array of stock music, some of it cues from the Flash Gordon serials but the majority of it culled from Universal’s horror features, including (most notably) Franz Waxman’s score for Bride of Frankenstein, which furnishes some memorable opening-titles music.

All in all, though Buck Rogers has its share of flaws, it also has more than enough virtues (the acting, the fast pace, the interesting sci-fi trappings) to make it a good chapterplay. Despite its similar themes, it shouldn’t be pitted against the Flash Gordon trilogy–a match it’s bound to lose–but rather judged against the field of competition in general. When judged in this fashion, it’s just as entertaining–and often more entertaining–than many serials with less shabby reputations.

 

*One has to wonder, though, why some Saturnians are Orientals like Ahn and others Occidentals like Usher and Delevanti; my own theory is that men from various countries emigrated from Earth to Saturn sometime before the bulk of the serial took place; this would explain the racial assortment and also explain why the Hidden City chooses Saturn in particular as an ally (as usual, I’m probably putting too much thought into this).

Directed by Roger Corman. Starring Vincent Price, Hazel Court, Jane Asher, David Weston, Patrick Magee, Nigel Green and Skip Martin.

Brief Synopsis

In 12th-century Italy Prospero, a Satan-worshiping prince, jails two peasants, Gino and Ludovico, for defying his authority to tax citizens. Francesca, Ludovico's daughter and Gino's fiancée, pleads for their lives, and the intrigued Prospero agrees to spare whichever one she chooses. Later, the prince sees evidence of the Red Death plague in the village and orders all houses in the infected area burned. The disease obliges Prospero to retreat to his castle, and he forces Francesca to accompany him, intending to dress her in courtly attire and have her watch him indulge in sadistic pleasures as part of her instruction in diabolism. Juliana, the prince's mistress, is jealous of Francesca but aids her attempt to help Gino and Ludovico escape. The plot is foiled, however, and at one of the events preceding Prospero's annual masked ball, the prince orders the men to cut themselves with five knives, one of which is poisoned. Ludovico is impaled on Prospero's sword when he attempts to kill the prince with one of the weapons, and Gino is banished to the burning village, promising to return. Juliana, meanwhile, sacrifices herself to Satan while Prospero watches unperturbed. On his way back to town, Gino meets a strange figure in red, who takes him back to the castle and instructs him to wait outside for Francesca. As the mysterious intruder enters the ball, Prospero and his guests die of the Red Death, but Gino and Francesca are permitted to survive.

“The Masque of the Red Death” was apparently the story that inspired Roger Corman to start making movies based on the works of Poe. You might ask why, in that case, his first crack at the subgenre was The Fall of the House of Usher, and I honestly couldn’t give you an answer. But for whatever reason, Corman didn’t get around to filming The Masque of the Red Death until 1964, when it was obvious to everyone except possibly the director himself that he was getting sick of Poe adaptations, and the result was a disjointed, muddled, and nearly lifeless movie that just barely squeaks by on the basis of excellent visual composition and a splendid performance from star Vincent Price.

This would have been a difficult movie to make under the best of circumstances, though, because the original story is scarcely five pages long, and is written like a campfire tale. Characterization is literally at the level of “there’s this guy, see, and one day he...”, while months’ worth of action is passed over in single sentences, and every other element of the story is utterly subordinated to the final shock in the last paragraph. As temptingly cool as the underlying premise is, it would be a challenge to turn “The Masque of the Red Death” into a fifteen minute short, let alone a feature film. So inevitably, screenwriter Charles Beaumont was forced to invent scenes, characters, and motivations wholesale, and even then, he felt compelled to splice in a second Poe story, “Hop Frog,” as a subplot in order to bulk up his script to the required length.

The film begins with an old peasant woman encountering a strange man in a hooded red robe, sitting beneath a tree and dealing himself a Tarot hand. The man flags the old lady down, and gives her something to take with her to her village. She is to be his messenger, the hooded man explains, and sends her on her way.

Just hours after her arrival back home, her village finds itself playing host to its lord, Prince Prospero (Price). The prince has come to announce the date of the annual feast he holds for the nobility at his castle, the leftovers from which he has traditionally given back to the peasantry in what could arguably be seen as the feudal equivalent of an income tax refund. But this year, the peasants are not so placid in their acceptance of Prospero’s “generosity.” As a young man named Gino (Witchcraft’s David Weston) explains, one of their women met a holy man in the woods that evening, who told her that their day of deliverance was at hand. With news like that, Gino and his people feel little inclination to kiss Prince Prospero’s ass, whatever his rank. The prince is enraged, and he orders his soldiers to kill Gino, as well as an older man named Ludovico (Nigel Green, from The Skull and Jason and the Argonauts), who makes the mistake of sticking up for Gino. And when a lovely young girl named Francesca (Jane Asher, who had a tiny role in The Creeping Unknown/The Quatermass Xperiment) sticks up for both condemned men (she’s Ludovico’s daughter and Gino’s fiancee), Prospero plays the sort of nasty trick on her that Vincent Price characters are justly famous for, “magnanimously” agreeing to spare one of the men, and insisting that Francesca choose which it will be.

But Prospero’s fun is soon interrupted by prolonged and hideous screaming coming from one of the village huts. When he sends one of his men to investigate, that man finds the old lady from the first scene, keeled over dead on the floor, her skin covered in hundreds of tiny hemorrhages. The symptoms are unmistakable— the dreaded Red Death has come to Prospero’s domain. When the prince hears that, he orders his soldiers to pack up Gino, Ludovico, and Francesca, and burn the village to the ground while he and a handful of men escort the prisoners to the castle. Prospero may fear the Red Death, but he’ll be damned if he’s going to let it spoil his fun.

Then again, Prospero is almost certainly damned anyway. It isn’t just that he’s an evil bastard, although he certainly is that; more importantly, Prince Prospero and his wife, Juliana (Hazel Court, from The Curse of Frankenstein and Dr. Blood’s Coffin), are practicing Satanists. That would go some way toward explaining all the evil, wouldn’t it? In the prince’s case, Satanism looks a lot like a combination of sadism and hedonism. Whether he’s torturing prisoners, trying to force Gino and Ludovico to fight a duel against each other, or romancing the captive Francesca, all Prospero is really interested in is his own pleasure. And so it is scarcely surprising that he takes advantage of the need to quarantine his estate against the Red Death to convert his planned banquet into a weeks-long debauch. The assembled nobility will be plied with all the food and drink they can keep down, and presented with amusements ranging from dancing midgets to a lethal game of chance involving Gino, Ludovico, and five daggers, one with a poisoned blade (think of it as a renaissance version of Russian roulette). And as the climax to the celebration, an all-night masquerade will be held in the great hall of the castle. All Prospero’s nobles need to do to get in on the excitement is follow a few simple directions in traveling to his estate: stay the hell away from any peasant villages where the Red Death might have broken out. The fate of one lord who disregards the prince’s instructions is enough to ensure that everyone else does exactly as they are told.

Meanwhile, Prospero has been working on Francesca, and the girl proves surprisingly susceptible to persuasion. Though she professes a firm belief in Christianity, her simple peasant’s faith has no answer for the thorny philosophical questions with which the prince bombards her— how, for example, does one reconcile an all-powerful, benevolent deity with the undeniable domination of the world by cruel and evil men? When Prospero asserts that if ever the universe was ruled by a god of love and mercy, that god is now long gone, Francesca can offer no reply. The prince’s interest in converting the girl makes Juliana very nervous, however. She, after all, has no desire to see her place at Prospero’s side taken by some low-born wench who just happens to be a better-than-average piece of ass. Unfortunately for Juliana, though, her strategy for shoring up her position yields results rather different from those she sought, and the scheming lady ends up with a whole new appreciation of the capabilities of hunting falcons.

Juliana’s fate is only slightly less grisly than that of Prospero’s friend, Alfredo (Patrick Magee, from And Now the Screaming Starts and Dementia 13). Alfredo has, over the course of his stay with Prospero, developed quite a letch for Esmeralda (Verina Greenlaw, who was all but invisible in The Haunting the year before), the beautiful midget dancer who performs at Prospero’s court. But given that Alfredo is one of the prince’s closest friends, it goes without saying that his affection for the girl doesn’t lead him to treat her any better than he would any other commoner, and his sustained nastiness toward her brings upon him the vengeance of Hop Toad (Skip Martin, from Vampire Circus and Horror Hospital), the male dwarf who works as Esmeralda’s partner in her act. Hop Toad gets his revenge by suggesting a costume for Alfredo to wear to the masquerade. The dwarf knows that Prospero owns (for no very good reason) a gorilla suit that should fit Alfredo nicely. Hop Toad contends that if Alfredo wears this costume to the masque, and makes a big scene by molesting all the women and generally causing a ruckus, he’ll be the life of the party. Hop Toad can then come in and pretend to bring him under control for further laughs and hilarity. Alfredo agrees that Hop Toad’s idea sounds like a hoot and a holler, but what the dwarf neglected to mention was that he would “bring Alfredo under control” by chaining him to the chandelier, hoisting him to the ceiling, and setting him on fire. But Prospero gets the joke, and when it’s all over, he orders Hop Toad rewarded with five pieces of gold.

And now, at last, we have arrived at the point of the movie, and the only part of it that has much to do with the story from which it takes its title— the masquerade. Gino breaks out of Prospero’s castle, and on his wanderings through the surrounding woods, he meets up with the same red-robed man as the woman in the first scene. After a short talk, in which Gino explains who he is and where he has come from, the hooded stranger has Gino lead him to the castle, and before sneaking in, the man in red promises his companion that he will see to Francesca’s safety. Now obviously, there can be little question at this point who the hooded man really is, though Prospero himself doesn’t get it at first. The prince’s initial assumption is that his unannounced guess is his long-awaited master, Beelzebub, or at the very least his emissary. But when his guests start hemorrhaging to death all around him, Prospero puts the pieces together, and he is stunned to learn that his life-long devotion to Satan is no protection against the Red Death.

If you ask me, I think what Corman should have done was get Richard Matheson to write a “Masque of the Red Death” segment into the script for Tales of Terror back in 1962. Then the story’s greatest strengths— its brevity and directness— could have been deployed in service of the film adaptation, rather than standing as the basis for an unfavorable comparison. Poe’s story just doesn’t have enough meat to it to support a feature-length treatment, and all the extraneous material Beaumont was forced to add mainly serves to bog the movie down in directionless subplots. But there is one thing Beaumont added to the story that I really did enjoy. After all the plot threads are tied up, and everything seems to be fully over, the camera returns to the Red Death, sitting, as is his wont, beneath a tree, playing with his Tarot deck. Suddenly, he is joined by a similarly garbed figure, but wearing a black robe, rather than red. That’s right, the Red Death and the Black Death have gotten together to compare notes! And before long, a veritable rainbow of multicolored Deaths have arrived on the scene; I gave up guessing which diseases they were supposed to represent after Yellow Fever put in his appearance. It’s a fun scene, and it makes a great ending to a mostly forgettable movie.

  

Louise Glaum (September 4, 1888 – November 25, 1970) was an American actress. Best-known for her role as a femme fatale in silent era motion picture dramas, she was credited with giving one of the best characterizations of a vamp in her early career.

 

Glaum began her acting career on the stage in Los Angeles, her hometown, in 1907. After a few years, she went on the road with a touring company and performed as an ingenue in the play Why Girls Leave Home. She stayed on in Chicago, where she appeared in a number of productions. After returning to Los Angeles in 1911 because of the death of her younger sister, Glaum found acting work at a movie studio. She appeared in over 110 movies from 1912 to 1925, her debut being in When the Heart Calls.

 

After starring in Greater Than Love (1921), she retired from the screen and moved to New York. In 1925, she sued for money owed her for movie work amounting to $103,000. The suit was ultimately dismissed by the court due to technicalities. Glaum made a final movie appearance in 1925. Under contract with Associated Exhibitors, she starred as the conniving other woman opposite Lionel Barrymore in a drama directed by Henri Diamant-Berger titled Fifty-Fifty.

 

For over three years, Glaum headlined on the vaudeville circuit in dramatic playlets. She presented a play in which she starred, Trial Marriage, in Los Angeles in 1928. Continuing to act on the stage, she opened and appeared in her own theatre in Los Angeles in the mid 1930s and became a drama instructor. Glaum was active in music clubs over the following decades. She served as president of the Matinee Musical Club for many years and was also state president of the California Federation of Music Clubs.

Electron beam damage in a fragment of MgO, imaged at lattice resolution by conventional phase contrast TEM

 

Courtesy of Tim Williams

 

Image Details

Instrument used: Tecnai Family

Magnification: 910,000x

Horizontal Field Width: 72nm

Voltage: 200kV

Detector: Gatan Ultrascan 1000

 

Laura Garci-a y Ricardo J. Rodriguez

A Journey through iOS Malware Landscape: Evolution & Characterization

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Savannah District has an in-house Geotechnical and HTRW (Hazardous, toxic and radioactive waste) team with full serivce capabilities. Savannah's team has the most diverse fleet of investigative vehicles and equipment throughout the Corps of Engineers. The fleet includes geoprobes and drilling rigs, which can investigate a wide range of eathen materials, including soils and rock. Using this equipment, the team performs a variety of subsurface investigations, including well installation, determination of soil characteristics, contaminant characterization, aquifer testing, rock coring, and much more.

  

as the archenemy of Batman, the Joker is portrayed as a master criminal whose characterization has varied from that of a violent psychopath to a goofy trickster-thief. He's directly responsible for numerous tragedies in Batman's life, including the paralysis of Barbara Gordon and the death of Jason Todd, the second Robin.

 

As one of the most iconic and recognized villains in popular media, The Joker was ranked #1 in Wizard's list of the 100 Greatest Villains of All Time. He was also named #2 in IGN's list of the Top 100 Comic Book Villains of All Time List, was ranked #8 in the Greatest Comic Book Characters in History list by Empire (being the highest ranking villain on the list) and was listed as the fifth Greatest Comic Book Character Ever in Wizard Magazine's 200 Greatest Comic Book Characters of all Time list, also the highest villain on the list.

 

I decided to do a gallery picture of the Joker now that the Joker has his 'groove back' oops.. I meant hair. :-p

Dallas Green

Starring Buster Crabbe, Jean Rogers, Charles Middleton, Frank Shannon, Beatrice Roberts, Donald Kerr, Richard Alexander, C. Montague Shaw. Directed by Ford Beebe, Robert F. Hill, and Frederick Stephani.Flash, Dale, and Dr. Zarkov return from their former space adventures only to find that their enemy, Ming the Merciless of planet Mongo, has a new weapon: a deadly ray that crosses space to wreak havoc on earth. Earth's only hope is for our heroes to take off again and stop the ray at its source on Mars, where they (and a stowaway) must battle Ming's ally, Queen Azura, who turns her enemies into lumpish clay people. Can they survive 15 chapters of deadly perils? Find out next week...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZ2HUfD0QSw&feature=share&amp...

Universal, 15 Chapters, 1938. Starring Larry “Buster” Crabbe, Jean Rogers, Charles Middleton, Frank Shannon, Beatrice Roberts, Richard Alexander, Donald Kerr, C. Montague Shaw, Wheeler Oakman.

Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars picks up almost exactly where Flash Gordon left off, with our courageous trio of interplanetary adventurers–Flash Gordon (Larry “Buster” Crabbe), Dale Arden (Jean Rogers), and Dr. Zarkov (Frank Shannon)–returning to Earth from the planet Mongo. They are greeted to a royal welcome, since their voyage has saved the Earth from being destroyed by the late Emperor Ming of Mongo. Zarkov, however, attempts to curb the Earthlings’ ebullience by cautioning them that the defeat and death of Ming does not mean that their planet is free from other threats of extraterrestrial invasion. As usual, Zarkov is correct; shortly after his warning speech, the Martian Queen Azura (Beatrice Roberts) begins an operation designed to siphon off the “nitron” (aka nitrogen) in the Earth’s atmosphere. Azura’s primary goal is to create nitron-powered weapons with which to wage a war against her mortal foes, the Clay People of Mars. She’s indifferent to the devastating effect that it will have on the Earth, while her chief adviser and military consultant regards the destruction of Earth as the main attraction of the plan. That adviser is none other than Ming (Charles Middleton), still very much alive and longing for revenge on Flash and Zarkov for toppling him from his throne and driving him into exile on Mars.

As the Earth begins to experience catastrophic floods and storms, due to the effects of Azura’s “Nitron Lamp,” Zarkov, Flash, and Dale launch another interplanetary trip to discover the cause of the catastrophes, which Zarkov has determined are due to a beam that emanates from outer space. They discover an unexpected stowaway aboard after takeoff–reporter “Happy” Hapgood (Donald Kerr), who had set out to track down Zarkov and get his opinion of the world-wide disasters. Not long after arriving on Mars, our quartet of Earth adventurers find themselves embroiled in the war between Azura and the Clay People. The latter are one-time rivals of the Queen, who have been transformed into living clay by Azura’s magical powers and banished to underground caverns from whence they carry on a guerilla war against Azura’s forces. The Clay People’s king enlists the aid of Flash and his party, as both of them want to stop Azura’s nitron-collecting plans, and, with additional aid from Prince Barin (Richard Alexander)–who arrives on Mars to try to convince the Martians to expel Ming–Flash and his party pit themselves against Azura’s magic, Ming’s machinations, Ming’s savage allies the Forest People, and many other hazards, in their quest to save the Earth.

 

Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars is fully as good as the first Flash Gordon serial, although its strengths are in slightly different areas. While Trip to Mars doesn’t measure up to Flash Gordon when it comes to colorful characters and fantastic monsters, its focused plotline surpasses the episodic story of the earlier serial. In Flash Gordon, the protagonists merely responded to the perpetual perils that were hurled at them by Ming, King Vultan, and King Kala, while Ming’s own plans for destroying the Earth were largely abandoned after the first chapter in favor of his attempts to marry Dale and destroy Flash. In Trip to Mars, Flash, Dale, and Zarkov initiate events instead of just coping with them, and Ming’s new grand design drives the plot far more strongly than his earlier one, giving the good guys a clear-cut objective (the destruction of the Nitron Lamp) beyond simple escape from Mongo.

While Trip to Mars has no characters to rival Flash Gordon’s King Vultan and no bizarre beasts like the Orangopoid or the Fire Dragon, it still has excellent other-worldly atmosphere. The sets are not as varied and intricate as in the first serial, but still surpass the backdrops of almost any other chapterplay. Especially striking are Ming’s “powerhouse,” with its laboratory equipment and its disintegration room, Azura’s massive palace with its unique architectural design (particularly the futuristic pocket doors), the Clay People’s eerie caves, and the wonderfully-designed realm of the Forest People, with its twisted trees, climbing vines, hidden tunnels amid tree roots, and treehouse-like observation platforms.

 

In addition to the big sets, there are dozens of other major and minor props and special effects that make Trips to Mars memorably atmospheric; there’s the the Martians’ flying capes, the Martian televiewer screens (which are cleverly incorporated into the recap sequences at the beginning of each chapter), the Clay People’s vapor-healing chamber, and the bridge of light that connects Azura’s rocket tower to the rest of her palace and is powered by a simple switch like any Earthling lamp (the scene where Flash and Zarkov are first forced to cross the unsafe-looking thing is quite funny), to name but a few. I also appreciate the fact that Azura’s spaceship squadrons–her “stratosleds”–are designed differently than any of the ships in the first Flash Gordon serial; one would expect the aerial fleets of differing planets to differ in appearance. Another neat touch of internal consistency is the use of three completely different forms of salute by the three principal Martian races–Queen Azura’s subjects, the Clay People, and the Forest People.

The serial’s screenplay maintains good continuity with the previous Flash outing, despite being the work of a completely different team of writers–Ray Trampe, Norman S. Hall, Wyndham Gittens, and Herbert Dalmas. The new writing team avoids any of the clunky lines that occasionally crept into Flash Gordon’s dialogue exchanges; they also, despite having to resort to a few flashbacks to the first serial for padding purposes, manage to make their plot fit its fifteen-chapter length quite nicely. The major plot thread of the heroes’ attempts to destroy Ming and Azura’s Nitron Lamp is skillfully interwoven with several subplots–the Clay People’s efforts to regain their natural shape, the attempts by both Flash and Ming to get hold of the Black Sapphire of Kalu (a talisman that can neutralize Azura’s magic), and Ming’s plot to undermine Azura and seize the Martian throne.

Trip to Mars’ script wisely spreads its plot developments over the course of the serial, instead of introducing all its ideas in the first chapter and letting them tread water until the final one: the Clay People aren’t introduced till the second chapter or the Forest People until the sixth, while Prince Barin first arrives in Chapter Seven. The Nitron Lamp is destroyed in Chapter Nine and rebuilt over the course of the following chapters until it must be destroyed again at the climax, and one of the principal villains is killed off in Chapter Thirteen.

The cliffhangers aren’t quite as varied as in the first Flash serial, due to the lack of the various monsters that frequently attacked Flash for chapter-ending purposes in the earlier outing. However, writers still manage to avoid excessive repetition; for instance, while there are three chapter endings involving stratosled crashes, each one is set up differently–the first has Flash crashing a stratosled into another stratosled to stop it from bombing Dale and Happy, the second has a stratosled crashing on top of Flash and Zarkov, and the third has Flash and the pilots of a ’sled grapping for the controls as it soars towards yet another crash. There’s also an excellent cliffhanger in which Flash, Dale, Happy, and Zarkov are surrounded by an ever-narrowing ring of fire in the Forest People’s kingdom, and a memorably unusual one that has a hypnotized Dale stabbing an unsuspecting Flash in the back.

 

Though Trip to Mars has no swordfights or wrestling matches corresponding to those in Flash Gordon, it still features a nice variety of action scenes–including stratosled dogfights, fights among the vines and treetops of the Forest Kingdom, and chases through Azura’s big palace; the palace sequence in Chapter Five, which has the nimble Flash vaulting through windows to avoid the guards, is a particular standout. Directors Ford Beebe (a Universal serial veteran) and Robert Hill (a talented director who rarely escaped from low-budget independent serials and B-films) do a fine job of orchestrating these action scenes, assisted by stuntmen Eddie Parker (doubling Buster Crabbe), George DeNormand, Tom Steele, Bud Wolfe, and Jerry Frank. All of the aforementioned stuntmen, except Parker, also pop up in minor acting roles.

The performances in Trip to Mars are all first-rate; the returning actors from the first serial are all just as good as they were in Flash Gordon, while the new major players fit in smoothly. Buster Crabbe’s Flash is just as tough, chipper, athletic, and likable as in the first serial–and a good deal more wise and resourceful than before, improvising strategy and coming up with plans in tough situations instead of just trying to batter his way out. Frank Shannon’s Zarkov, as consequence of Flash’s new-found intelligence, has a reduced part, not guiding the good guys’ actions as he did in the first serial; he still functions as the scientific brains of the group, though, and is still as intense, serious, and sincere as before.

Jean Rogers, with her long blonde hair bobbed and dyed brown to better match the comic-strip version of Dale Arden (she’s also dressed in less arresting fashion), isn’t as stunning as in Flash Gordon, but is still a warm, welcome, and lovely presence. Her part here is smaller than in the first serial, though, since Ming is not romantically interested in her this time out (Ming, though no gentleman, evidently prefers blondes). Richard Alexander’s Prince Barin is a lot more self-assured when it comes to delivering dialogue this time around (helped, no doubt, by the absence of any overly high-flown lines), while his convincingly royal bearing and his commanding size are as effective as before.

Charles Middleton’s Ming is even more entertainingly sinister here than he was in Flash Gordon, getting a good deal more screen time and given a more devilish appearance by a notably forked beard. Though still given opportunities to break into tyrannical and bloodthirsty rages (particularly in his insane rant in the final chapter), Middleton spends much of the serial displaying duplicity and sly subtlety instead, since his Ming must pretend to friendship with Azura even while plotting against her. Middleton carries off this slightly more multi-faceted version of Ming masterfully, winning a few laughs with his crafty cynicism while remaining thoroughly sinister and hateful.

 

Beatrice Roberts does a fine job as Queen Azura, eschewing the sneering, aggressive demeanor of other serial villainesses for a regal, dignified manner (with a wryly humorous undercurrent) that contrasts interestingly with her often cruel behavior. Her Azura comes off as selfish and ruthless, but not an abusive tyrant like Ming. Donald Kerr as reporter Happy Hapgood, the other principal new character, is as controversial among fans as most other serial comedy-relief characters are. Speaking for myself, though, I found him quite likable and entertaining; he provides an amusingly commonplace point-of-view towards the fantastic world of Mars and is never obtrusive, gratingly stupid, or obnoxious. Additionally, his character is allowed to be quite heroic and helpful when the chips are down, a far cry from one-dimensional cowardly “comic” pests like Sonny Ray in Perils of Pauline or Lee Ford in SOS Coast Guard.

Wheeler Oakman is very good as Tarnak, Ming’s wily lab assistant and co-conspirator against Azura. C. Montague Shaw, concealed under heavy makeup for most of the serial, conveys an impressive air of ruined dignity as the King of the Clay People and manages to seem both sinister and sympathetic at different times. Usual hero Kane Richmond brings appropriate depth of characterization to his key role as a Martian pilot, who proves instrumental in helping Flash overthrow Ming in the later chapters. Anthony Warde has a small part as Toran, king of the Forest People, but extracts as much snarling nastiness as possible from the role. Future director Thomas Carr is his second-in-command, Kenne Duncan is the officer in charge of Azura’s airdrome, Lane Chandler and Jack Mulhall both appear as pilots of her Death Squadron, and Warner Richmond has a small role as one of Ming’s palace cohorts.

 

Hooper Atchley and James Blaine pop up as self-important Earth scientists, propounding ingenious and inaccurate theories as to the causes of the damage brought about by the Nitron Lamp, while Edwin Stanley is the general presiding over a council comprised of these two and additional savants. Louis Merrill (a radio actor who played character roles in several feature films) has a brief but memorable turn as the blunt and slightly uncouth Dr. Metz, who alone among the scientists has the humility to admit that Zarkov is the only one capable of unravelling the riddle of the disasters. Merrill’s characterization is so vivid that one wishes the actor had taken a larger part in this chapterplay or in other serials.

Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars is a nearly ideal sequel, in that it manages to preserve the basic strengths of its predecessor while deviating from it in some areas and improving on it in others. It’s also a nearly ideal serial, independent of its relation to the earlier Flash Gordon; it balances good acting, atmosphere, action, and plotting in such fine style that it would still be a notable achievement if it were the sole entry in the Flash Gordon series.

   

Project: UAS CHARACTERIZATION OF HIGH WIND DAMAGE TO VEGETATION AND RURAL AREA ASSESSMENTS

 

With the help of the NOAA Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR) Uncrewed Systems Research Transition Office (USRTO), scientists from the NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory in collaboration with the Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies are working on developing an uncrewed aircraft system (UAS)-based approach to better characterize high-wind damage to vegetation and in rural areas to improve disaster response and recovery.

 

Photo Credit: Tyler Bell/CIMMS/NSSL

From the University of St. Michaels’s College in the University of Toronto Alumni Magazine:

 

In a 1972 book of architectural walking tours of Toronto, a young architect named George Baird—who is now the UofT’s Dean of Architecture, Landscape and Design—described Elmsley Place as “the most touching of all the relics of the former residential neighbourhood. It comprises still almost an entire street, and serves as a domestic front gate to the whole St. Michael’s precinct.”

 

As the density of the neighbourhood has increased dramatically, Baird’s characterization seems even truer today than it was 35 years ago. And happily, that’s not about to change. The four Victorian-era houses on the west side of Elmsley Place— in recent years known as Gilson House (No. 8), Maritain House (No. 6), McCorkell House (No. 2), and Sullivan House (96 St. Joseph St.)—are about to get a renovation and restoration that is expected to take at least a full academic year, possibly a full calendar year, and cost about $4 million.

 

The Elmsley Place houses were once suburban villas. This was one of a number of enclaves for professional and managerial families that began springing up in Toronto in the 1890s. It was also one of the city’s earliest subdivisions, laid out by Remigius Elmsley as an exclusive residential precinct. And so it remained until about 1920, when the city decided to extend Bay Street north to Davenport Road and issued by-laws effectively expropriating about one-third of the College’s land. St. Michael’s fought this on several fronts, finally winning at the Supreme Court of Canada, with the following outcome in 1926: the College would remain exempt from expropriation (as it argued it had always been); the city would pay compensation for the land taken, plus the loss in value of the remaining property, plus losses incurred in the demolition and replacement of buildings that had stood on the lost land, plus five-years’ accrued interest on all of that.

 

That compensation allowed St. Michael’s to purchase title to the land on Elmsley Place, which had originally been conveyed by leasehold. The campus would from then on extend from Bay Street to Queen’s Park. (At about the same time, it purchased properties on the south side of St. Joseph Street. As well, St. Joseph’s College had bought the mansion built in 1882 for William Christie, who made good cookies, at the corner of Wellesley and Queen’s Park Crescent.) But while the College had possession of Elmsley Place land from 1926, the houses remained in private hands until after World War II, with some notable residents living in them.

 

They also have interesting architectural connections. Maritain House and Gilson House—one structure, two addresses—were built later than most of their neighbours, in 1904. The architect was A. Frank Wickson, also responsible for the Berkeley Street Firehall, now home to the Alumnae Theatre. The 1892 tax roll credits the design of the corner house— Number 2 Elmsley Place/96 St. Joseph Street—to “Aylesworth, architect,” likely either Edward Aylesworth or Marshall B. Aylesworth, in either case probably a builder, not an architect. However, four years later, the house was dramatically altered with the addition of the protruding bay with its cut stonework and the extended wing and second-storey oriel. The architect for those was one of the city’s foremost, Edmund Burke.

 

Earlier, Burke and a partner had designed the acoustical treasure on Bloor Street now called Trinity-St. Paul’s United Church. In 1894, Burke became president of the Ontario Association of Architects, that year also forming a partnership with J.C.B Horwood. In 1895, Burke & Horwood designed what is now The Bay, at Queen and Yonge Streets, one of Toronto’s first steel frame buildings, and in 1913 they did the spectacular Wesley Building for the Methodist Book and Publishing House, now the Queen Street West home to Citytv. Most student residents in the Elmsley Place houses have known they had a special address. In 2006, the Student Levy fund paid for many improvements to the street itself, including an interlocking brick road surface that beautifully complements the old houses.

 

Currently, the four houses accommodate 43 students and four dons, though with many double rooms, especially in McCorkell house. That will change. Students today expect singles. According to St. Michael’s Dean of Students, Duane Rendle, most universities now guarantee single rooms after First Year. Former Elmsley Placers will also envy some other changes coming: each room now getting a high-speed hard-wire connection to the university’s digital “backbone,” a cable-TV hook-up, and a phone linked to the St. Michael’s switchboard.

 

None of that will be apparent to passers-by, though, for whom Elmsley Place will still seem a quiet, throwback to another era—bosky, human-scale, its eccentric old houses making it a more treasured “front gate to the St. Michael’s precinct” than ever.

 

This High Dynamic Range panorama was stitched from 64 bracketed photographs with PTGUI Pro, tone-mapped with Photomatix, processed with Color Efex, then touched up in Aperture.

 

Original size: 20000 × 10000 (200.0 MP; 1.05 GB).

 

Location: University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1526/1, 1927-1928. Photo: Fanumet. Collection: Didier Hanson.

 

American stage and film actor, director and screenwriter Lon Chaney (1883-1930) is regarded as one of the most versatile and powerful actors of early cinema. Between 1912 and 1930 he played more the 150 widely diverse roles. He is renowned for his characterizations of tortured, often grotesque and afflicted characters, and his groundbreaking artistry with makeup. ‘The Man of a Thousand Faces’ starred in such silent horror films as The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) and The Phantom of the Opera (1925).

 

Leonidas Frank ‘Lon’ Chaney was born in Colorado Springs, Colorado, in 1883. He was the son of deaf mute parents, Frank and Emma Chaney, and he learned from childhood to communicate through pantomime, sign language and facial expression. The stagestruck Chaney worked in a variety of backstage positions at the opera house in his hometown of Colorado Springs. Only 17, he was eventually allowed to appear on stage. In 1901, he went on the road as an actor in a play that he co-wrote with his brother, The Little Tycoon. After limited success, the company was sold. He began traveling with popular Vaudeville and theatre acts. On tour in Oklahoma City, he met Francis Cleveland ‘Cleva’ Creighton, (Cleva) who was auditioning for a part in the show as a singer. In 1905, Chaney, then 22, married 16-year-old Cleva and in 1906, their only child, a son, Creighton Tull Chaney (later known as film actor Lon Chaney, Jr.) was born. The Chaneys continued touring, settling in California in 1910. Their marriage became strained due to working conditions, money and jealousy. In 1913, Cleva went to the Majestic Theater in downtown Los Angeles, where Lon was managing the Kolb and Dill show, and attempted suicide by swallowing mercuric chloride. The suicide attempt failed but it ruined her voice. The ensuing scandal and divorce forced Chaney out of the theatre and into the booming industry of silent films. Between 1912 and 1917, Chaney worked under contract for Universal Studios doing 100 bit or character parts. His skill with makeup gained him many parts in the highly competitive casting atmosphere. During this time, Chaney befriended the husband-wife director team of Joe De Grasse and Ida May Park, who gave him substantial roles in their pictures, and further encouraged him to play macabre characters. Chaney married one of his former colleagues in the Kolb and Dill company tour, chorus girl Hazel Hastings. Little is known of Hazel, except that her marriage to Chaney was solid. The couple gained custody of Chaney's 10-year-old son Creighton, who had resided in various homes and boarding schools since Chaney's divorce from Cleva. In 1917 Universal presented Chaney, Dorothy Phillips, and William Stowell as a team in the drama The Piper's Price (Joe De Grasse, 1917). In succeeding films, the men alternated playing lover, villain, or other man to the beautiful Phillips. They would occasionally be joined by Claire Du Brey nearly making the trio a quartet of recurring actors from film to film. So successful were the films starring this group that Universal produced fourteen films from 1917 to 1919 with Chaney, Stowell, and Phillips.

 

By 1917 Lon Chaney was a prominent actor in the Universal studio, but his salary did not reflect this status. When Chaney asked for a raise, studio executive William Sistrom replied, "You'll never be worth more than one hundred dollars a week." After leaving the studio, Chaney struggled for the first year as a free-lance character actor. He got his first big break when playing a substantial role in William S. Hart's Western, Riddle Gawne (William S. Hart, Lambert Hillyer, 1918). He received high praise for his performance in the role. In 1919, Chaney had another breakthrough performance in The Miracle Man (George Loane Tucker, 1919), as The Frog, a con man who pretends to be cripple and is miraculously healed. The film displayed not only Chaney's acting ability, but also his talent as a master of makeup. Critical praise and a gross of over $2 million put Chaney on the map as America's foremost character actor. He exhibited great adaptability with makeup in more conventional crime and adventure films, such as The Penalty (Wallace Worsley, 1920), in which he played an amputee gangster. As Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Wallace Worsley, 1923) and Erik, the tortured opera ghost in The Phantom of the Opera (Rupert Julian, 1925), Chaney created two of the most grotesquely deformed characters in film history. William K. Everson William K. Everson in American Silent Film: "Only 'The Phantom of the Opera,' with its classic unmasking scene, a masterpiece of manipulative editing, really succeeded (and still does!) in actually scaring the audience - and that because the revelation had to be a purely visual one. Moreover, Lon Chaney's make-up was so grotesque as to equal, if not surpass, anything that the audience might have anticipated or imagined." However, the portrayals sought to elicit a degree of sympathy and pathos among viewers not overwhelmingly terrified or repulsed by the monstrous disfigurements of these victims of fate. Chaney also appeared in ten films directed by Tod Browning, often portraying disguised and/or mutilated characters.

 

In 1924, Lon Chaney starred in Metro-Goldwyn’s He Who Gets Slapped, a circus melodrama voted one of the best films of the year. The success of this film led to a series of contracts with MGM Studios for the next five years. In these final five years of his film career, Chaney gave some of his most memorable performances. His portrayal of a tough-as-nails marine drill instructor opposite William Haines in Tell It to the Marines (George W. Hill, 1926), one of his favorite films, earned him the affection of the Marine Corps, who made him their first honorary member from the motion picture industry. Memorable is also his carnival knife-thrower Alonzo the Armless in The Unknown (Tod Browning, 1927) opposite Joan Crawford. In 1927, Chaney also co-starred with Conrad Nagel, Marceline Day, Henry B. Walthall and Polly Moran in the horror film, London After Midnight (Tod Browning, 1927) considered one of the most legendary and sought after lost films. His final film role was a sound remake of his silent classic The Unholy Three (Jack Conway, 1930). He played Echo, a crook ventriloquist and used five different voices (the ventriloquist, the old woman, a parrot, the dummy and the girl) in the film, thus proving he could make the transition from silent films to the talkies. Chaney signed a sworn statement declaring that the five voices in the film were his own. During the filming of Thunder in the winter of 1929, Chaney developed pneumonia. In late 1929 the heavy smoker was diagnosed with bronchial lung cancer. This was exacerbated when artificial snow, made out of cornflakes, lodged in his throat during filming and quickly created a serious infection. Despite aggressive treatment, his condition gradually worsened, and seven weeks after the release of the remake of The Unholy Three (1930), he died of a throat hemorrhage in Los Angeles, California. In his last days, his illness had rendered him unable to speak, forcing him to rely on the pantomimic gestures of his youth in order to communicate with his friends and loved ones. Chaney and his second wife Hazel had led a discreet private life distant from the Hollywood social scene. Chaney did minimal promotional work for his films and for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, purposefully fostering a mysterious image, and he reportedly intentionally avoided the social scene in Hollywood. At the end of the 1950s Chaney was rediscovered. He was portrayed by James Cagney in the biopic titled Man of a Thousand Faces (Joseph Pevney, 1957). In 1958, Chaney fan Forrest J. Ackerman started and edited the magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland, which published many photographs and articles about Chaney. Ackerman is also present in Kevin Brownlow’s documentary Lon Chaney: A Thousand Faces (2000).

 

Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Lon Chaney.com, Silents are Golden, Wikipedia and IMDb.

This abridgement of Universal's 12-episode serial Buck Rogers stars Buster Crabbe as Dick Calkins' famed comic-strip space adventurer. Buck and Buddy (Jackie Moran) and are recruited to battle against modernistic gangster Killer Kane (Anthony Warde), by Wilma Deering (Constance Moore) and Dr. Huer (C. Montague Shaw). The duo travels to Saturn to get help in their mission, and after Buck and Buddy quell the internal struggles of the Saturnians, Buck triumphs over Killer Kane and his cosmic thugs.

Planet Outlaws Feature link: youtu.be/UD3xKy42KUY

 

Link to all 12 Serial Episodes:

 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTtc-u3zFGk&feature=share&amp...

 

Starring Buster Crabbe, Constance Moore, Jackie Moran, Jack Mulhall, Anthony Warde, C. Montague Shaw, Guy Usher, William Gould, Philson Ahn. Directed by Ford Beebe, Saul A. Goodkind.

Buck Rogers and Buddy Wade are in the middle of a trans-polar dirigible flight when they are caught in a blizzard and crash. Buddy then releases a special gas to keep them in suspended animation until a rescue party can arrive. However, an avalanche covers the craft and the two are in suspended animation for 500 years. When they are found, they awake to find out that the world has been taken over by the outlaw army of Killer Kane. Along with Lieutenant Wilma Deering, Buck and Buddy join in the fight to overthrow Kane and with the help of Prince Tallen of Saturn and his forces, they eventually do and Earth is free of Kane's grip.

 

This is actually a pretty enjoyable serial, but it seems doomed to be forever overshadowed by the much superior Flash Gordon trilogy. Universal brought BUCK ROGERS out in 1939, in between their own chapterplays FLASH GORDON'S TRIP TO MARS and FLASH GORDON CONQUERS THE UNIVERSE; it also starred Buster Crabbe (but with his natural dark hair instead of Flash's golden curls) and although it is filled with space ships and weird gadgets, BUCK ROGERS lacks most of the elements that gave the Flash serials their intense emotional draw.

 

For one thing, there is none of the strong sexual charge that the Flash series had. Instead of nubile Dale Arden and sultry Princess Aura both competing for the hero's attention while the villain openly lusted for the heroine, Buck's epic featured Constance Moore as Col. Wilma Deering. Now, Moore is perfectly fine in her role, but she is after all a soldier in the resistance army and not a fair damsel in distress. She has a nice moment when she wrests a ray gun away from a guard and blasts her way out of her cell, but she and Buck seem to be merely chums on the same side.

 

Also, although BUCK ROGERS has plenty of futuristic gadgets (rayguns and buzzing spaceships which shoot sparks from their backs, teleportation tubes and invisibility rays), there are no grotesque monsters or nonhuman alien races on view. Prisoners have remarkably goofy metal helmets strapped on which turn them into docile zombies, and there are these homely goons called Zuggs moping around, but that's hardly as fascinating as Lion Men and Clay People and horned apes (that Orangapoid critter).

 

What's ironic about all this is that the comic strip BUCK ROGERS by Philip Nolan and Richard Calkins started in 1929, was immensely popular for many years and it success inspired the creation of Flash. Yet the Flash strip benefitted from the genius of Alex Raymond, one of the all-time great cartoon artists, and it produced stunning visual images (from the samples of Buck's strip I've seen, it was imaginative enough but pretty crude and drab). This contrast carried over to the serials.

 

Buck Rogers and his sidekick Buddy Wade (Jackie Moran) are pilots who crash in the Arctic in1938 and survive for 500 years because the 'Nirvano' gas they were carrying put them in a state of suspended animation. They both seem to adapt to waking up in the year 2424 pretty well, where I would think most people would be so traumatized it would take a while to adjust. In this dystopic future, the Earth is ruled by a mega-gangster called Killer Kane (another setback; Anthony Warde would be okay as a crimelord but he just doesn't have the imposing presence to convince me this guy can dominate an entire planet).

 

Luckily, Buck and Buddy have been found by the small resistance movement hopelessly trying to overthrow Kane from their hidden city. Here is Dr Huer (C. Montague Shaw, who I just saw in the UNDERSEA KINGDOM doing the same gig with his wild inventions) and Wilma Deering leading the good fight. For some reason I missed, everyone immediately puts all their trust in Buck and he pretty much takes over. (Maybe he's just one of those charismatic alpha males or something.) Most of the serial involves desperate trips back and forth to Saturn to enlist the aid of the isolationist Saturnians, and this means running the blockade of Kane's ships. The usual fistfights and explosions and captures and escapes normal for this sort of situation ensue. It's a lot of fun if you take it on its own terms, with a strong linear plot and likeable heroes, but it really never kicks into high gear and seems a bit drab.

 

It's interesting that some (but not all) of the Saturnians are played by Asian actors. Prince Tallen, who gets caught up in most of the fun, was portrayed by a very young Philson Ahn, and I thought for years this was the same guy who in 1972 impressed us as the head of the Shaolin Temple in TV's KUNG FU (he taught all the styles, really amazing if you think about it). Turns out that was Phiip Ahn, Philson's brother.

 

Dir: Ford Beebe and Saul A. Goodkind - 12 Chapters

 

BUCK ROGERS (1939): Director Ford Beebe, who also worked on Flash Gordon (1938), came straight from The Phantom Creeps (1939) and then went back to finish Flash Gordon Conquers The Universe (1940). Buck Rogers stars Buster Crabbe or, as his family knew him, Lawrence. Now, Lawrence ‘Larry’ ‘Buster’ Crabbe had previously starred in two Flash Gordon serials, a couple of Tarzan movies and a long string of westerns, so it was only natural for Universal to decide he was perfect as the heroic Buck Rogers, aka that blonde guy who saves the universe but isn’t Flash Gordon. Actually, Buster Crabbe wasn’t the first actor to play Buck Rogers in-the-flesh, so to speak.

That honour goes to an unknown man who played Buck in a Virginia department store, instead of their regular Santa Claus. Santa was off conquering Martians at the time, I think it was an exchange program of sorts. It strikes me that Buck Rogers is not unlike a male fantasy come to life. Just think of it – Buck gets to take a nice five-hundred-year-long sleep-in. With my busy schedule, I’m ecstatic if I can get twenty minutes nap on the weekend. Then, when he wakes up, Buck is the smartest, most dynamic guy around. In reality he’d be treated like something that’s escaped from the zoo. And finally, everyone needs Buck to go on exciting missions, fight the bad guys, test exotic equipment and crash rocket ships – out of the half-dozen flights Buck makes, he only lands successfully once. It’s easy to see the bullet cars used in the movie are the same ones from Flash Gordon’s Trip To Mars (1938), and even the script is rather suspect.

Planet Outlaws

This film is actually a compilation of the Buck Rogers serials that ran originally in 1939. The cliffhanger endings and recap beginnings have been edited out to make it flow better -- with partial success. Some new footage was shot for the introduction and summary. At the opening, there are some newspaper headlines about jets chasing flying discs, and the obligatory checkered V2 launch, etc. to add a modern segue. After that, it's pure 1939.

Sci-fi movie technology had come a long way in the 14 years since Buck's debut. Audiences had grown accustomed to sleek and pointy rockets, flying saucers, strange aliens, etc. The Buck Rogers style world-of-the-future must have looked oddly quaint. (if not laughable) Just why Universal Pictures thought re-releasing Buck Rogers was a good idea is a bit of a mystery. Kids who were 8 or so back in 1939 would be young adults in '53. Perhaps Universal was banking on those young adults would buy tickets for a trip down memory lane.

Plot Synopsis

After a bit of modern ('53) footage about the wonders of modern progress and "flying disks," the old serial begins. Rogers and Buddy crashed in the arctic while on a transpolar flight. They were in suspended animation due to the cold and a vague gas. A patrol finds them in the year 2500 and revives them. In the world of 2500, a despot named Killer Kane is trying to take over the world. The forces of good are holed up in the "hidden city." Buck arranges a decoy maneuver to elude Kane's patrol ships. They fly to the planet Saturn in hopes of finding help. On Saturn, the Council sees Rogers and party as the rebels, and Kane as the rule of law. Rogers et al, escape Saturn, return to earth and seek to disrupt Kane's bamboozling of Prince Tallen, the Saturnian representative. Rogers sneaks into Kane's city, interrupts the treaty signing and convinces Tallen of Kane's evil by revealing Kane's "robot battalion" (slaves wearing mind-control helmets). Rogers and Tallen get to Saturn and the treaty is signed. Rogers escapes Kane's patrols via the Dissolvo Ray which rendered them invisible. Rogers and the war council plan for war. Rogers enlists the Saturnians to help. Meanwhile, Rogers sneaks into Kane's city and de-zombies Minister Krenco to lead an uprising of freed robot-slave-prisoners. Rogers storms Kane's palace and puts one of the robo-slave helmets on Kane. The End

The industrial vision of the future is delightful to watch. The heavily mechanical look of everything is so radically different from the sleek rockets and glowing acrylic audiences were growing accustomed to. The space ships look like they were built at locomotive factories or steamship yards. They spew roman-candle sparks and smoke and buzz as they fly. There are no computers, no radar or electronics. It's a fascinating snapshot of what pre-electronic-age people thought the future would be like.

When originally released in 1939, the Killer Kane character was a thinly disguised allusion to Hitler. In 1953, Kane was intended to represent a communist despot. It wasn't as tidy a fit. The narrator sums it up voicing a hope that scientists will develop the means for men to stand up to today's dictators and make the world safe for democracy. In the early 50s, there's little question of who they meant.

Simple Colors -- One endearing trait of Buck Rogers is the simplicity of the characterizations. The good guys do nothing but good. The bad guys are pure bad. The good guys are crack pilots and sharp shooters and tough as nails. The bad guys do nothing but bad, have trouble hitting a flying barn and are easily knocked out with one punch.

Industrial Baroque -- Somewhat like the baroque era's compulsion to decorate every square inch with swirls and filigree, Industrial Baroque sought to fill every space with heavy-duty hardware. The sets, and especially the rocket interiors are like flying boiler rooms. Valves, pipes, levers, dials, wheels, large flashing light bulbs. To look more "high tech" in the 30s meant cramming in more industrial hardware. Buck Rogers' ships show more affinity for Captain Nemo "steampunk" than the proto-space-age of the 50s.

Family Resemblance -- There is a noticeable similarity in the sets and costumes of Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers. Even serials of the early 50s, like Captain Video and the various Rocketman serials, look more like Flash and Buck than George Pal. The industrial baroque look and costuming are distinctive, making them almost a sub-genre of their own. In that regard, Buck has a timelessness.

Another take on the story and additional background info.

A round-the-world dirigible flight commanded by US Air Force officer Buck Rogers (Buster Crabbe) encounters dangerously stormy weather above the Himalayas; said weather, along with disastrous panic on the part of Rogers’ crewmen, causes the aircraft to crash. The cowardly crewmen ditch the ship and meet quick ends, but Rogers and young Buddy Wade (Jackie Moran), son of the aircraft’s designer, survive the crash. The pair use a cylinder of “Nirvano” gas to place themselves into suspended animation until a rescue party can reach them, but an avalanche buries the ship and all searches prove fruitless; the dirigible and its two dormant inhabitants remain beneath rocks and snow for five hundred years.

Finally, in the year 2440, a spaceship unearths the wreck, and its pilots restore Buck and Buddy to consciousness. The holdovers from the 20th century soon learn that their rescuers are soldiers from the “Hidden City,” a pocket of resistance to the super-criminal who is ruling the 24th-century Earth–one “Killer” Kane (Anthony Warde). Rogers immediately pledges his support to Air Marshal Kragg (William Gould) and Scientist-General Dr. Huer (C. Montague Shaw), the leaders of the Hidden City exiles, and is soon en route to Saturn, hoping to convince that planet’s rulers to aid the Hidden City in freeing the Earth from Kane’s tyranny. To cement the Saturian alliance, Buck must battle Kane’s legions at every step of the way, with able assistance from Buddy and from Dr. Huer’s trusted aide Lieutenant Wilma Deering (Constance Moore).

 

Ever since its original release, Buck Rogers has stood in the shadow of Universal’s Flash Gordon serials; the studio encouraged such association by casting Flash Gordon star Buster Crabbe as a different sci-fi hero, obviously hoping that the chapterplay would capitalize on the goodwill generated by Flash Gordon and Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars. The serial did succeed in reminding audiences of the Flash outings–but it reminded them of how much they had liked those serials and forced inevitable comparisons that were not in Rogers’ favor. Universal’s plans for a second Buck Rogers serial were quickly scrapped when the first outing failed to please matinee audiences; the intended Buck sequel was then replaced on the studio’s production schedule by–what else?–a third Flash Gordon chapterplay. Even today, Buck is typically dismissed by fans as a pale echo of the great Gordon serials.

It’s easy to see why Buck Rogers came as a disappointment to audiences expecting an outing in the Flash Gordon tradition. Its production design, while futuristic, is less quirky and more uniform than that of the Gordons; there are no monsters and no weird semi-human races besides the rather uninteresting Zuggs; there are also no supporting characters as developed or as interesting as Dr. Zarkov, Ming, King Vultan, the Clay King, Princess Aura, Prince Barin, and other major figures in the Flash Gordon chapterplays. And yet, taken on its own terms, Buck Rogers is far from a failure; it does not approach the Flash Gordon trilogy in quality, but then few serials do.

Buck Rogers’ script, by former Mascot writers Norman Hall and Ray Trampe, is fast-moving and manages to avoid repetition for most of its length. The trip to Saturn, the attempts to convince Saturnian leader Prince Tallen (Philson Ahn) of the justice of the Hidden City’s cause, the subsequent rescue of Tallen from Kane’s city, the second journey to Saturn to cement the alliance, and the attempts of Kane’s henchman Laska (Henry Brandon) to sabotage it–all these incidents keep the narrative flowing very nicely for the serial’s first eight chapters. As in many of Trampe and Hall’s Mascot scripts, however, the writers seem to run out of plot before the serial’s end. While Chapters Nine and Ten remain interesting (with Buck being converted into a hypnotized robot, Buddy’s rescue of the hero, and an infiltration of the Hidden City by one of Kane’s men), the last two chapters have a definite wheel-spinning feel to them, throwing in a redundant third trip to Saturn and an unneeded flashback sequence.

The last-chapter climax is also something of a disappointment, with Kane being overthrown quickly and undramatically instead of being definitively crushed. Here, Trampe and Hall seem to have been leaving room for the sequel that never came and trying to avoid duplicating the dramatic but very final destruction of MIng which closed the first Flash Gordon serial (and which needed to be explained away in the second). The other weak spot of the scripting is Buck and Buddy’s rather calm reaction when they realize that their old world (and everyone in it) is dead–and their extraordinarily quick adjustment to their new one. One wouldn’t have wanted the writers to dwell on our heroes’ plight (which would be absolutely crushing in real life), but I do wish Trampe or Hall could have given Buck and Buddy a few emotional lines about their displacement before getting on to the main action; Hall in his scripts for other serials (Hawk of the Wilderness, Adventures of Red Ryder), showed himself capable of far more dramatic moments.

  

As already mentioned, the serial’s visuals are less varied than those of the Flash Gordon serials, but that’s not to say they aren’t impressive by serial standards. Pains seem to have been taken to avoid duplicating too much of Gordon’s “look;” the spaceship miniatures are completely different than the ships in the Gordon trilogy, while Kane’s stronghold–probably the best miniature in the serial–is not the quasi-Gothic palace of Ming but rather an ominous, futuristic-looking version of New York City, complete with towering skyscrapers. The Hidden City’s great rock gates are also nifty, and the massive Saturnian Forum (a life-size set, not a miniature) is very visually impressive. The barren Red Rock Canyon area works well as the Saturnian landscape, but I think it was a mistake to also use the Canyon as the area between the Hidden City and Kane’s capital; Saturn and Earth shouldn’t look so similar.

 

The only major prop or set reused from the Gordon serials are the “bullet cars” from Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars; they’re just as fun to watch in action here as in the earlier serial. Other incidental props and sets–Kane’s robot room, his mind-control helmets, the various televiewing devices, the anti-gravity belts, Dr. Huer’s invisibility ray, and the Star-Trek-like molecular transportation chamber–add further colorful touches to the serial., and are respectably represented by Universal’s always above-average array of sets and props. The Zuggs, the “primitive race” ruled by the Saturnians, are somewhat disappointing, however; while suitably grotesque-looking, they’re nowhere near as menacing or memorable–in appearance or demeanor–as their obvious inspiration, the Clay People in Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars.

The serial’s action scenes are brisk and energetic, suffering not at all from a general lack of fistfights–thanks to the swift-moving direction of Ford Beebe (a Mascot veteran like writers Trampe and Hall) and his co-director Saul Goodkind (usually an editor). The few hand-to-hand tussles–most of them on the rocky hills of Saturn–are executed routinely but skillfully by Dave Sharpe, Tom Steele, Eddie Parker, and other stuntmen; the best of the bunch is the fight between Buck and a Kane man in the control room of the Hidden City, although this is more exciting for the suspenseful situation (Buck trying to close the gates that the henchman has opened to Kane’s oncoming armada) than for any particular flair in the staging.

Most of the action sequences consist of protracted chases and pursuits (both on foot and in rocketships), with occasional quick combats thrown in. Many of these lengthy chases are very exciting–particularly the long incursion into Kane’s city that occupies most of Chapters Three and Four, a great combination of action and suspense. Buddy’s later stealthy visit into Kane’s fortress to rescue Buck from the robot room, and the following escape, is also good, as are Buck’s skillful and repeated elusions of the rebellious Zuggs in Chapter Eight and the bullet car getaway in Chapter Six.

  

The cliffhanger endings are generally well-staged, with proper build-ups, but too many of them involve spaceship crashes that our heroes rather implausibly live through. The impressive collapsing forum at the end of Chapter Eleven and the bullet car crash at the end of Chapter Six provide nice variety amid the spaceship wrecks, but (alas) are also resolved by mere survival. Still, this is preferable to the blatantly cheating resolution of what is otherwise one the best chapter endings–Killer Kane’s pursuit of Buddy in a darkened council chamber and his apparently lethal zapping of the young hero. At least the resolution features a good stunt bit by Dave Sharpe.

The leading performances in Buck Rogers are all excellent (although most other critics would make a single exception; see below). Buster Crabbe, as always, makes a perfect serial hero–both genially cheerful and grimly serious, unassumingly polite and aggressively tough. As in the Flash Gordon trilogy, his down-to-earth attitude also helps to make the wild sci-fi happenings seem perfectly normal.

Jackie Moran (oddly “reduced” to serial acting only a year after playing Huck Finn in David O. Selznick’s big-budget classic Adventures of Tom Sawyer) does a fine job as Buddy Wade, handling his character’s frequent “golly, gee-whiz” lines in a low-key fashion that keeps Buddy from coming off as too naïve; his chipper but calm demeanor complements Crabbe’s well, and he has no problems carrying an entire chapter and part of another on his own.

Constance Moore, despite being saddled with perhaps the most unflattering costume ever worn by a serial leading lady (basically coveralls and a bathing cap), manages to come off as charming. Her Wilma Deering is self-possessed and capable-seeming but never too coldly efficient; she remains warmly likable even when piloting spaceships or explaining technology to Crabbe.

Henry Brandon is very good as Killer Kane’s chief henchman Captain Laska–suave and sly when acting as Kane’s ambassador to Saturn, haughtily arrogant when threatening people, and nervously jittery in the presence of his overbearing leader. Hard-bitten tough guys Wheeler Oakman and Reed Howes, along with the slicker Carleton Young , form Brandon’s backup squad.

As Killer Kane himself, perennial henchman actor Anthony Warde has been almost universally panned by critics as “miscast.” I have to dissent strongly, however; Warde does a fine job in the part and plays Kane with a memorable combination of viciousness and uncontrollable anger. The character is not a diabolical schemer like Ming, but rather a super-gangster who’s blasted and bullied his way to the top–and Warde’s bad-tempered, aggressive, and thuggish screen personality fits the part perfectly. He veers between intimidating ranting and harshly sinister sarcasm–as when he describes himself as a “kindly ruler” just after wrathfully sending a formerly trusted councilor to the robot room–but is quite menacing in both aspects.

Philson Ahn, brother of frequent serial and feature actor Phillip Ahn, does a good job as Prince Tallen of Saturn; he possesses his sibling’s deep and distinctive voice, which serves him well as a planetary dignitary. His manner also has a slightly tougher edge to it than his refined brother’s, which helps to keep the viewer in uncertainty in the earlier chapters as to whether Tallen will turn out to be friend or foe. Guy Usher plays Aldar, the head of Saturn’s ”Council of the Wise,” and does his best to seem suitably imposing and dignified, despite the almost comical way in which the “Wise” continually change their opinions–backing Kane, opposing him, giving into his demands, defying him, etc. Cyril Delevanti is enjoyable as a grumpy subordinate member of the Council.*

C. Montague Shaw has limited screen time, but is very good as Dr. Huer, balancing statesmanlike dignity with shrewdness and a touch of enjoyable scientific eccentricity (the last is particularly noticeable during his demonstration of his invisibility gas in Chapter Five). Energetic Jack Mulhall is typically affable and enthusiastic as Captain Rankin of the Hidden City, while Kenne Duncan has a rare good guy role as Mulhall’s fellow-officer Lieutenant Lacy. Perennial screen “underworld rat” John Harmon also plays against type as a Hidden City soldier, as does Stanley Price as a Hidden City pilot rescued from existence as a human robot. The dignified but stolid William Gould is good enough as Air Marshal Kragg, but I would have preferred a more dynamic actor in the role–Kragg is, after all, the top military leader of Kane’s enemies. Mulhall could have handled it well, as could Wade Boteler–who does an excellent job as the grim and concerned Professor Morgan in the first chapter, intensely instructing Buddy and Buck in the use of the Nirvano gas.

Lane Chandler also appears in the first chapter, as a military officer who demonstrates the Nirvano gas to a reporter played by another old pro, Kenneth Harlan. An unusually subdued Theodore Lorch is one of Kane’s councilors, while Karl Hackett has a good part as another councilor who gets into an argument with Kane that leads to Hackett’s being converted into a human robot (his terrified pleas as he’s dragged out of the council chamber are quite chilling). Al Bridge has some memorably sinister lines (“when this helmet is in place, you’ll never think or speak again”) in his periodic scenes as the slave-master of Kane’s human robots.

Unusually for Universal, several bit roles are filled by stuntmen; Eddie Parker and Tom Steele pop in as various soldiers and officers, but aren’t as noticeable as Dave Sharpe, who’s given multiple speaking roles as a Kane soldier, a Hidden City soldier, a Saturnian officer, and a Saturnian soldier. His ubiquity can get a little distracting at times, particularly since some of his appearances follow right on the previous one’s heels; he also seems to have a bit of trouble with the formal-sounding Saturnian dialogue, coming off as much more stiff and affected than in his co-starring turn in Daredevils of the Red Circle.

The serial’s music score, like most other Universals of the period, is an eclectic but usually effective array of stock music, some of it cues from the Flash Gordon serials but the majority of it culled from Universal’s horror features, including (most notably) Franz Waxman’s score for Bride of Frankenstein, which furnishes some memorable opening-titles music.

All in all, though Buck Rogers has its share of flaws, it also has more than enough virtues (the acting, the fast pace, the interesting sci-fi trappings) to make it a good chapterplay. Despite its similar themes, it shouldn’t be pitted against the Flash Gordon trilogy–a match it’s bound to lose–but rather judged against the field of competition in general. When judged in this fashion, it’s just as entertaining–and often more entertaining–than many serials with less shabby reputations.

 

*One has to wonder, though, why some Saturnians are Orientals like Ahn and others Occidentals like Usher and Delevanti; my own theory is that men from various countries emigrated from Earth to Saturn sometime before the bulk of the serial took place; this would explain the racial assortment and also explain why the Hidden City chooses Saturn in particular as an ally (as usual, I’m probably putting too much thought into this).

 

solar cell characterization

 

Customer - Soldaduras Avanzadas - Spain

 

Quinta Ingenieria develop custom tester equipment in automatic, semiautomatic and manual mode, including electrical testing, computer vision, measurement of torque, angle, size, etc. ...

 

We have developed test equipment and quality control (hardware and software) for automotive, solar and electronics in general

The twin/matrix image in nano-twined pure copper.

 

Courtesy of Jingsheng Bai

 

Image Details

Instrument used: Tecnai Family

Voltage: 200kv

 

The 6,500-pound Tank W-1A is shipped away from ORNL.

 

The high-priority EM cleanup project involved extensive characterization, removal of contaminated soil and excavation of the 4,000-gallon stainless steel tank.

Because the color is somewhat distracting, this is a grayscale version of just the infrared data. I think the structure is most clearly visible in this single channel, monotone version.

 

Note at the nucleus of the nebula are some extra rings or arcs that are quite difficult to see in the color version.

 

I removed the diffraction spikes once again because they were very distracting and easy to confuse with the structure of the object.

 

Data from following proposal was used to create the image:

Characterization of the WFC3 IR Grisms

 

The filter represented here is WFC3/IR F140W

 

North is up.

Blythe custom doll by erregiro®

ronpics.com/ ©

In 2009 I worked on a portfolio of photographs for my friend Raj. He needed an actor portfolio and this is a photo from that set.

solar cell characterization

 

Customer - Soldaduras Avanzadas - Spain

 

Quinta Ingenieria develop custom tester equipment in automatic, semiautomatic and manual mode, including electrical testing, computer vision, measurement of torque, angle, size, etc. ...

 

We have developed test equipment and quality control (hardware and software) for automotive, solar and electronics in general

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Savannah District has an in-house Geotechnical and HTRW (Hazardous, toxic and radioactive waste) team with full serivce capabilities. Savannah's team has the most diverse fleet of investigative vehicles and equipment throughout the Corps of Engineers. The fleet includes geoprobes and drilling rigs, which can investigate a wide range of eathen materials, including soils and rock. Using this equipment, the team performs a variety of subsurface investigations, including well installation, determination of soil characteristics, contaminant characterization, aquifer testing, rock coring, and much more.

  

August 14, 2019 - NREL researchers and EHS Safety experts discuss testing parameters and procedure for a 10kW Power Take-Off (PTO) system designed for a wave energy converter on the 2.5 MW dynamometer at NREL's Flatirons Campus. A specially designed gearbox using the MMR (Mechancial Motion Rectifier) mechanism of is capable of rectifying the bi-direction input into uni-direction to drive the generator. Researchers are performing a system characterization test to determine the dynamic performance of the PTO and identify some unknown parameters. (Photo by Dennis Schroeder / NREL)

[59081]

 

Above: Ming orders Tarnak (Wheeler Oakman) to “save” a captive Azura from Flash by blowing up the airdrome around both the Earthman and the Queen.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZ2HUfD0QSw&feature=share&amp...

Universal, 15 Chapters, 1938. Starring Larry “Buster” Crabbe, Jean Rogers, Charles Middleton, Frank Shannon, Beatrice Roberts, Richard Alexander, Donald Kerr, C. Montague Shaw, Wheeler Oakman.

Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars picks up almost exactly where Flash Gordon left off, with our courageous trio of interplanetary adventurers–Flash Gordon (Larry “Buster” Crabbe), Dale Arden (Jean Rogers), and Dr. Zarkov (Frank Shannon)–returning to Earth from the planet Mongo. They are greeted to a royal welcome, since their voyage has saved the Earth from being destroyed by the late Emperor Ming of Mongo. Zarkov, however, attempts to curb the Earthlings’ ebullience by cautioning them that the defeat and death of Ming does not mean that their planet is free from other threats of extraterrestrial invasion. As usual, Zarkov is correct; shortly after his warning speech, the Martian Queen Azura (Beatrice Roberts) begins an operation designed to siphon off the “nitron” (aka nitrogen) in the Earth’s atmosphere. Azura’s primary goal is to create nitron-powered weapons with which to wage a war against her mortal foes, the Clay People of Mars. She’s indifferent to the devastating effect that it will have on the Earth, while her chief adviser and military consultant regards the destruction of Earth as the main attraction of the plan. That adviser is none other than Ming (Charles Middleton), still very much alive and longing for revenge on Flash and Zarkov for toppling him from his throne and driving him into exile on Mars.

As the Earth begins to experience catastrophic floods and storms, due to the effects of Azura’s “Nitron Lamp,” Zarkov, Flash, and Dale launch another interplanetary trip to discover the cause of the catastrophes, which Zarkov has determined are due to a beam that emanates from outer space. They discover an unexpected stowaway aboard after takeoff–reporter “Happy” Hapgood (Donald Kerr), who had set out to track down Zarkov and get his opinion of the world-wide disasters. Not long after arriving on Mars, our quartet of Earth adventurers find themselves embroiled in the war between Azura and the Clay People. The latter are one-time rivals of the Queen, who have been transformed into living clay by Azura’s magical powers and banished to underground caverns from whence they carry on a guerilla war against Azura’s forces. The Clay People’s king enlists the aid of Flash and his party, as both of them want to stop Azura’s nitron-collecting plans, and, with additional aid from Prince Barin (Richard Alexander)–who arrives on Mars to try to convince the Martians to expel Ming–Flash and his party pit themselves against Azura’s magic, Ming’s machinations, Ming’s savage allies the Forest People, and many other hazards, in their quest to save the Earth.

 

Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars is fully as good as the first Flash Gordon serial, although its strengths are in slightly different areas. While Trip to Mars doesn’t measure up to Flash Gordon when it comes to colorful characters and fantastic monsters, its focused plotline surpasses the episodic story of the earlier serial. In Flash Gordon, the protagonists merely responded to the perpetual perils that were hurled at them by Ming, King Vultan, and King Kala, while Ming’s own plans for destroying the Earth were largely abandoned after the first chapter in favor of his attempts to marry Dale and destroy Flash. In Trip to Mars, Flash, Dale, and Zarkov initiate events instead of just coping with them, and Ming’s new grand design drives the plot far more strongly than his earlier one, giving the good guys a clear-cut objective (the destruction of the Nitron Lamp) beyond simple escape from Mongo.

While Trip to Mars has no characters to rival Flash Gordon’s King Vultan and no bizarre beasts like the Orangopoid or the Fire Dragon, it still has excellent other-worldly atmosphere. The sets are not as varied and intricate as in the first serial, but still surpass the backdrops of almost any other chapterplay. Especially striking are Ming’s “powerhouse,” with its laboratory equipment and its disintegration room, Azura’s massive palace with its unique architectural design (particularly the futuristic pocket doors), the Clay People’s eerie caves, and the wonderfully-designed realm of the Forest People, with its twisted trees, climbing vines, hidden tunnels amid tree roots, and treehouse-like observation platforms.

 

In addition to the big sets, there are dozens of other major and minor props and special effects that make Trips to Mars memorably atmospheric; there’s the the Martians’ flying capes, the Martian televiewer screens (which are cleverly incorporated into the recap sequences at the beginning of each chapter), the Clay People’s vapor-healing chamber, and the bridge of light that connects Azura’s rocket tower to the rest of her palace and is powered by a simple switch like any Earthling lamp (the scene where Flash and Zarkov are first forced to cross the unsafe-looking thing is quite funny), to name but a few. I also appreciate the fact that Azura’s spaceship squadrons–her “stratosleds”–are designed differently than any of the ships in the first Flash Gordon serial; one would expect the aerial fleets of differing planets to differ in appearance. Another neat touch of internal consistency is the use of three completely different forms of salute by the three principal Martian races–Queen Azura’s subjects, the Clay People, and the Forest People.

The serial’s screenplay maintains good continuity with the previous Flash outing, despite being the work of a completely different team of writers–Ray Trampe, Norman S. Hall, Wyndham Gittens, and Herbert Dalmas. The new writing team avoids any of the clunky lines that occasionally crept into Flash Gordon’s dialogue exchanges; they also, despite having to resort to a few flashbacks to the first serial for padding purposes, manage to make their plot fit its fifteen-chapter length quite nicely. The major plot thread of the heroes’ attempts to destroy Ming and Azura’s Nitron Lamp is skillfully interwoven with several subplots–the Clay People’s efforts to regain their natural shape, the attempts by both Flash and Ming to get hold of the Black Sapphire of Kalu (a talisman that can neutralize Azura’s magic), and Ming’s plot to undermine Azura and seize the Martian throne.

Trip to Mars’ script wisely spreads its plot developments over the course of the serial, instead of introducing all its ideas in the first chapter and letting them tread water until the final one: the Clay People aren’t introduced till the second chapter or the Forest People until the sixth, while Prince Barin first arrives in Chapter Seven. The Nitron Lamp is destroyed in Chapter Nine and rebuilt over the course of the following chapters until it must be destroyed again at the climax, and one of the principal villains is killed off in Chapter Thirteen.

The cliffhangers aren’t quite as varied as in the first Flash serial, due to the lack of the various monsters that frequently attacked Flash for chapter-ending purposes in the earlier outing. However, writers still manage to avoid excessive repetition; for instance, while there are three chapter endings involving stratosled crashes, each one is set up differently–the first has Flash crashing a stratosled into another stratosled to stop it from bombing Dale and Happy, the second has a stratosled crashing on top of Flash and Zarkov, and the third has Flash and the pilots of a ’sled grapping for the controls as it soars towards yet another crash. There’s also an excellent cliffhanger in which Flash, Dale, Happy, and Zarkov are surrounded by an ever-narrowing ring of fire in the Forest People’s kingdom, and a memorably unusual one that has a hypnotized Dale stabbing an unsuspecting Flash in the back.

 

Though Trip to Mars has no swordfights or wrestling matches corresponding to those in Flash Gordon, it still features a nice variety of action scenes–including stratosled dogfights, fights among the vines and treetops of the Forest Kingdom, and chases through Azura’s big palace; the palace sequence in Chapter Five, which has the nimble Flash vaulting through windows to avoid the guards, is a particular standout. Directors Ford Beebe (a Universal serial veteran) and Robert Hill (a talented director who rarely escaped from low-budget independent serials and B-films) do a fine job of orchestrating these action scenes, assisted by stuntmen Eddie Parker (doubling Buster Crabbe), George DeNormand, Tom Steele, Bud Wolfe, and Jerry Frank. All of the aforementioned stuntmen, except Parker, also pop up in minor acting roles.

The performances in Trip to Mars are all first-rate; the returning actors from the first serial are all just as good as they were in Flash Gordon, while the new major players fit in smoothly. Buster Crabbe’s Flash is just as tough, chipper, athletic, and likable as in the first serial–and a good deal more wise and resourceful than before, improvising strategy and coming up with plans in tough situations instead of just trying to batter his way out. Frank Shannon’s Zarkov, as consequence of Flash’s new-found intelligence, has a reduced part, not guiding the good guys’ actions as he did in the first serial; he still functions as the scientific brains of the group, though, and is still as intense, serious, and sincere as before.

Jean Rogers, with her long blonde hair bobbed and dyed brown to better match the comic-strip version of Dale Arden (she’s also dressed in less arresting fashion), isn’t as stunning as in Flash Gordon, but is still a warm, welcome, and lovely presence. Her part here is smaller than in the first serial, though, since Ming is not romantically interested in her this time out (Ming, though no gentleman, evidently prefers blondes). Richard Alexander’s Prince Barin is a lot more self-assured when it comes to delivering dialogue this time around (helped, no doubt, by the absence of any overly high-flown lines), while his convincingly royal bearing and his commanding size are as effective as before.

Charles Middleton’s Ming is even more entertainingly sinister here than he was in Flash Gordon, getting a good deal more screen time and given a more devilish appearance by a notably forked beard. Though still given opportunities to break into tyrannical and bloodthirsty rages (particularly in his insane rant in the final chapter), Middleton spends much of the serial displaying duplicity and sly subtlety instead, since his Ming must pretend to friendship with Azura even while plotting against her. Middleton carries off this slightly more multi-faceted version of Ming masterfully, winning a few laughs with his crafty cynicism while remaining thoroughly sinister and hateful.

 

Beatrice Roberts does a fine job as Queen Azura, eschewing the sneering, aggressive demeanor of other serial villainesses for a regal, dignified manner (with a wryly humorous undercurrent) that contrasts interestingly with her often cruel behavior. Her Azura comes off as selfish and ruthless, but not an abusive tyrant like Ming. Donald Kerr as reporter Happy Hapgood, the other principal new character, is as controversial among fans as most other serial comedy-relief characters are. Speaking for myself, though, I found him quite likable and entertaining; he provides an amusingly commonplace point-of-view towards the fantastic world of Mars and is never obtrusive, gratingly stupid, or obnoxious. Additionally, his character is allowed to be quite heroic and helpful when the chips are down, a far cry from one-dimensional cowardly “comic” pests like Sonny Ray in Perils of Pauline or Lee Ford in SOS Coast Guard.

Wheeler Oakman is very good as Tarnak, Ming’s wily lab assistant and co-conspirator against Azura. C. Montague Shaw, concealed under heavy makeup for most of the serial, conveys an impressive air of ruined dignity as the King of the Clay People and manages to seem both sinister and sympathetic at different times. Usual hero Kane Richmond brings appropriate depth of characterization to his key role as a Martian pilot, who proves instrumental in helping Flash overthrow Ming in the later chapters. Anthony Warde has a small part as Toran, king of the Forest People, but extracts as much snarling nastiness as possible from the role. Future director Thomas Carr is his second-in-command, Kenne Duncan is the officer in charge of Azura’s airdrome, Lane Chandler and Jack Mulhall both appear as pilots of her Death Squadron, and Warner Richmond has a small role as one of Ming’s palace cohorts.

 

Hooper Atchley and James Blaine pop up as self-important Earth scientists, propounding ingenious and inaccurate theories as to the causes of the damage brought about by the Nitron Lamp, while Edwin Stanley is the general presiding over a council comprised of these two and additional savants. Louis Merrill (a radio actor who played character roles in several feature films) has a brief but memorable turn as the blunt and slightly uncouth Dr. Metz, who alone among the scientists has the humility to admit that Zarkov is the only one capable of unravelling the riddle of the disasters. Merrill’s characterization is so vivid that one wishes the actor had taken a larger part in this chapterplay or in other serials.

Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars is a nearly ideal sequel, in that it manages to preserve the basic strengths of its predecessor while deviating from it in some areas and improving on it in others. It’s also a nearly ideal serial, independent of its relation to the earlier Flash Gordon; it balances good acting, atmosphere, action, and plotting in such fine style that it would still be a notable achievement if it were the sole entry in the Flash Gordon series.

  

Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars picks up almost exactly where Flash Gordon left off, with our courageous trio of interplanetary adventurers–Flash Gordon (Larry “Buster” Crabbe), Dale Arden (Jean Rogers), and Dr. Zarkov (Frank Shannon)–returning to Earth from the planet Mongo. They are greeted to a royal welcome, since their voyage has saved the Earth from being destroyed by the late Emperor Ming of Mongo. Zarkov, however, attempts to curb the Earthlings’ ebullience by cautioning them that the defeat and death of Ming does not mean that their planet is free from other threats of extraterrestrial invasion. As usual, Zarkov is correct; shortly after his warning speech, the Martian Queen Azura (Beatrice Roberts) begins an operation designed to siphon off the “nitron” (aka nitrogen) in the Earth’s atmosphere. Azura’s primary goal is to create nitron-powered weapons with which to wage a war against her mortal foes, the Clay People of Mars. She’s indifferent to the devastating effect that it will have on the Earth, while her chief adviser and military consultant regards the destruction of Earth as the main attraction of the plan. That adviser is none other than Ming (Charles Middleton), still very much alive and longing for revenge on Flash and Zarkov for toppling him from his throne and driving him into exile on Mars.

As the Earth begins to experience catastrophic floods and storms, due to the effects of Azura’s “Nitron Lamp,” Zarkov, Flash, and Dale launch another interplanetary trip to discover the cause of the catastrophes, which Zarkov has determined are due to a beam that emanates from outer space. They discover an unexpected stowaway aboard after takeoff–reporter “Happy” Hapgood (Donald Kerr), who had set out to track down Zarkov and get his opinion of the world-wide disasters. Not long after arriving on Mars, our quartet of Earth adventurers find themselves embroiled in the war between Azura and the Clay People. The latter are one-time rivals of the Queen, who have been transformed into living clay by Azura’s magical powers and banished to underground caverns from whence they carry on a guerilla war against Azura’s forces. The Clay People’s king enlists the aid of Flash and his party, as both of them want to stop Azura’s nitron-collecting plans, and, with additional aid from Prince Barin (Richard Alexander)–who arrives on Mars to try to convince the Martians to expel Ming–Flash and his party pit themselves against Azura’s magic, Ming’s machinations, Ming’s savage allies the Forest People, and many other hazards, in their quest to save the Earth.

 

Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars is fully as good as the first Flash Gordon serial, although its strengths are in slightly different areas. While Trip to Mars doesn’t measure up to Flash Gordon when it comes to colorful characters and fantastic monsters, its focused plotline surpasses the episodic story of the earlier serial. In Flash Gordon, the protagonists merely responded to the perpetual perils that were hurled at them by Ming, King Vultan, and King Kala, while Ming’s own plans for destroying the Earth were largely abandoned after the first chapter in favor of his attempts to marry Dale and destroy Flash. In Trip to Mars, Flash, Dale, and Zarkov initiate events instead of just coping with them, and Ming’s new grand design drives the plot far more strongly than his earlier one, giving the good guys a clear-cut objective (the destruction of the Nitron Lamp) beyond simple escape from Mongo.

While Trip to Mars has no characters to rival Flash Gordon’s King Vultan and no bizarre beasts like the Orangopoid or the Fire Dragon, it still has excellent other-worldly atmosphere. The sets are not as varied and intricate as in the first serial, but still surpass the backdrops of almost any other chapterplay. Especially striking are Ming’s “powerhouse,” with its laboratory equipment and its disintegration room, Azura’s massive palace with its unique architectural design (particularly the futuristic pocket doors), the Clay People’s eerie caves, and the wonderfully-designed realm of the Forest People, with its twisted trees, climbing vines, hidden tunnels amid tree roots, and treehouse-like observation platforms.

 

In addition to the big sets, there are dozens of other major and minor props and special effects that make Trips to Mars memorably atmospheric; there’s the the Martians’ flying capes, the Martian televiewer screens (which are cleverly incorporated into the recap sequences at the beginning of each chapter), the Clay People’s vapor-healing chamber, and the bridge of light that connects Azura’s rocket tower to the rest of her palace and is powered by a simple switch like any Earthling lamp (the scene where Flash and Zarkov are first forced to cross the unsafe-looking thing is quite funny), to name but a few. I also appreciate the fact that Azura’s spaceship squadrons–her “stratosleds”–are designed differently than any of the ships in the first Flash Gordon serial; one would expect the aerial fleets of differing planets to differ in appearance. Another neat touch of internal consistency is the use of three completely different forms of salute by the three principal Martian races–Queen Azura’s subjects, the Clay People, and the Forest People.

The serial’s screenplay maintains good continuity with the previous Flash outing, despite being the work of a completely different team of writers–Ray Trampe, Norman S. Hall, Wyndham Gittens, and Herbert Dalmas. The new writing team avoids any of the clunky lines that occasionally crept into Flash Gordon’s dialogue exchanges; they also, despite having to resort to a few flashbacks to the first serial for padding purposes, manage to make their plot fit its fifteen-chapter length quite nicely. The major plot thread of the heroes’ attempts to destroy Ming and Azura’s Nitron Lamp is skillfully interwoven with several subplots–the Clay People’s efforts to regain their natural shape, the attempts by both Flash and Ming to get hold of the Black Sapphire of Kalu (a talisman that can neutralize Azura’s magic), and Ming’s plot to undermine Azura and seize the Martian throne.

Trip to Mars’ script wisely spreads its plot developments over the course of the serial, instead of introducing all its ideas in the first chapter and letting them tread water until the final one: the Clay People aren’t introduced till the second chapter or the Forest People until the sixth, while Prince Barin first arrives in Chapter Seven. The Nitron Lamp is destroyed in Chapter Nine and rebuilt over the course of the following chapters until it must be destroyed again at the climax, and one of the principal villains is killed off in Chapter Thirteen.

The cliffhangers aren’t quite as varied as in the first Flash serial, due to the lack of the various monsters that frequently attacked Flash for chapter-ending purposes in the earlier outing. However, writers still manage to avoid excessive repetition; for instance, while there are three chapter endings involving stratosled crashes, each one is set up differently–the first has Flash crashing a stratosled into another stratosled to stop it from bombing Dale and Happy, the second has a stratosled crashing on top of Flash and Zarkov, and the third has Flash and the pilots of a ’sled grapping for the controls as it soars towards yet another crash. There’s also an excellent cliffhanger in which Flash, Dale, Happy, and Zarkov are surrounded by an ever-narrowing ring of fire in the Forest People’s kingdom, and a memorably unusual one that has a hypnotized Dale stabbing an unsuspecting Flash in the back.

 

Though Trip to Mars has no swordfights or wrestling matches corresponding to those in Flash Gordon, it still features a nice variety of action scenes–including stratosled dogfights, fights among the vines and treetops of the Forest Kingdom, and chases through Azura’s big palace; the palace sequence in Chapter Five, which has the nimble Flash vaulting through windows to avoid the guards, is a particular standout. Directors Ford Beebe (a Universal serial veteran) and Robert Hill (a talented director who rarely escaped from low-budget independent serials and B-films) do a fine job of orchestrating these action scenes, assisted by stuntmen Eddie Parker (doubling Buster Crabbe), George DeNormand, Tom Steele, Bud Wolfe, and Jerry Frank. All of the aforementioned stuntmen, except Parker, also pop up in minor acting roles.

The performances in Trip to Mars are all first-rate; the returning actors from the first serial are all just as good as they were in Flash Gordon, while the new major players fit in smoothly. Buster Crabbe’s Flash is just as tough, chipper, athletic, and likable as in the first serial–and a good deal more wise and resourceful than before, improvising strategy and coming up with plans in tough situations instead of just trying to batter his way out. Frank Shannon’s Zarkov, as consequence of Flash’s new-found intelligence, has a reduced part, not guiding the good guys’ actions as he did in the first serial; he still functions as the scientific brains of the group, though, and is still as intense, serious, and sincere as before.

Jean Rogers, with her long blonde hair bobbed and dyed brown to better match the comic-strip version of Dale Arden (she’s also dressed in less arresting fashion), isn’t as stunning as in Flash Gordon, but is still a warm, welcome, and lovely presence. Her part here is smaller than in the first serial, though, since Ming is not romantically interested in her this time out (Ming, though no gentleman, evidently prefers blondes). Richard Alexander’s Prince Barin is a lot more self-assured when it comes to delivering dialogue this time around (helped, no doubt, by the absence of any overly high-flown lines), while his convincingly royal bearing and his commanding size are as effective as before.

Charles Middleton’s Ming is even more entertainingly sinister here than he was in Flash Gordon, getting a good deal more screen time and given a more devilish appearance by a notably forked beard. Though still given opportunities to break into tyrannical and bloodthirsty rages (particularly in his insane rant in the final chapter), Middleton spends much of the serial displaying duplicity and sly subtlety instead, since his Ming must pretend to friendship with Azura even while plotting against her. Middleton carries off this slightly more multi-faceted version of Ming masterfully, winning a few laughs with his crafty cynicism while remaining thoroughly sinister and hateful.

 

Beatrice Roberts does a fine job as Queen Azura, eschewing the sneering, aggressive demeanor of other serial villainesses for a regal, dignified manner (with a wryly humorous undercurrent) that contrasts interestingly with her often cruel behavior. Her Azura comes off as selfish and ruthless, but not an abusive tyrant like Ming. Donald Kerr as reporter Happy Hapgood, the other principal new character, is as controversial among fans as most other serial comedy-relief characters are. Speaking for myself, though, I found him quite likable and entertaining; he provides an amusingly commonplace point-of-view towards the fantastic world of Mars and is never obtrusive, gratingly stupid, or obnoxious. Additionally, his character is allowed to be quite heroic and helpful when the chips are down, a far cry from one-dimensional cowardly “comic” pests like Sonny Ray in Perils of Pauline or Lee Ford in SOS Coast Guard.

Wheeler Oakman is very good as Tarnak, Ming’s wily lab assistant and co-conspirator against Azura. C. Montague Shaw, concealed under heavy makeup for most of the serial, conveys an impressive air of ruined dignity as the King of the Clay People and manages to seem both sinister and sympathetic at different times. Usual hero Kane Richmond brings appropriate depth of characterization to his key role as a Martian pilot, who proves instrumental in helping Flash overthrow Ming in the later chapters. Anthony Warde has a small part as Toran, king of the Forest People, but extracts as much snarling nastiness as possible from the role. Future director Thomas Carr is his second-in-command, Kenne Duncan is the officer in charge of Azura’s airdrome, Lane Chandler and Jack Mulhall both appear as pilots of her Death Squadron, and Warner Richmond has a small role as one of Ming’s palace cohorts.

 

Hooper Atchley and James Blaine pop up as self-important Earth scientists, propounding ingenious and inaccurate theories as to the causes of the damage brought about by the Nitron Lamp, while Edwin Stanley is the general presiding over a council comprised of these two and additional savants. Louis Merrill (a radio actor who played character roles in several feature films) has a brief but memorable turn as the blunt and slightly uncouth Dr. Metz, who alone among the scientists has the humility to admit that Zarkov is the only one capable of unravelling the riddle of the disasters. Merrill’s characterization is so vivid that one wishes the actor had taken a larger part in this chapterplay or in other serials.

Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars is a nearly ideal sequel, in that it manages to preserve the basic strengths of its predecessor while deviating from it in some areas and improving on it in others. It’s also a nearly ideal serial, independent of its relation to the earlier Flash Gordon; it balances good acting, atmosphere, action, and plotting in such fine style that it would still be a notable achievement if it were the sole entry in the Flash Gordon series.

  

The EHP provides active heating and cooling of parallel plate and cone and plate geometries. With standard and disposable systems it's ideal for rheological characterization of polymer melts and thermosetting materials up to a maximum temperature of 400°C. The EHP offers Active Temperature Control (ATC) making it the only EHP system capable of direct temperature control of the upper and lower plates.

From the University of St. Michaels’s College in the University of Toronto Alumni Magazine:

 

In a 1972 book of architectural walking tours of Toronto, a young architect named George Baird—who is now the UofT’s Dean of Architecture, Landscape and Design—described Elmsley Place as “the most touching of all the relics of the former residential neighbourhood. It comprises still almost an entire street, and serves as a domestic front gate to the whole St. Michael’s precinct.”

 

As the density of the neighbourhood has increased dramatically, Baird’s characterization seems even truer today than it was 35 years ago. And happily, that’s not about to change. The four Victorian-era houses on the west side of Elmsley Place— in recent years known as Gilson House (No. 8), Maritain House (No. 6), McCorkell House (No. 2), and Sullivan House (96 St. Joseph St.)—are about to get a renovation and restoration that is expected to take at least a full academic year, possibly a full calendar year, and cost about $4 million.

 

The Elmsley Place houses were once suburban villas. This was one of a number of enclaves for professional and managerial families that began springing up in Toronto in the 1890s. It was also one of the city’s earliest subdivisions, laid out by Remigius Elmsley as an exclusive residential precinct. And so it remained until about 1920, when the city decided to extend Bay Street north to Davenport Road and issued by-laws effectively expropriating about one-third of the College’s land. St. Michael’s fought this on several fronts, finally winning at the Supreme Court of Canada, with the following outcome in 1926: the College would remain exempt from expropriation (as it argued it had always been); the city would pay compensation for the land taken, plus the loss in value of the remaining property, plus losses incurred in the demolition and replacement of buildings that had stood on the lost land, plus five-years’ accrued interest on all of that.

 

That compensation allowed St. Michael’s to purchase title to the land on Elmsley Place, which had originally been conveyed by leasehold. The campus would from then on extend from Bay Street to Queen’s Park. (At about the same time, it purchased properties on the south side of St. Joseph Street. As well, St. Joseph’s College had bought the mansion built in 1882 for William Christie, who made good cookies, at the corner of Wellesley and Queen’s Park Crescent.) But while the College had possession of Elmsley Place land from 1926, the houses remained in private hands until after World War II, with some notable residents living in them.

 

They also have interesting architectural connections. Maritain House and Gilson House—one structure, two addresses—were built later than most of their neighbours, in 1904. The architect was A. Frank Wickson, also responsible for the Berkeley Street Firehall, now home to the Alumnae Theatre. The 1892 tax roll credits the design of the corner house— Number 2 Elmsley Place/96 St. Joseph Street—to “Aylesworth, architect,” likely either Edward Aylesworth or Marshall B. Aylesworth, in either case probably a builder, not an architect. However, four years later, the house was dramatically altered with the addition of the protruding bay with its cut stonework and the extended wing and second-storey oriel. The architect for those was one of the city’s foremost, Edmund Burke.

 

Earlier, Burke and a partner had designed the acoustical treasure on Bloor Street now called Trinity-St. Paul’s United Church. In 1894, Burke became president of the Ontario Association of Architects, that year also forming a partnership with J.C.B Horwood. In 1895, Burke & Horwood designed what is now The Bay, at Queen and Yonge Streets, one of Toronto’s first steel frame buildings, and in 1913 they did the spectacular Wesley Building for the Methodist Book and Publishing House, now the Queen Street West home to Citytv. Most student residents in the Elmsley Place houses have known they had a special address. In 2006, the Student Levy fund paid for many improvements to the street itself, including an interlocking brick road surface that beautifully complements the old houses.

 

Currently, the four houses accommodate 43 students and four dons, though with many double rooms, especially in McCorkell house. That will change. Students today expect singles. According to St. Michael’s Dean of Students, Duane Rendle, most universities now guarantee single rooms after First Year. Former Elmsley Placers will also envy some other changes coming: each room now getting a high-speed hard-wire connection to the university’s digital “backbone,” a cable-TV hook-up, and a phone linked to the St. Michael’s switchboard.

 

None of that will be apparent to passers-by, though, for whom Elmsley Place will still seem a quiet, throwback to another era—bosky, human-scale, its eccentric old houses making it a more treasured “front gate to the St. Michael’s precinct” than ever.

 

This High Dynamic Range panorama was stitched from 64 bracketed photographs with PTGUI Pro, tone-mapped with Photomatix, processed with Color Efex, then touched up in Aperture.

 

Original size: 20000 × 10000 (200.0 MP; 1.05 GB).

 

Location: University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

MILT CANIFF

Strictly For The Smart Birds

Harvey, 1951

 

The King of the Comic Strips

Milton Caniff

From The Early Years To Terry and the Pirates

Milton Caniff, to most comics fans, will always be regarded as the major leading light of the syndicated comic strip. He was a pioneer of a visual style of story telling that's widely imitated but seldom achieved, establishing innovations that would become a yardstick for all that followed in his footsteps. No major comics artists today remain untouched by his influences.

 

Milton Caniff was born on February 28, 1907 in Hillsboro, Ohio. His art career began in a significant way when, as a young boy, he discovered a trunk containing drawings by the early newspaper cartoonist, John T. McCutchen. "This was my first inspiration as an artist in wanting to draw pictures at all, " Caniff would recall. The trunk discovery was significant in another way, in the kind of coincidence that usually only happens in fiction, because years later McCutchen helped to launch the famous Terry and the Pirates!

 

It's likely that Caniff would have become a cartoonist without the trunk. From the very beginning he displayed a talent for art that was amply displayed in school journals and by the eighth grade he had already had a cartoon published in a local paper. By high school he was already freelancing for a newspaper art department, and by the time he reached college Caniff was providing art on the side for the Dayton Journal, the Miami Daily News, and the Columbus Dispatch, while still finding time to attend classes and participate in theatrical productions.

 

After graduating college Caniff found full time work at the Dispatch, spending nights working on a few abortive comic strip attempts. The new job only lasted a short time when the Depression struck, forcing the Dispatch to downsize.

 

Caniff's unemployment only lasted a short while; fortunately the Associated Press of New York had noticed clippings of the young artist's work and offered him a job. The timing was right; Caniff arrived in the Big Apple just in time for 1932's Presidential campaign, and his published portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt appeared in papers all across the country, his first national exposure. While at AP the artist met a fellow worker who would equal his own success as a cartoonist, Al Capp. (Appropriately enough it was on April Fool's Day.) The two men became life-long friends and when Capp left the unfunny strip he had been assigned, Mr. Gilfeather, Caniff inherited the feature, turning it into the more palatable The Gay Thirties.

 

In addition to the single panel feature on life in America, Caniff was given a multi-paneled adventure strip to work on, Dickie Dare. The strip began in July 1933 and featured Dickie's daydreams of fighting along side Robin Hood and his Merry Men, hunting treasure with Long John Silver, and adventuring with Robinson Crusoe. Caniff lasted a year on the strip, which was to continue on until the late fifties, capably handled by Coulton Waugh and his wife, Mabel "Odin" Burvik.

 

Caniff had gotten a better offer from Colonel Patterson of the Chicago Tribune-New York News Syndicate in the fall of 1934. The new job offer came about thanks to another cartoonist who had noticed Caniff's clippings, John McCutchen, the same artist who drew the inspirational cartoons that Caniff had discovered in his mother's trunk!

 

Patterson had been looking for something similar to Dickie Dare, and exotic adventure strip that featured a leading adult and a youthful sidekick. Caniff filled that bill with Terry and the Pirates, which first appeared on October 22, 1934. The continuity opened with the story of Terry Lee, an American boy, his adult pal Pat Ryan, and a clever Chinese servant named Connie, "chief cook and philosopher." The three set out for an abandoned treasure mine but soon find themselves stranded and penniless in a China swarming with brigands, warlords, and hostile Japanese troops.

 

Caniff's early work on the strip was good enough for the times but crude in comparison to what would come later. A big boost in his evolution as an artist came from teaming up with another young comics legend, Noel Sickles, the artist on the AP Scorchy Smith strip.

 

The two men, who had once shared a studio in Ohio, worked in tandem, writing and drawing for each other's strips, in the process developing a novel and time saving method for indicating detail, using a impressionistic brushwork technique known as "chiaroscuro." The technique became Caniff's trademark. As Jules Fieffer once said, "Black is Milton Caniff's primary color."

 

Caniff's mastery of light and dark, his talent for action scenes and camera angles, and his flair for dramatic storytelling all contributed to the popularity of Terry and the Pirates. Another strength of the strip has been its reliance on realism.

 

Caniff realized that potential fan interest must be immediately captured in a strip's first year. "Since a person must read the balloons to get the story," Caniff once said, "I thought I could catch them with vivid color and illustrations rather than straight cartoons. This meant that there'd have to be absolute authenticity."

 

Caniff worked long hours to achieve his goal, consulting with experts in every field. In one sequence involving an amphibious invasion, Caniff dug into thirty-eight books in order to nail down such details as to what military hospitals looked like and whether or not Japanese bombers veered to the right or left when launched from aircraft carriers.

 

Caniff read every book he could find the Orient, becoming more concerned with the problems China faced from the Japanese invaders, predicting in his strip that an inevitable conflict would break out between the U.S. and Hirohito's Imperial forces.

 

Pat and Terry shared the strip with an intriguing cast of supporting characters. To name just a few, there was Captain Judas, Burma, Big Stoop, Chopstick Joe, Dude Hennick, Cherry Blaze, Cue Ball, and one of the greatest of femme fatales, The Dragon Lady, who often played both sides of the fence. Caniff was a master of characterization; readers really got to know and care about many of his cast.

 

This point was amply illustrated in a famous 1941 episode, the death of Raven Sherman. A full week of continuity passed as Raven, wounded by the treacherous Captain Judas, slowly ebbs away on a lonely trail in China until finally, "as it must to every one," she dies. And then, as Caniff says, "The roof fell in!" Caniff was flooded with flower deliveries, mock memorial services, petitions of condolence signed by disparate groups as factory workers and entire colleges, as well as a lot of irate letters. For years afterwards the cartoonist would continue to get black-edged cards on the anniversary of Raven's death. Proving that perhaps, as Caniff put it, "the impacts of both picture and words drives more deeply into human awareness than any anthropologist has yet cared to note."

 

Perhaps so. But Caniff also noted that Raven was killed in October 1941. "If it had happened two months later, nobody would even remember her name today." Milton Caniff, to most comics fans, will always be regarded as the major leading light of the syndicated comic strip. He was a pioneer of a visual style of story telling that's widely imitated but seldom achieved, establishing innovations that would become a yardstick for all that followed in his footsteps. No major comics artists today remain untouched by his influences.

 

Two months after Milton Caniff's famous death-of-Raven sequence, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and the United States' role in the Second World War had begun. Caniff had depicted Japan's aggression in China (as well as Japanese-Nazi collaboration) in Terry and the Pirates years before war broke out. "There was no general realization of impending war between Japan and the United States," said Caniff, "but anyone who could read newspapers could put it together. The Sino-Japanese war just served as a beacon for future sequences. I foresaw a terrific struggle for the Allies."

 

Terry joined in that struggle, having finally grown to young adulthood, and got his wings, becoming a pilot in the air force in China. Pat Ryan, his buddy and mentor, was phased offstage to join the Navy, replaced by another father figure, Colonel Flip Corkin. With the change Terry Lee finally became the sole lead in the strip bearing his name, but the "Pirates," like Pat Ryan, also disappeared.

 

Caniff stepped up the wartime action, with Terry occasionally joining forces with his old nemesis, the Dragon Lady ("tough as a hash-heavy top sergeant"), as well as a new friend in the strip, the very hip, wise-cracking Hot-Shot Charlie.

 

Terry and the Pirates soared in popularity during the war years, thanks to Caniff's storytelling and his incredible attention to detail (once buying film reels from the Army Signal Corps to check on a detail about aircraft carriers). Voluntary informants, readers from around the world, aided the artist. Men and women in the armed services provided invaluable information on anything thing from logistics to military uniforms. Caniff returned the favor by designing countless logos and insignias, designing a large number of instruction manuals and posters, and winning numerous citations from the Navy, War, and Treasury Departments.

 

If Terry and the Pirates helped the war effort by informing and entertaining the civilians, Caniff's Male Call did wonders for the guys in uniform. The strip, which ran uncensored in service newspapers, was heavy on cheesecake and featured the voluptuous Miss Lace, a kind of volunteer Morale Officer, who did her best to cheer up the men, usually by dressing in very low-cut outfits.

 

The strip's popularity peaked during the war years. During that time Terry had been adapted to radio and comics, and in 1940 James W. Horne directed a movie serial version (in the 1950s there was also a Terry TV series). After the war ended Caniff ran into contractual problems with his syndicate and went over to King Features, with a hefty salary increase and the added bonus of owning whatever strip he created. On December 29, 1946, the last of Milton Caniff's Terry and the Pirates appeared. George Wundar inherited the strip, which would continue on (in some years inked by E.C. artist George Evans) for another 25 years, finally folding in 1973. In 1995 Tribune Media Services resurrected Terry, which was written by Michael Uslan and illustrated by Greg and Tim Hildebrandt, later replaced by comics veteran

Dan Spiegle.

 

Steve Canyon, Caniff's new strip, debuted on January 7, 1946, opening simultaneously in 125 papers throughout the country, a unique distinction for a new strip, but understandable given Caniff's reputation. Steve was a compulsive hero ("the kind of guy who doesn'tlike to see people kicked around"). As Caniff described him in a Time magazine interview, Canyon was intended to be a "sort of modern Kit Carson, the strong silent Gary Cooper plainsman type. He'llhave lots of gals, one at every port."

 

Canyon was to be, in Caniff's words, "a picaresque novel," like Cervantes' Don Quixote; a traveler moving from one adventure to the next, accompanied by a friend the hero can talk to (and talk to the reader). In this case, Sancho Panza turned out to be a scrappy oldster, Happy Easter. Caniff also decided to bring in another Terry figure, the teenage Reed Kimberly -- after all, if Steve ever settled down to married life, Caniff needn't abandon any boy-meets-girl plot riffs.

 

Canyon did meet a lot of women. Many of them, like the cold-blooded Copper Calhoun (a nasty version of Daddy Warbucks), Cheetah (a totally amoral bargirl who would steal Reed's heart and then cheerfully step on it), the hapless Summer Olson (hopelessly in love with Steve and always abused by Ms. Calhoun, her employer), and cousin Poteet Canyon (a teenage version of Happy Easter). "Ninety-five percent of the interest in any fiction is what happens to the women, not what happens to the men," Caniff believed.

 

Like many other comic strip adventurers, Steve Canyon went on to become a Cold Warrior with the advent of the nineteen fifties, reentering the air Force after the outbreak of the Korean war. Steve found time between adventures in various Third World hotspots to finally marry Summer Olson in 1970 and after the Vietnam war became entangled in a number of marital problems that eventually resulted in a separation.

 

The Vietnam war also caused a number of problems for the strip itself, as the mood of the many Americans was definitely not in tune with military adventures. And as newspapers around the country began to shrink the panel size of their strips to make room for all-important advertising, Caniff's strip, like most realistic strips, began losing its effectiveness. As the aging Caniff began experiencing health problems, he was forced to drop penciling chores, which were then handled by Dick Rockwell (nephew of illustrator Norman Rockwell) and concentrate on writing and inking it.

 

Although ill heath couldn't keep the artist from the drawing board, he finally succumbed to lung cancer in 1988. Steve Canyon survived him by several weeks, after 41 years of continuity. Caniff's awards, which included two Reubens for his two strips, were numerous but the last Steve Canyon, dated June 4, was a final, wonderful tribute: it was two panels, one drawn by the legendary war cartoonist Bill Mauldin, the other signed by 78 fellow artists of the field he loved. Milton Caniff will be long remembered.

--Steve Stiles

www.stevestiles.com/caniff1.htm

www.stevestiles.com/caniff2.htm

  

Milton Caniff

 

Birth nameMilton Arthur Paul Caniff

BornFebruary 28, 1907

Hillsboro, Ohio

DiedMay 3, 1988 (aged 81)

New York City

NationalityAmerican

Area(s)artist

Notable worksDickie Dare

Terry and the Pirates

Steve Canyon

Awardsfull list

 

Milton Arthur Paul Caniff (February 28, 1907-May 3, 1988) was an American cartoonist famous for the Terry and the Pirates and Steve Canyon comic strips.

 

Early life

 

Caniff was born in Hillsboro, Ohio. He was an Eagle Scout and a recipient of the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award from the Boy Scouts of America. Caniff had done some cartoons for local newspapers as a teenager, while studying at Stivers School for the Arts. Shortly after matriculating at the Ohio State University, from which he graduated in 1930, Caniff began a career in journalism by applying to the Columbus Dispatch. There he worked with the noted cartoonist William "Billy" Ireland until Caniff's position was eliminated.

 

While at Ohio State, Caniff joined the Sigma Chi Fraternity, and later provided illustrations for The Magazine of Sigma Chi and The Norman Shield (the fraternity's pledgeship/reference manual).

  

Cartoonist

 

In 1932, Caniff moved to New York City to accept an artist position in the Features Service of the Associated Press. He did general assignment art for several months, then inherited a panel cartoon called Mister Gilfeather in September 1932 when Al Capp left the feature. Caniff continued Gilfeather until the spring of 1933, when it was retired in favor of a generic comedy in a panel cartoon called The Gay Thirties, which he produced until he left AP in the fall of 1934. In July 1933, Caniff began an adventure fantasy strip, Dickie Dare, influenced by series such as Flash Gordon and Brick Bradford.[1] The eponymous central character was a youth who dreamed himself into adventures with such literary and legendary persons as Robin Hood, Robinson Crusoe and King Arthur. In the spring of 1934, Caniff changed the strip from fantasy to "reality" when Dickie no longer dreamed his adventures but experienced them as he traveled the world with a freelance writer, Dickie's adult mentor, "Dynamite Dan" Flynn.

 

In 1934, Caniff was hired by the New York Daily News to produce a new strip, Terry and the Pirates, the strip which made Caniff famous.[1] Like Dickie Dare, Terry began the strip as a boy who is traveling in China with an adult mentor and freelance writer, Pat Ryan. But over the years the title character aged and by World War II he was old enough to serve in the Army Air Force. During the twelve years that Caniff produced the strip, he introduced many fascinating characters, most of whom were "pirates" of one kind or another--Burma, a blonde with a mysterious possibly criminal past; Chopstick Joe, a Chinese petty criminal; Singh Singh, a warlord in the mountains of China; Judas, a smuggler; Sanjak, a lesbian; and then boon companions such as Hotshot Charlie, Terry's wing man during the War years; Connie and Big Stoop, a Chinese Jeff and Mutt (in stature) who followed Terry and Pat Ryan around the country; and April Kane, a young woman who was Terry's first love. But Caniff's most memorable creation was the Dragon Lady, a pirate queen; she was seemingly ruthless and calculating, but Caniff encouraged his readers to think she had romantic yearnings for Pat Ryan.

 

Lai Choi San, the Dragon Lady, Milton Caniff's most iconic character from Terry And the Pirates (©2006 by Tribune Media Services)

 

During the war, Caniff began a second strip, a special version of Terry and the Pirates without Terry but featuring the blonde bombshell, Burma. Caniff donated all of his work on this strip to the armed forces -- the strip was only available in military newspapers. After complaints from the Miami Herald about the military version of the strip being published by military newspapers in the Herald's circulation territory, the strip was renamed Male Call and given a new star, Miss Lace, a beautiful woman who lived near every military base on the planet and enjoyed the company of enlisted men, but not officers. Her function, Caniff often said, was to remind service men what they were fighting for, and while the situations in the strip brimmed with double entendre, Miss Lace was not, as far as she appeared in the strip, a loose woman, but she "knew the score." Far more so than civilian comic strips which portrayed military characters, Male Call was notable for its honest depiction of what the servicemen were up against: one strip showed Miss Lace dating a soldier on leave who had lost an arm; another strip had her escorting a blinded ex-serviceman. Caniff continued Male Call until seven months after V-J Day, ending it in March 1946.[2]

 

The year 1946 also saw the end of Caniff's association with Terry and the Pirates. While the strip was a major success, it was not owned by its creator but by its distributing syndicate, the Chicago Tribune-New York Daily News, a common practice with syndicated comics at the time. And when Caniff was offered the chance to own his own strip by Marshall Field, publisher of the Chicago Sun, the cartoonist left Terry to produce a strip for Field Enterprises. Caniff produced his last strip of Terry and the Pirates in December 1946 and introduced his new strip Steve Canyon in the Chicago Sun-Times the following month.[1] At the time, Caniff was one of only two or three syndicated cartoonists who owned their creations, and he attracted considerable publicity as a result of this circumstance.

  

Steve Canyon

 

Like his previous strip, Steve Canyon was an action strip with a pilot as its main character. Canyon was originally portrayed as a civilian pilot with his own one-airplane cargo airline, but he re-enlisted in the Air Force during the Korean War and remained in the Air Force for the remainder of the strip's run.

 

Milton Caniff's Steve Canyon, although not gaining the popularity of Terry and the Pirates, nevertheless enjoyed greater longevity.

 

While Steve Canyon never achieved the popularity that Terry and the Pirates had at its height as a World War II military adventure or the cult fame Terry generated over the years, it was a successful comic strip with a greater circulation than Terry ever had. A short-lived Steve Canyon television series was produced in 1958, marking the height of the strip's fame. The title character's dedication to the military (Steve Canyon was often termed the "unofficial spokesman" for the Air Force) produced a negative reaction among readers during the Vietnam War, and the strip dropped in circulation as a result. Caniff nonetheless continued to enjoy enormous regard in the profession and in newspapering, and he produced the strip until his death in 1988. The strip was continued for a couple months after he died, but it soon expired, too, in June 1988.

  

Recognition and awards

 

Caniff was one of the founders of the National Cartoonist Society and served two terms as its President, 1948 and 1949. He also received the Society's first Cartoonist of the Year Award in 1947, nominally for his new comic strip, Steve Canyon, but since the award covered work published in 1946, it embraced Terry and the Pirates as well. Caniff would be named Cartoonist of the Year again, receiving the accompanying trophy, the Reuben, in 1972 for 1971, again for Steve Canyon. He was also named to the Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame in 1988. He received the National Cartoonist Society Elzie Segar Award in 1971, the Award for Story Comic Strip in 1979 for Steve Canyon, the Gold Key Award (the Society's Hall of Fame) in 1981, and NCS has since named the Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award in his honor.

 

Caniff died in New York City.

 

Followers

Along with Hal Foster and Alex Raymond, Caniff's style would have a tremendous influence on the artists who drew American comic books in the first half of the 20th century. Evidence of his influence can be clearly seen in the work of comic book artists such as Jack Kirby, Frank Robbins, Lee Elias, Bob Kane, Mike Sekowski, Dick Dillin,John Romita,Sr. and Johnny Craig to name just a mere handful.

www.flickr.com/photos/deconstructing-roy-lichtenstein/395...

 

www.tnr.com/blog/spine?pid=49858

 

davidbarsalou.homestead.com/LICHTENSTEINPROJECT.html

 

www.flickr.com/photos/deconstructing-roy-lichtenstein/

 

www.boston.com/news/globe/living/articles/2006/10/18/lich...

 

mass.live.advance.net/printer/printer.ssf?/base/news-6/11...

 

web.archive.org/web/20030310054018/www.newmassmedia.com/a...

 

DECONSTRUCTING ROY LICHTENSTEIN © 2000 David Barsalou

 

Above: A disguised Buck and Buddy prowl Kane’s headquarters.

This abridgement of Universal's 12-episode serial Buck Rogers stars Buster Crabbe as Dick Calkins' famed comic-strip space adventurer. Buck and Buddy (Jackie Moran) and are recruited to battle against modernistic gangster Killer Kane (Anthony Warde), by Wilma Deering (Constance Moore) and Dr. Huer (C. Montague Shaw). The duo travels to Saturn to get help in their mission, and after Buck and Buddy quell the internal struggles of the Saturnians, Buck triumphs over Killer Kane and his cosmic thugs.

Planet Outlaws Feature link: youtu.be/UD3xKy42KUY

 

Link to all 12 Serial Episodes:

 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTtc-u3zFGk&feature=share&amp...

 

Starring Buster Crabbe, Constance Moore, Jackie Moran, Jack Mulhall, Anthony Warde, C. Montague Shaw, Guy Usher, William Gould, Philson Ahn. Directed by Ford Beebe, Saul A. Goodkind.

Buck Rogers and Buddy Wade are in the middle of a trans-polar dirigible flight when they are caught in a blizzard and crash. Buddy then releases a special gas to keep them in suspended animation until a rescue party can arrive. However, an avalanche covers the craft and the two are in suspended animation for 500 years. When they are found, they awake to find out that the world has been taken over by the outlaw army of Killer Kane. Along with Lieutenant Wilma Deering, Buck and Buddy join in the fight to overthrow Kane and with the help of Prince Tallen of Saturn and his forces, they eventually do and Earth is free of Kane's grip.

 

This is actually a pretty enjoyable serial, but it seems doomed to be forever overshadowed by the much superior Flash Gordon trilogy. Universal brought BUCK ROGERS out in 1939, in between their own chapterplays FLASH GORDON'S TRIP TO MARS and FLASH GORDON CONQUERS THE UNIVERSE; it also starred Buster Crabbe (but with his natural dark hair instead of Flash's golden curls) and although it is filled with space ships and weird gadgets, BUCK ROGERS lacks most of the elements that gave the Flash serials their intense emotional draw.

 

For one thing, there is none of the strong sexual charge that the Flash series had. Instead of nubile Dale Arden and sultry Princess Aura both competing for the hero's attention while the villain openly lusted for the heroine, Buck's epic featured Constance Moore as Col. Wilma Deering. Now, Moore is perfectly fine in her role, but she is after all a soldier in the resistance army and not a fair damsel in distress. She has a nice moment when she wrests a ray gun away from a guard and blasts her way out of her cell, but she and Buck seem to be merely chums on the same side.

 

Also, although BUCK ROGERS has plenty of futuristic gadgets (rayguns and buzzing spaceships which shoot sparks from their backs, teleportation tubes and invisibility rays), there are no grotesque monsters or nonhuman alien races on view. Prisoners have remarkably goofy metal helmets strapped on which turn them into docile zombies, and there are these homely goons called Zuggs moping around, but that's hardly as fascinating as Lion Men and Clay People and horned apes (that Orangapoid critter).

 

What's ironic about all this is that the comic strip BUCK ROGERS by Philip Nolan and Richard Calkins started in 1929, was immensely popular for many years and it success inspired the creation of Flash. Yet the Flash strip benefitted from the genius of Alex Raymond, one of the all-time great cartoon artists, and it produced stunning visual images (from the samples of Buck's strip I've seen, it was imaginative enough but pretty crude and drab). This contrast carried over to the serials.

 

Buck Rogers and his sidekick Buddy Wade (Jackie Moran) are pilots who crash in the Arctic in1938 and survive for 500 years because the 'Nirvano' gas they were carrying put them in a state of suspended animation. They both seem to adapt to waking up in the year 2424 pretty well, where I would think most people would be so traumatized it would take a while to adjust. In this dystopic future, the Earth is ruled by a mega-gangster called Killer Kane (another setback; Anthony Warde would be okay as a crimelord but he just doesn't have the imposing presence to convince me this guy can dominate an entire planet).

 

Luckily, Buck and Buddy have been found by the small resistance movement hopelessly trying to overthrow Kane from their hidden city. Here is Dr Huer (C. Montague Shaw, who I just saw in the UNDERSEA KINGDOM doing the same gig with his wild inventions) and Wilma Deering leading the good fight. For some reason I missed, everyone immediately puts all their trust in Buck and he pretty much takes over. (Maybe he's just one of those charismatic alpha males or something.) Most of the serial involves desperate trips back and forth to Saturn to enlist the aid of the isolationist Saturnians, and this means running the blockade of Kane's ships. The usual fistfights and explosions and captures and escapes normal for this sort of situation ensue. It's a lot of fun if you take it on its own terms, with a strong linear plot and likeable heroes, but it really never kicks into high gear and seems a bit drab.

 

It's interesting that some (but not all) of the Saturnians are played by Asian actors. Prince Tallen, who gets caught up in most of the fun, was portrayed by a very young Philson Ahn, and I thought for years this was the same guy who in 1972 impressed us as the head of the Shaolin Temple in TV's KUNG FU (he taught all the styles, really amazing if you think about it). Turns out that was Phiip Ahn, Philson's brother.

 

Dir: Ford Beebe and Saul A. Goodkind - 12 Chapters

 

BUCK ROGERS (1939): Director Ford Beebe, who also worked on Flash Gordon (1938), came straight from The Phantom Creeps (1939) and then went back to finish Flash Gordon Conquers The Universe (1940). Buck Rogers stars Buster Crabbe or, as his family knew him, Lawrence. Now, Lawrence ‘Larry’ ‘Buster’ Crabbe had previously starred in two Flash Gordon serials, a couple of Tarzan movies and a long string of westerns, so it was only natural for Universal to decide he was perfect as the heroic Buck Rogers, aka that blonde guy who saves the universe but isn’t Flash Gordon. Actually, Buster Crabbe wasn’t the first actor to play Buck Rogers in-the-flesh, so to speak.

That honour goes to an unknown man who played Buck in a Virginia department store, instead of their regular Santa Claus. Santa was off conquering Martians at the time, I think it was an exchange program of sorts. It strikes me that Buck Rogers is not unlike a male fantasy come to life. Just think of it – Buck gets to take a nice five-hundred-year-long sleep-in. With my busy schedule, I’m ecstatic if I can get twenty minutes nap on the weekend. Then, when he wakes up, Buck is the smartest, most dynamic guy around. In reality he’d be treated like something that’s escaped from the zoo. And finally, everyone needs Buck to go on exciting missions, fight the bad guys, test exotic equipment and crash rocket ships – out of the half-dozen flights Buck makes, he only lands successfully once. It’s easy to see the bullet cars used in the movie are the same ones from Flash Gordon’s Trip To Mars (1938), and even the script is rather suspect.

Planet Outlaws

This film is actually a compilation of the Buck Rogers serials that ran originally in 1939. The cliffhanger endings and recap beginnings have been edited out to make it flow better -- with partial success. Some new footage was shot for the introduction and summary. At the opening, there are some newspaper headlines about jets chasing flying discs, and the obligatory checkered V2 launch, etc. to add a modern segue. After that, it's pure 1939.

Sci-fi movie technology had come a long way in the 14 years since Buck's debut. Audiences had grown accustomed to sleek and pointy rockets, flying saucers, strange aliens, etc. The Buck Rogers style world-of-the-future must have looked oddly quaint. (if not laughable) Just why Universal Pictures thought re-releasing Buck Rogers was a good idea is a bit of a mystery. Kids who were 8 or so back in 1939 would be young adults in '53. Perhaps Universal was banking on those young adults would buy tickets for a trip down memory lane.

Plot Synopsis

After a bit of modern ('53) footage about the wonders of modern progress and "flying disks," the old serial begins. Rogers and Buddy crashed in the arctic while on a transpolar flight. They were in suspended animation due to the cold and a vague gas. A patrol finds them in the year 2500 and revives them. In the world of 2500, a despot named Killer Kane is trying to take over the world. The forces of good are holed up in the "hidden city." Buck arranges a decoy maneuver to elude Kane's patrol ships. They fly to the planet Saturn in hopes of finding help. On Saturn, the Council sees Rogers and party as the rebels, and Kane as the rule of law. Rogers et al, escape Saturn, return to earth and seek to disrupt Kane's bamboozling of Prince Tallen, the Saturnian representative. Rogers sneaks into Kane's city, interrupts the treaty signing and convinces Tallen of Kane's evil by revealing Kane's "robot battalion" (slaves wearing mind-control helmets). Rogers and Tallen get to Saturn and the treaty is signed. Rogers escapes Kane's patrols via the Dissolvo Ray which rendered them invisible. Rogers and the war council plan for war. Rogers enlists the Saturnians to help. Meanwhile, Rogers sneaks into Kane's city and de-zombies Minister Krenco to lead an uprising of freed robot-slave-prisoners. Rogers storms Kane's palace and puts one of the robo-slave helmets on Kane. The End

The industrial vision of the future is delightful to watch. The heavily mechanical look of everything is so radically different from the sleek rockets and glowing acrylic audiences were growing accustomed to. The space ships look like they were built at locomotive factories or steamship yards. They spew roman-candle sparks and smoke and buzz as they fly. There are no computers, no radar or electronics. It's a fascinating snapshot of what pre-electronic-age people thought the future would be like.

When originally released in 1939, the Killer Kane character was a thinly disguised allusion to Hitler. In 1953, Kane was intended to represent a communist despot. It wasn't as tidy a fit. The narrator sums it up voicing a hope that scientists will develop the means for men to stand up to today's dictators and make the world safe for democracy. In the early 50s, there's little question of who they meant.

Simple Colors -- One endearing trait of Buck Rogers is the simplicity of the characterizations. The good guys do nothing but good. The bad guys are pure bad. The good guys are crack pilots and sharp shooters and tough as nails. The bad guys do nothing but bad, have trouble hitting a flying barn and are easily knocked out with one punch.

Industrial Baroque -- Somewhat like the baroque era's compulsion to decorate every square inch with swirls and filigree, Industrial Baroque sought to fill every space with heavy-duty hardware. The sets, and especially the rocket interiors are like flying boiler rooms. Valves, pipes, levers, dials, wheels, large flashing light bulbs. To look more "high tech" in the 30s meant cramming in more industrial hardware. Buck Rogers' ships show more affinity for Captain Nemo "steampunk" than the proto-space-age of the 50s.

Family Resemblance -- There is a noticeable similarity in the sets and costumes of Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers. Even serials of the early 50s, like Captain Video and the various Rocketman serials, look more like Flash and Buck than George Pal. The industrial baroque look and costuming are distinctive, making them almost a sub-genre of their own. In that regard, Buck has a timelessness.

Another take on the story and additional background info.

A round-the-world dirigible flight commanded by US Air Force officer Buck Rogers (Buster Crabbe) encounters dangerously stormy weather above the Himalayas; said weather, along with disastrous panic on the part of Rogers’ crewmen, causes the aircraft to crash. The cowardly crewmen ditch the ship and meet quick ends, but Rogers and young Buddy Wade (Jackie Moran), son of the aircraft’s designer, survive the crash. The pair use a cylinder of “Nirvano” gas to place themselves into suspended animation until a rescue party can reach them, but an avalanche buries the ship and all searches prove fruitless; the dirigible and its two dormant inhabitants remain beneath rocks and snow for five hundred years.

Finally, in the year 2440, a spaceship unearths the wreck, and its pilots restore Buck and Buddy to consciousness. The holdovers from the 20th century soon learn that their rescuers are soldiers from the “Hidden City,” a pocket of resistance to the super-criminal who is ruling the 24th-century Earth–one “Killer” Kane (Anthony Warde). Rogers immediately pledges his support to Air Marshal Kragg (William Gould) and Scientist-General Dr. Huer (C. Montague Shaw), the leaders of the Hidden City exiles, and is soon en route to Saturn, hoping to convince that planet’s rulers to aid the Hidden City in freeing the Earth from Kane’s tyranny. To cement the Saturian alliance, Buck must battle Kane’s legions at every step of the way, with able assistance from Buddy and from Dr. Huer’s trusted aide Lieutenant Wilma Deering (Constance Moore).

 

Ever since its original release, Buck Rogers has stood in the shadow of Universal’s Flash Gordon serials; the studio encouraged such association by casting Flash Gordon star Buster Crabbe as a different sci-fi hero, obviously hoping that the chapterplay would capitalize on the goodwill generated by Flash Gordon and Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars. The serial did succeed in reminding audiences of the Flash outings–but it reminded them of how much they had liked those serials and forced inevitable comparisons that were not in Rogers’ favor. Universal’s plans for a second Buck Rogers serial were quickly scrapped when the first outing failed to please matinee audiences; the intended Buck sequel was then replaced on the studio’s production schedule by–what else?–a third Flash Gordon chapterplay. Even today, Buck is typically dismissed by fans as a pale echo of the great Gordon serials.

It’s easy to see why Buck Rogers came as a disappointment to audiences expecting an outing in the Flash Gordon tradition. Its production design, while futuristic, is less quirky and more uniform than that of the Gordons; there are no monsters and no weird semi-human races besides the rather uninteresting Zuggs; there are also no supporting characters as developed or as interesting as Dr. Zarkov, Ming, King Vultan, the Clay King, Princess Aura, Prince Barin, and other major figures in the Flash Gordon chapterplays. And yet, taken on its own terms, Buck Rogers is far from a failure; it does not approach the Flash Gordon trilogy in quality, but then few serials do.

Buck Rogers’ script, by former Mascot writers Norman Hall and Ray Trampe, is fast-moving and manages to avoid repetition for most of its length. The trip to Saturn, the attempts to convince Saturnian leader Prince Tallen (Philson Ahn) of the justice of the Hidden City’s cause, the subsequent rescue of Tallen from Kane’s city, the second journey to Saturn to cement the alliance, and the attempts of Kane’s henchman Laska (Henry Brandon) to sabotage it–all these incidents keep the narrative flowing very nicely for the serial’s first eight chapters. As in many of Trampe and Hall’s Mascot scripts, however, the writers seem to run out of plot before the serial’s end. While Chapters Nine and Ten remain interesting (with Buck being converted into a hypnotized robot, Buddy’s rescue of the hero, and an infiltration of the Hidden City by one of Kane’s men), the last two chapters have a definite wheel-spinning feel to them, throwing in a redundant third trip to Saturn and an unneeded flashback sequence.

The last-chapter climax is also something of a disappointment, with Kane being overthrown quickly and undramatically instead of being definitively crushed. Here, Trampe and Hall seem to have been leaving room for the sequel that never came and trying to avoid duplicating the dramatic but very final destruction of MIng which closed the first Flash Gordon serial (and which needed to be explained away in the second). The other weak spot of the scripting is Buck and Buddy’s rather calm reaction when they realize that their old world (and everyone in it) is dead–and their extraordinarily quick adjustment to their new one. One wouldn’t have wanted the writers to dwell on our heroes’ plight (which would be absolutely crushing in real life), but I do wish Trampe or Hall could have given Buck and Buddy a few emotional lines about their displacement before getting on to the main action; Hall in his scripts for other serials (Hawk of the Wilderness, Adventures of Red Ryder), showed himself capable of far more dramatic moments.

  

As already mentioned, the serial’s visuals are less varied than those of the Flash Gordon serials, but that’s not to say they aren’t impressive by serial standards. Pains seem to have been taken to avoid duplicating too much of Gordon’s “look;” the spaceship miniatures are completely different than the ships in the Gordon trilogy, while Kane’s stronghold–probably the best miniature in the serial–is not the quasi-Gothic palace of Ming but rather an ominous, futuristic-looking version of New York City, complete with towering skyscrapers. The Hidden City’s great rock gates are also nifty, and the massive Saturnian Forum (a life-size set, not a miniature) is very visually impressive. The barren Red Rock Canyon area works well as the Saturnian landscape, but I think it was a mistake to also use the Canyon as the area between the Hidden City and Kane’s capital; Saturn and Earth shouldn’t look so similar.

 

The only major prop or set reused from the Gordon serials are the “bullet cars” from Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars; they’re just as fun to watch in action here as in the earlier serial. Other incidental props and sets–Kane’s robot room, his mind-control helmets, the various televiewing devices, the anti-gravity belts, Dr. Huer’s invisibility ray, and the Star-Trek-like molecular transportation chamber–add further colorful touches to the serial., and are respectably represented by Universal’s always above-average array of sets and props. The Zuggs, the “primitive race” ruled by the Saturnians, are somewhat disappointing, however; while suitably grotesque-looking, they’re nowhere near as menacing or memorable–in appearance or demeanor–as their obvious inspiration, the Clay People in Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars.

The serial’s action scenes are brisk and energetic, suffering not at all from a general lack of fistfights–thanks to the swift-moving direction of Ford Beebe (a Mascot veteran like writers Trampe and Hall) and his co-director Saul Goodkind (usually an editor). The few hand-to-hand tussles–most of them on the rocky hills of Saturn–are executed routinely but skillfully by Dave Sharpe, Tom Steele, Eddie Parker, and other stuntmen; the best of the bunch is the fight between Buck and a Kane man in the control room of the Hidden City, although this is more exciting for the suspenseful situation (Buck trying to close the gates that the henchman has opened to Kane’s oncoming armada) than for any particular flair in the staging.

Most of the action sequences consist of protracted chases and pursuits (both on foot and in rocketships), with occasional quick combats thrown in. Many of these lengthy chases are very exciting–particularly the long incursion into Kane’s city that occupies most of Chapters Three and Four, a great combination of action and suspense. Buddy’s later stealthy visit into Kane’s fortress to rescue Buck from the robot room, and the following escape, is also good, as are Buck’s skillful and repeated elusions of the rebellious Zuggs in Chapter Eight and the bullet car getaway in Chapter Six.

  

The cliffhanger endings are generally well-staged, with proper build-ups, but too many of them involve spaceship crashes that our heroes rather implausibly live through. The impressive collapsing forum at the end of Chapter Eleven and the bullet car crash at the end of Chapter Six provide nice variety amid the spaceship wrecks, but (alas) are also resolved by mere survival. Still, this is preferable to the blatantly cheating resolution of what is otherwise one the best chapter endings–Killer Kane’s pursuit of Buddy in a darkened council chamber and his apparently lethal zapping of the young hero. At least the resolution features a good stunt bit by Dave Sharpe.

The leading performances in Buck Rogers are all excellent (although most other critics would make a single exception; see below). Buster Crabbe, as always, makes a perfect serial hero–both genially cheerful and grimly serious, unassumingly polite and aggressively tough. As in the Flash Gordon trilogy, his down-to-earth attitude also helps to make the wild sci-fi happenings seem perfectly normal.

Jackie Moran (oddly “reduced” to serial acting only a year after playing Huck Finn in David O. Selznick’s big-budget classic Adventures of Tom Sawyer) does a fine job as Buddy Wade, handling his character’s frequent “golly, gee-whiz” lines in a low-key fashion that keeps Buddy from coming off as too naïve; his chipper but calm demeanor complements Crabbe’s well, and he has no problems carrying an entire chapter and part of another on his own.

Constance Moore, despite being saddled with perhaps the most unflattering costume ever worn by a serial leading lady (basically coveralls and a bathing cap), manages to come off as charming. Her Wilma Deering is self-possessed and capable-seeming but never too coldly efficient; she remains warmly likable even when piloting spaceships or explaining technology to Crabbe.

Henry Brandon is very good as Killer Kane’s chief henchman Captain Laska–suave and sly when acting as Kane’s ambassador to Saturn, haughtily arrogant when threatening people, and nervously jittery in the presence of his overbearing leader. Hard-bitten tough guys Wheeler Oakman and Reed Howes, along with the slicker Carleton Young , form Brandon’s backup squad.

As Killer Kane himself, perennial henchman actor Anthony Warde has been almost universally panned by critics as “miscast.” I have to dissent strongly, however; Warde does a fine job in the part and plays Kane with a memorable combination of viciousness and uncontrollable anger. The character is not a diabolical schemer like Ming, but rather a super-gangster who’s blasted and bullied his way to the top–and Warde’s bad-tempered, aggressive, and thuggish screen personality fits the part perfectly. He veers between intimidating ranting and harshly sinister sarcasm–as when he describes himself as a “kindly ruler” just after wrathfully sending a formerly trusted councilor to the robot room–but is quite menacing in both aspects.

Philson Ahn, brother of frequent serial and feature actor Phillip Ahn, does a good job as Prince Tallen of Saturn; he possesses his sibling’s deep and distinctive voice, which serves him well as a planetary dignitary. His manner also has a slightly tougher edge to it than his refined brother’s, which helps to keep the viewer in uncertainty in the earlier chapters as to whether Tallen will turn out to be friend or foe. Guy Usher plays Aldar, the head of Saturn’s ”Council of the Wise,” and does his best to seem suitably imposing and dignified, despite the almost comical way in which the “Wise” continually change their opinions–backing Kane, opposing him, giving into his demands, defying him, etc. Cyril Delevanti is enjoyable as a grumpy subordinate member of the Council.*

C. Montague Shaw has limited screen time, but is very good as Dr. Huer, balancing statesmanlike dignity with shrewdness and a touch of enjoyable scientific eccentricity (the last is particularly noticeable during his demonstration of his invisibility gas in Chapter Five). Energetic Jack Mulhall is typically affable and enthusiastic as Captain Rankin of the Hidden City, while Kenne Duncan has a rare good guy role as Mulhall’s fellow-officer Lieutenant Lacy. Perennial screen “underworld rat” John Harmon also plays against type as a Hidden City soldier, as does Stanley Price as a Hidden City pilot rescued from existence as a human robot. The dignified but stolid William Gould is good enough as Air Marshal Kragg, but I would have preferred a more dynamic actor in the role–Kragg is, after all, the top military leader of Kane’s enemies. Mulhall could have handled it well, as could Wade Boteler–who does an excellent job as the grim and concerned Professor Morgan in the first chapter, intensely instructing Buddy and Buck in the use of the Nirvano gas.

Lane Chandler also appears in the first chapter, as a military officer who demonstrates the Nirvano gas to a reporter played by another old pro, Kenneth Harlan. An unusually subdued Theodore Lorch is one of Kane’s councilors, while Karl Hackett has a good part as another councilor who gets into an argument with Kane that leads to Hackett’s being converted into a human robot (his terrified pleas as he’s dragged out of the council chamber are quite chilling). Al Bridge has some memorably sinister lines (“when this helmet is in place, you’ll never think or speak again”) in his periodic scenes as the slave-master of Kane’s human robots.

Unusually for Universal, several bit roles are filled by stuntmen; Eddie Parker and Tom Steele pop in as various soldiers and officers, but aren’t as noticeable as Dave Sharpe, who’s given multiple speaking roles as a Kane soldier, a Hidden City soldier, a Saturnian officer, and a Saturnian soldier. His ubiquity can get a little distracting at times, particularly since some of his appearances follow right on the previous one’s heels; he also seems to have a bit of trouble with the formal-sounding Saturnian dialogue, coming off as much more stiff and affected than in his co-starring turn in Daredevils of the Red Circle.

The serial’s music score, like most other Universals of the period, is an eclectic but usually effective array of stock music, some of it cues from the Flash Gordon serials but the majority of it culled from Universal’s horror features, including (most notably) Franz Waxman’s score for Bride of Frankenstein, which furnishes some memorable opening-titles music.

All in all, though Buck Rogers has its share of flaws, it also has more than enough virtues (the acting, the fast pace, the interesting sci-fi trappings) to make it a good chapterplay. Despite its similar themes, it shouldn’t be pitted against the Flash Gordon trilogy–a match it’s bound to lose–but rather judged against the field of competition in general. When judged in this fashion, it’s just as entertaining–and often more entertaining–than many serials with less shabby reputations.

 

*One has to wonder, though, why some Saturnians are Orientals like Ahn and others Occidentals like Usher and Delevanti; my own theory is that men from various countries emigrated from Earth to Saturn sometime before the bulk of the serial took place; this would explain the racial assortment and also explain why the Hidden City chooses Saturn in particular as an ally (as usual, I’m probably putting too much thought into this).

MILT CANIFF

The King of the Comic Strips

 

Milton Caniff

From The Early Years To Terry and the Pirates

Milton Caniff, to most comics fans, will always be regarded as the major leading light of the syndicated comic strip. He was a pioneer of a visual style of story telling that's widely imitated but seldom achieved, establishing innovations that would become a yardstick for all that followed in his footsteps. No major comics artists today remain untouched by his influences.

 

Milton Caniff was born on February 28, 1907 in Hillsboro, Ohio. His art career began in a significant way when, as a young boy, he discovered a trunk containing drawings by the early newspaper cartoonist, John T. McCutchen. "This was my first inspiration as an artist in wanting to draw pictures at all, " Caniff would recall. The trunk discovery was significant in another way, in the kind of coincidence that usually only happens in fiction, because years later McCutchen helped to launch the famous Terry and the Pirates!

 

It's likely that Caniff would have become a cartoonist without the trunk. From the very beginning he displayed a talent for art that was amply displayed in school journals and by the eighth grade he had already had a cartoon published in a local paper. By high school he was already freelancing for a newspaper art department, and by the time he reached college Caniff was providing art on the side for the Dayton Journal, the Miami Daily News, and the Columbus Dispatch, while still finding time to attend classes and participate in theatrical productions.

 

After graduating college Caniff found full time work at the Dispatch, spending nights working on a few abortive comic strip attempts. The new job only lasted a short time when the Depression struck, forcing the Dispatch to downsize.

 

Caniff's unemployment only lasted a short while; fortunately the Associated Press of New York had noticed clippings of the young artist's work and offered him a job. The timing was right; Caniff arrived in the Big Apple just in time for 1932's Presidential campaign, and his published portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt appeared in papers all across the country, his first national exposure. While at AP the artist met a fellow worker who would equal his own success as a cartoonist, Al Capp. (Appropriately enough it was on April Fool's Day.) The two men became life-long friends and when Capp left the unfunny strip he had been assigned, Mr. Gilfeather, Caniff inherited the feature, turning it into the more palatable The Gay Thirties.

 

In addition to the single panel feature on life in America, Caniff was given a multi-paneled adventure strip to work on, Dickie Dare. The strip began in July 1933 and featured Dickie's daydreams of fighting along side Robin Hood and his Merry Men, hunting treasure with Long John Silver, and adventuring with Robinson Crusoe. Caniff lasted a year on the strip, which was to continue on until the late fifties, capably handled by Coulton Waugh and his wife, Mabel "Odin" Burvik.

 

Caniff had gotten a better offer from Colonel Patterson of the Chicago Tribune-New York News Syndicate in the fall of 1934. The new job offer came about thanks to another cartoonist who had noticed Caniff's clippings, John McCutchen, the same artist who drew the inspirational cartoons that Caniff had discovered in his mother's trunk!

 

Patterson had been looking for something similar to Dickie Dare, and exotic adventure strip that featured a leading adult and a youthful sidekick. Caniff filled that bill with Terry and the Pirates, which first appeared on October 22, 1934. The continuity opened with the story of Terry Lee, an American boy, his adult pal Pat Ryan, and a clever Chinese servant named Connie, "chief cook and philosopher." The three set out for an abandoned treasure mine but soon find themselves stranded and penniless in a China swarming with brigands, warlords, and hostile Japanese troops.

 

Caniff's early work on the strip was good enough for the times but crude in comparison to what would come later. A big boost in his evolution as an artist came from teaming up with another young comics legend, Noel Sickles, the artist on the AP Scorchy Smith strip.

 

The two men, who had once shared a studio in Ohio, worked in tandem, writing and drawing for each other's strips, in the process developing a novel and time saving method for indicating detail, using a impressionistic brushwork technique known as "chiaroscuro." The technique became Caniff's trademark. As Jules Fieffer once said, "Black is Milton Caniff's primary color."

 

Caniff's mastery of light and dark, his talent for action scenes and camera angles, and his flair for dramatic storytelling all contributed to the popularity of Terry and the Pirates. Another strength of the strip has been its reliance on realism.

 

Caniff realized that potential fan interest must be immediately captured in a strip's first year. "Since a person must read the balloons to get the story," Caniff once said, "I thought I could catch them with vivid color and illustrations rather than straight cartoons. This meant that there'd have to be absolute authenticity."

 

Caniff worked long hours to achieve his goal, consulting with experts in every field. In one sequence involving an amphibious invasion, Caniff dug into thirty-eight books in order to nail down such details as to what military hospitals looked like and whether or not Japanese bombers veered to the right or left when launched from aircraft carriers.

 

Caniff read every book he could find the Orient, becoming more concerned with the problems China faced from the Japanese invaders, predicting in his strip that an inevitable conflict would break out between the U.S. and Hirohito's Imperial forces.

 

Pat and Terry shared the strip with an intriguing cast of supporting characters. To name just a few, there was Captain Judas, Burma, Big Stoop, Chopstick Joe, Dude Hennick, Cherry Blaze, Cue Ball, and one of the greatest of femme fatales, The Dragon Lady, who often played both sides of the fence. Caniff was a master of characterization; readers really got to know and care about many of his cast.

 

This point was amply illustrated in a famous 1941 episode, the death of Raven Sherman. A full week of continuity passed as Raven, wounded by the treacherous Captain Judas, slowly ebbs away on a lonely trail in China until finally, "as it must to every one," she dies. And then, as Caniff says, "The roof fell in!" Caniff was flooded with flower deliveries, mock memorial services, petitions of condolence signed by disparate groups as factory workers and entire colleges, as well as a lot of irate letters. For years afterwards the cartoonist would continue to get black-edged cards on the anniversary of Raven's death. Proving that perhaps, as Caniff put it, "the impacts of both picture and words drives more deeply into human awareness than any anthropologist has yet cared to note."

 

Perhaps so. But Caniff also noted that Raven was killed in October 1941. "If it had happened two months later, nobody would even remember her name today." Milton Caniff, to most comics fans, will always be regarded as the major leading light of the syndicated comic strip. He was a pioneer of a visual style of story telling that's widely imitated but seldom achieved, establishing innovations that would become a yardstick for all that followed in his footsteps. No major comics artists today remain untouched by his influences.

 

Two months after Milton Caniff's famous death-of-Raven sequence, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and the United States' role in the Second World War had begun. Caniff had depicted Japan's aggression in China (as well as Japanese-Nazi collaboration) in Terry and the Pirates years before war broke out. "There was no general realization of impending war between Japan and the United States," said Caniff, "but anyone who could read newspapers could put it together. The Sino-Japanese war just served as a beacon for future sequences. I foresaw a terrific struggle for the Allies."

 

Terry joined in that struggle, having finally grown to young adulthood, and got his wings, becoming a pilot in the air force in China. Pat Ryan, his buddy and mentor, was phased offstage to join the Navy, replaced by another father figure, Colonel Flip Corkin. With the change Terry Lee finally became the sole lead in the strip bearing his name, but the "Pirates," like Pat Ryan, also disappeared.

 

Caniff stepped up the wartime action, with Terry occasionally joining forces with his old nemesis, the Dragon Lady ("tough as a hash-heavy top sergeant"), as well as a new friend in the strip, the very hip, wise-cracking Hot-Shot Charlie.

 

Terry and the Pirates soared in popularity during the war years, thanks to Caniff's storytelling and his incredible attention to detail (once buying film reels from the Army Signal Corps to check on a detail about aircraft carriers). Voluntary informants, readers from around the world, aided the artist. Men and women in the armed services provided invaluable information on anything thing from logistics to military uniforms. Caniff returned the favor by designing countless logos and insignias, designing a large number of instruction manuals and posters, and winning numerous citations from the Navy, War, and Treasury Departments.

 

If Terry and the Pirates helped the war effort by informing and entertaining the civilians, Caniff's Male Call did wonders for the guys in uniform. The strip, which ran uncensored in service newspapers, was heavy on cheesecake and featured the voluptuous Miss Lace, a kind of volunteer Morale Officer, who did her best to cheer up the men, usually by dressing in very low-cut outfits.

 

The strip's popularity peaked during the war years. During that time Terry had been adapted to radio and comics, and in 1940 James W. Horne directed a movie serial version (in the 1950s there was also a Terry TV series). After the war ended Caniff ran into contractual problems with his syndicate and went over to King Features, with a hefty salary increase and the added bonus of owning whatever strip he created. On December 29, 1946, the last of Milton Caniff's Terry and the Pirates appeared. George Wundar inherited the strip, which would continue on (in some years inked by E.C. artist George Evans) for another 25 years, finally folding in 1973. In 1995 Tribune Media Services resurrected Terry, which was written by Michael Uslan and illustrated by Greg and Tim Hildebrandt, later replaced by comics veteran

Dan Spiegle.

 

Steve Canyon, Caniff's new strip, debuted on January 7, 1946, opening simultaneously in 125 papers throughout the country, a unique distinction for a new strip, but understandable given Caniff's reputation. Steve was a compulsive hero ("the kind of guy who doesn'tlike to see people kicked around"). As Caniff described him in a Time magazine interview, Canyon was intended to be a "sort of modern Kit Carson, the strong silent Gary Cooper plainsman type. He'llhave lots of gals, one at every port."

 

Canyon was to be, in Caniff's words, "a picaresque novel," like Cervantes' Don Quixote; a traveler moving from one adventure to the next, accompanied by a friend the hero can talk to (and talk to the reader). In this case, Sancho Panza turned out to be a scrappy oldster, Happy Easter. Caniff also decided to bring in another Terry figure, the teenage Reed Kimberly -- after all, if Steve ever settled down to married life, Caniff needn't abandon any boy-meets-girl plot riffs.

 

Canyon did meet a lot of women. Many of them, like the cold-blooded Copper Calhoun (a nasty version of Daddy Warbucks), Cheetah (a totally amoral bargirl who would steal Reed's heart and then cheerfully step on it), the hapless Summer Olson (hopelessly in love with Steve and always abused by Ms. Calhoun, her employer), and cousin Poteet Canyon (a teenage version of Happy Easter). "Ninety-five percent of the interest in any fiction is what happens to the women, not what happens to the men," Caniff believed.

 

Like many other comic strip adventurers, Steve Canyon went on to become a Cold Warrior with the advent of the nineteen fifties, reentering the air Force after the outbreak of the Korean war. Steve found time between adventures in various Third World hotspots to finally marry Summer Olson in 1970 and after the Vietnam war became entangled in a number of marital problems that eventually resulted in a separation.

 

The Vietnam war also caused a number of problems for the strip itself, as the mood of the many Americans was definitely not in tune with military adventures. And as newspapers around the country began to shrink the panel size of their strips to make room for all-important advertising, Caniff's strip, like most realistic strips, began losing its effectiveness. As the aging Caniff began experiencing health problems, he was forced to drop penciling chores, which were then handled by Dick Rockwell (nephew of illustrator Norman Rockwell) and concentrate on writing and inking it.

 

Although ill heath couldn't keep the artist from the drawing board, he finally succumbed to lung cancer in 1988. Steve Canyon survived him by several weeks, after 41 years of continuity. Caniff's awards, which included two Reubens for his two strips, were numerous but the last Steve Canyon, dated June 4, was a final, wonderful tribute: it was two panels, one drawn by the legendary war cartoonist Bill Mauldin, the other signed by 78 fellow artists of the field he loved. Milton Caniff will be long remembered.

--Steve Stiles

www.stevestiles.com/caniff1.htm

www.stevestiles.com/caniff2.htm

  

Milton Caniff

 

Birth nameMilton Arthur Paul Caniff

BornFebruary 28, 1907

Hillsboro, Ohio

DiedMay 3, 1988 (aged 81)

New York City

NationalityAmerican

Area(s)artist

Notable worksDickie Dare

Terry and the Pirates

Steve Canyon

Awardsfull list

 

Milton Arthur Paul Caniff (February 28, 1907-May 3, 1988) was an American cartoonist famous for the Terry and the Pirates and Steve Canyon comic strips.

 

Early life

 

Caniff was born in Hillsboro, Ohio. He was an Eagle Scout and a recipient of the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award from the Boy Scouts of America. Caniff had done some cartoons for local newspapers as a teenager, while studying at Stivers School for the Arts. Shortly after matriculating at the Ohio State University, from which he graduated in 1930, Caniff began a career in journalism by applying to the Columbus Dispatch. There he worked with the noted cartoonist William "Billy" Ireland until Caniff's position was eliminated.

 

While at Ohio State, Caniff joined the Sigma Chi Fraternity, and later provided illustrations for The Magazine of Sigma Chi and The Norman Shield (the fraternity's pledgeship/reference manual).

  

Cartoonist

 

In 1932, Caniff moved to New York City to accept an artist position in the Features Service of the Associated Press. He did general assignment art for several months, then inherited a panel cartoon called Mister Gilfeather in September 1932 when Al Capp left the feature. Caniff continued Gilfeather until the spring of 1933, when it was retired in favor of a generic comedy in a panel cartoon called The Gay Thirties, which he produced until he left AP in the fall of 1934. In July 1933, Caniff began an adventure fantasy strip, Dickie Dare, influenced by series such as Flash Gordon and Brick Bradford.[1] The eponymous central character was a youth who dreamed himself into adventures with such literary and legendary persons as Robin Hood, Robinson Crusoe and King Arthur. In the spring of 1934, Caniff changed the strip from fantasy to "reality" when Dickie no longer dreamed his adventures but experienced them as he traveled the world with a freelance writer, Dickie's adult mentor, "Dynamite Dan" Flynn.

 

In 1934, Caniff was hired by the New York Daily News to produce a new strip, Terry and the Pirates, the strip which made Caniff famous.[1] Like Dickie Dare, Terry began the strip as a boy who is traveling in China with an adult mentor and freelance writer, Pat Ryan. But over the years the title character aged and by World War II he was old enough to serve in the Army Air Force. During the twelve years that Caniff produced the strip, he introduced many fascinating characters, most of whom were "pirates" of one kind or another--Burma, a blonde with a mysterious possibly criminal past; Chopstick Joe, a Chinese petty criminal; Singh Singh, a warlord in the mountains of China; Judas, a smuggler; Sanjak, a lesbian; and then boon companions such as Hotshot Charlie, Terry's wing man during the War years; Connie and Big Stoop, a Chinese Jeff and Mutt (in stature) who followed Terry and Pat Ryan around the country; and April Kane, a young woman who was Terry's first love. But Caniff's most memorable creation was the Dragon Lady, a pirate queen; she was seemingly ruthless and calculating, but Caniff encouraged his readers to think she had romantic yearnings for Pat Ryan.

 

Lai Choi San, the Dragon Lady, Milton Caniff's most iconic character from Terry And the Pirates (©2006 by Tribune Media Services)

 

During the war, Caniff began a second strip, a special version of Terry and the Pirates without Terry but featuring the blonde bombshell, Burma. Caniff donated all of his work on this strip to the armed forces -- the strip was only available in military newspapers. After complaints from the Miami Herald about the military version of the strip being published by military newspapers in the Herald's circulation territory, the strip was renamed Male Call and given a new star, Miss Lace, a beautiful woman who lived near every military base on the planet and enjoyed the company of enlisted men, but not officers. Her function, Caniff often said, was to remind service men what they were fighting for, and while the situations in the strip brimmed with double entendre, Miss Lace was not, as far as she appeared in the strip, a loose woman, but she "knew the score." Far more so than civilian comic strips which portrayed military characters, Male Call was notable for its honest depiction of what the servicemen were up against: one strip showed Miss Lace dating a soldier on leave who had lost an arm; another strip had her escorting a blinded ex-serviceman. Caniff continued Male Call until seven months after V-J Day, ending it in March 1946.[2]

 

The year 1946 also saw the end of Caniff's association with Terry and the Pirates. While the strip was a major success, it was not owned by its creator but by its distributing syndicate, the Chicago Tribune-New York Daily News, a common practice with syndicated comics at the time. And when Caniff was offered the chance to own his own strip by Marshall Field, publisher of the Chicago Sun, the cartoonist left Terry to produce a strip for Field Enterprises. Caniff produced his last strip of Terry and the Pirates in December 1946 and introduced his new strip Steve Canyon in the Chicago Sun-Times the following month.[1] At the time, Caniff was one of only two or three syndicated cartoonists who owned their creations, and he attracted considerable publicity as a result of this circumstance.

  

Steve Canyon

 

Like his previous strip, Steve Canyon was an action strip with a pilot as its main character. Canyon was originally portrayed as a civilian pilot with his own one-airplane cargo airline, but he re-enlisted in the Air Force during the Korean War and remained in the Air Force for the remainder of the strip's run.

 

Milton Caniff's Steve Canyon, although not gaining the popularity of Terry and the Pirates, nevertheless enjoyed greater longevity.

 

While Steve Canyon never achieved the popularity that Terry and the Pirates had at its height as a World War II military adventure or the cult fame Terry generated over the years, it was a successful comic strip with a greater circulation than Terry ever had. A short-lived Steve Canyon television series was produced in 1958, marking the height of the strip's fame. The title character's dedication to the military (Steve Canyon was often termed the "unofficial spokesman" for the Air Force) produced a negative reaction among readers during the Vietnam War, and the strip dropped in circulation as a result. Caniff nonetheless continued to enjoy enormous regard in the profession and in newspapering, and he produced the strip until his death in 1988. The strip was continued for a couple months after he died, but it soon expired, too, in June 1988.

  

Recognition and awards

 

Caniff was one of the founders of the National Cartoonist Society and served two terms as its President, 1948 and 1949. He also received the Society's first Cartoonist of the Year Award in 1947, nominally for his new comic strip, Steve Canyon, but since the award covered work published in 1946, it embraced Terry and the Pirates as well. Caniff would be named Cartoonist of the Year again, receiving the accompanying trophy, the Reuben, in 1972 for 1971, again for Steve Canyon. He was also named to the Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame in 1988. He received the National Cartoonist Society Elzie Segar Award in 1971, the Award for Story Comic Strip in 1979 for Steve Canyon, the Gold Key Award (the Society's Hall of Fame) in 1981, and NCS has since named the Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award in his honor.

 

Caniff died in New York City.

  

Followers

 

Along with Hal Foster and Alex Raymond, Caniff's style would have a tremendous influence on the artists who drew American comic books in the first half of the 20th century. Evidence of his influence can be clearly seen in the work of comic book artists such as Jack Kirby, Frank Robbins, Lee Elias, Bob Kane, Mike Sekowski, Dick Dillin,John Romita,Sr. and Johnny Craig to name just a mere handful.

www.flickr.com/photos/deconstructing-roy-lichtenstein/395...

 

www.tnr.com/blog/spine?pid=49858

 

davidbarsalou.homestead.com/LICHTENSTEINPROJECT.html

 

www.flickr.com/photos/deconstructing-roy-lichtenstein/

 

www.boston.com/news/globe/living/articles/2006/10/18/lich...

 

mass.live.advance.net/printer/printer.ssf?/base/news-6/11...

 

web.archive.org/web/20030310054018/www.newmassmedia.com/a...

 

DECONSTRUCTING ROY LICHTENSTEIN © 2000 David Barsalou

 

MILT CANIFF

The King of the Comic Strips

 

Milton Caniff

From The Early Years To Terry and the Pirates

Milton Caniff, to most comics fans, will always be regarded as the major leading light of the syndicated comic strip. He was a pioneer of a visual style of story telling that's widely imitated but seldom achieved, establishing innovations that would become a yardstick for all that followed in his footsteps. No major comics artists today remain untouched by his influences.

 

Milton Caniff was born on February 28, 1907 in Hillsboro, Ohio. His art career began in a significant way when, as a young boy, he discovered a trunk containing drawings by the early newspaper cartoonist, John T. McCutchen. "This was my first inspiration as an artist in wanting to draw pictures at all, " Caniff would recall. The trunk discovery was significant in another way, in the kind of coincidence that usually only happens in fiction, because years later McCutchen helped to launch the famous Terry and the Pirates!

 

It's likely that Caniff would have become a cartoonist without the trunk. From the very beginning he displayed a talent for art that was amply displayed in school journals and by the eighth grade he had already had a cartoon published in a local paper. By high school he was already freelancing for a newspaper art department, and by the time he reached college Caniff was providing art on the side for the Dayton Journal, the Miami Daily News, and the Columbus Dispatch, while still finding time to attend classes and participate in theatrical productions.

 

After graduating college Caniff found full time work at the Dispatch, spending nights working on a few abortive comic strip attempts. The new job only lasted a short time when the Depression struck, forcing the Dispatch to downsize.

 

Caniff's unemployment only lasted a short while; fortunately the Associated Press of New York had noticed clippings of the young artist's work and offered him a job. The timing was right; Caniff arrived in the Big Apple just in time for 1932's Presidential campaign, and his published portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt appeared in papers all across the country, his first national exposure. While at AP the artist met a fellow worker who would equal his own success as a cartoonist, Al Capp. (Appropriately enough it was on April Fool's Day.) The two men became life-long friends and when Capp left the unfunny strip he had been assigned, Mr. Gilfeather, Caniff inherited the feature, turning it into the more palatable The Gay Thirties.

 

In addition to the single panel feature on life in America, Caniff was given a multi-paneled adventure strip to work on, Dickie Dare. The strip began in July 1933 and featured Dickie's daydreams of fighting along side Robin Hood and his Merry Men, hunting treasure with Long John Silver, and adventuring with Robinson Crusoe. Caniff lasted a year on the strip, which was to continue on until the late fifties, capably handled by Coulton Waugh and his wife, Mabel "Odin" Burvik.

 

Caniff had gotten a better offer from Colonel Patterson of the Chicago Tribune-New York News Syndicate in the fall of 1934. The new job offer came about thanks to another cartoonist who had noticed Caniff's clippings, John McCutchen, the same artist who drew the inspirational cartoons that Caniff had discovered in his mother's trunk!

 

Patterson had been looking for something similar to Dickie Dare, and exotic adventure strip that featured a leading adult and a youthful sidekick. Caniff filled that bill with Terry and the Pirates, which first appeared on October 22, 1934. The continuity opened with the story of Terry Lee, an American boy, his adult pal Pat Ryan, and a clever Chinese servant named Connie, "chief cook and philosopher." The three set out for an abandoned treasure mine but soon find themselves stranded and penniless in a China swarming with brigands, warlords, and hostile Japanese troops.

 

Caniff's early work on the strip was good enough for the times but crude in comparison to what would come later. A big boost in his evolution as an artist came from teaming up with another young comics legend, Noel Sickles, the artist on the AP Scorchy Smith strip.

 

The two men, who had once shared a studio in Ohio, worked in tandem, writing and drawing for each other's strips, in the process developing a novel and time saving method for indicating detail, using a impressionistic brushwork technique known as "chiaroscuro." The technique became Caniff's trademark. As Jules Fieffer once said, "Black is Milton Caniff's primary color."

 

Caniff's mastery of light and dark, his talent for action scenes and camera angles, and his flair for dramatic storytelling all contributed to the popularity of Terry and the Pirates. Another strength of the strip has been its reliance on realism.

 

Caniff realized that potential fan interest must be immediately captured in a strip's first year. "Since a person must read the balloons to get the story," Caniff once said, "I thought I could catch them with vivid color and illustrations rather than straight cartoons. This meant that there'd have to be absolute authenticity."

 

Caniff worked long hours to achieve his goal, consulting with experts in every field. In one sequence involving an amphibious invasion, Caniff dug into thirty-eight books in order to nail down such details as to what military hospitals looked like and whether or not Japanese bombers veered to the right or left when launched from aircraft carriers.

 

Caniff read every book he could find the Orient, becoming more concerned with the problems China faced from the Japanese invaders, predicting in his strip that an inevitable conflict would break out between the U.S. and Hirohito's Imperial forces.

 

Pat and Terry shared the strip with an intriguing cast of supporting characters. To name just a few, there was Captain Judas, Burma, Big Stoop, Chopstick Joe, Dude Hennick, Cherry Blaze, Cue Ball, and one of the greatest of femme fatales, The Dragon Lady, who often played both sides of the fence. Caniff was a master of characterization; readers really got to know and care about many of his cast.

 

This point was amply illustrated in a famous 1941 episode, the death of Raven Sherman. A full week of continuity passed as Raven, wounded by the treacherous Captain Judas, slowly ebbs away on a lonely trail in China until finally, "as it must to every one," she dies. And then, as Caniff says, "The roof fell in!" Caniff was flooded with flower deliveries, mock memorial services, petitions of condolence signed by disparate groups as factory workers and entire colleges, as well as a lot of irate letters. For years afterwards the cartoonist would continue to get black-edged cards on the anniversary of Raven's death. Proving that perhaps, as Caniff put it, "the impacts of both picture and words drives more deeply into human awareness than any anthropologist has yet cared to note."

 

Perhaps so. But Caniff also noted that Raven was killed in October 1941. "If it had happened two months later, nobody would even remember her name today." Milton Caniff, to most comics fans, will always be regarded as the major leading light of the syndicated comic strip. He was a pioneer of a visual style of story telling that's widely imitated but seldom achieved, establishing innovations that would become a yardstick for all that followed in his footsteps. No major comics artists today remain untouched by his influences.

 

Two months after Milton Caniff's famous death-of-Raven sequence, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and the United States' role in the Second World War had begun. Caniff had depicted Japan's aggression in China (as well as Japanese-Nazi collaboration) in Terry and the Pirates years before war broke out. "There was no general realization of impending war between Japan and the United States," said Caniff, "but anyone who could read newspapers could put it together. The Sino-Japanese war just served as a beacon for future sequences. I foresaw a terrific struggle for the Allies."

 

Terry joined in that struggle, having finally grown to young adulthood, and got his wings, becoming a pilot in the air force in China. Pat Ryan, his buddy and mentor, was phased offstage to join the Navy, replaced by another father figure, Colonel Flip Corkin. With the change Terry Lee finally became the sole lead in the strip bearing his name, but the "Pirates," like Pat Ryan, also disappeared.

 

Caniff stepped up the wartime action, with Terry occasionally joining forces with his old nemesis, the Dragon Lady ("tough as a hash-heavy top sergeant"), as well as a new friend in the strip, the very hip, wise-cracking Hot-Shot Charlie.

 

Terry and the Pirates soared in popularity during the war years, thanks to Caniff's storytelling and his incredible attention to detail (once buying film reels from the Army Signal Corps to check on a detail about aircraft carriers). Voluntary informants, readers from around the world, aided the artist. Men and women in the armed services provided invaluable information on anything thing from logistics to military uniforms. Caniff returned the favor by designing countless logos and insignias, designing a large number of instruction manuals and posters, and winning numerous citations from the Navy, War, and Treasury Departments.

 

If Terry and the Pirates helped the war effort by informing and entertaining the civilians, Caniff's Male Call did wonders for the guys in uniform. The strip, which ran uncensored in service newspapers, was heavy on cheesecake and featured the voluptuous Miss Lace, a kind of volunteer Morale Officer, who did her best to cheer up the men, usually by dressing in very low-cut outfits.

 

The strip's popularity peaked during the war years. During that time Terry had been adapted to radio and comics, and in 1940 James W. Horne directed a movie serial version (in the 1950s there was also a Terry TV series). After the war ended Caniff ran into contractual problems with his syndicate and went over to King Features, with a hefty salary increase and the added bonus of owning whatever strip he created. On December 29, 1946, the last of Milton Caniff's Terry and the Pirates appeared. George Wundar inherited the strip, which would continue on (in some years inked by E.C. artist George Evans) for another 25 years, finally folding in 1973. In 1995 Tribune Media Services resurrected Terry, which was written by Michael Uslan and illustrated by Greg and Tim Hildebrandt, later replaced by comics veteran

Dan Spiegle.

 

Steve Canyon, Caniff's new strip, debuted on January 7, 1946, opening simultaneously in 125 papers throughout the country, a unique distinction for a new strip, but understandable given Caniff's reputation. Steve was a compulsive hero ("the kind of guy who doesn'tlike to see people kicked around"). As Caniff described him in a Time magazine interview, Canyon was intended to be a "sort of modern Kit Carson, the strong silent Gary Cooper plainsman type. He'llhave lots of gals, one at every port."

 

Canyon was to be, in Caniff's words, "a picaresque novel," like Cervantes' Don Quixote; a traveler moving from one adventure to the next, accompanied by a friend the hero can talk to (and talk to the reader). In this case, Sancho Panza turned out to be a scrappy oldster, Happy Easter. Caniff also decided to bring in another Terry figure, the teenage Reed Kimberly -- after all, if Steve ever settled down to married life, Caniff needn't abandon any boy-meets-girl plot riffs.

 

Canyon did meet a lot of women. Many of them, like the cold-blooded Copper Calhoun (a nasty version of Daddy Warbucks), Cheetah (a totally amoral bargirl who would steal Reed's heart and then cheerfully step on it), the hapless Summer Olson (hopelessly in love with Steve and always abused by Ms. Calhoun, her employer), and cousin Poteet Canyon (a teenage version of Happy Easter). "Ninety-five percent of the interest in any fiction is what happens to the women, not what happens to the men," Caniff believed.

 

Like many other comic strip adventurers, Steve Canyon went on to become a Cold Warrior with the advent of the nineteen fifties, reentering the air Force after the outbreak of the Korean war. Steve found time between adventures in various Third World hotspots to finally marry Summer Olson in 1970 and after the Vietnam war became entangled in a number of marital problems that eventually resulted in a separation.

 

The Vietnam war also caused a number of problems for the strip itself, as the mood of the many Americans was definitely not in tune with military adventures. And as newspapers around the country began to shrink the panel size of their strips to make room for all-important advertising, Caniff's strip, like most realistic strips, began losing its effectiveness. As the aging Caniff began experiencing health problems, he was forced to drop penciling chores, which were then handled by Dick Rockwell (nephew of illustrator Norman Rockwell) and concentrate on writing and inking it.

 

Although ill heath couldn't keep the artist from the drawing board, he finally succumbed to lung cancer in 1988. Steve Canyon survived him by several weeks, after 41 years of continuity. Caniff's awards, which included two Reubens for his two strips, were numerous but the last Steve Canyon, dated June 4, was a final, wonderful tribute: it was two panels, one drawn by the legendary war cartoonist Bill Mauldin, the other signed by 78 fellow artists of the field he loved. Milton Caniff will be long remembered.

--Steve Stiles

www.stevestiles.com/caniff1.htm

www.stevestiles.com/caniff2.htm

  

Milton Caniff

 

Birth nameMilton Arthur Paul Caniff

BornFebruary 28, 1907

Hillsboro, Ohio

DiedMay 3, 1988 (aged 81)

New York City

NationalityAmerican

Area(s)artist

Notable worksDickie Dare

Terry and the Pirates

Steve Canyon

Awardsfull list

 

Milton Arthur Paul Caniff (February 28, 1907-May 3, 1988) was an American cartoonist famous for the Terry and the Pirates and Steve Canyon comic strips.

 

Early life

 

Caniff was born in Hillsboro, Ohio. He was an Eagle Scout and a recipient of the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award from the Boy Scouts of America. Caniff had done some cartoons for local newspapers as a teenager, while studying at Stivers School for the Arts. Shortly after matriculating at the Ohio State University, from which he graduated in 1930, Caniff began a career in journalism by applying to the Columbus Dispatch. There he worked with the noted cartoonist William "Billy" Ireland until Caniff's position was eliminated.

 

While at Ohio State, Caniff joined the Sigma Chi Fraternity, and later provided illustrations for The Magazine of Sigma Chi and The Norman Shield (the fraternity's pledgeship/reference manual).

  

Cartoonist

 

In 1932, Caniff moved to New York City to accept an artist position in the Features Service of the Associated Press. He did general assignment art for several months, then inherited a panel cartoon called Mister Gilfeather in September 1932 when Al Capp left the feature. Caniff continued Gilfeather until the spring of 1933, when it was retired in favor of a generic comedy in a panel cartoon called The Gay Thirties, which he produced until he left AP in the fall of 1934. In July 1933, Caniff began an adventure fantasy strip, Dickie Dare, influenced by series such as Flash Gordon and Brick Bradford.[1] The eponymous central character was a youth who dreamed himself into adventures with such literary and legendary persons as Robin Hood, Robinson Crusoe and King Arthur. In the spring of 1934, Caniff changed the strip from fantasy to "reality" when Dickie no longer dreamed his adventures but experienced them as he traveled the world with a freelance writer, Dickie's adult mentor, "Dynamite Dan" Flynn.

 

In 1934, Caniff was hired by the New York Daily News to produce a new strip, Terry and the Pirates, the strip which made Caniff famous.[1] Like Dickie Dare, Terry began the strip as a boy who is traveling in China with an adult mentor and freelance writer, Pat Ryan. But over the years the title character aged and by World War II he was old enough to serve in the Army Air Force. During the twelve years that Caniff produced the strip, he introduced many fascinating characters, most of whom were "pirates" of one kind or another--Burma, a blonde with a mysterious possibly criminal past; Chopstick Joe, a Chinese petty criminal; Singh Singh, a warlord in the mountains of China; Judas, a smuggler; Sanjak, a lesbian; and then boon companions such as Hotshot Charlie, Terry's wing man during the War years; Connie and Big Stoop, a Chinese Jeff and Mutt (in stature) who followed Terry and Pat Ryan around the country; and April Kane, a young woman who was Terry's first love. But Caniff's most memorable creation was the Dragon Lady, a pirate queen; she was seemingly ruthless and calculating, but Caniff encouraged his readers to think she had romantic yearnings for Pat Ryan.

 

Lai Choi San, the Dragon Lady, Milton Caniff's most iconic character from Terry And the Pirates (©2006 by Tribune Media Services)

 

During the war, Caniff began a second strip, a special version of Terry and the Pirates without Terry but featuring the blonde bombshell, Burma. Caniff donated all of his work on this strip to the armed forces -- the strip was only available in military newspapers. After complaints from the Miami Herald about the military version of the strip being published by military newspapers in the Herald's circulation territory, the strip was renamed Male Call and given a new star, Miss Lace, a beautiful woman who lived near every military base on the planet and enjoyed the company of enlisted men, but not officers. Her function, Caniff often said, was to remind service men what they were fighting for, and while the situations in the strip brimmed with double entendre, Miss Lace was not, as far as she appeared in the strip, a loose woman, but she "knew the score." Far more so than civilian comic strips which portrayed military characters, Male Call was notable for its honest depiction of what the servicemen were up against: one strip showed Miss Lace dating a soldier on leave who had lost an arm; another strip had her escorting a blinded ex-serviceman. Caniff continued Male Call until seven months after V-J Day, ending it in March 1946.[2]

 

The year 1946 also saw the end of Caniff's association with Terry and the Pirates. While the strip was a major success, it was not owned by its creator but by its distributing syndicate, the Chicago Tribune-New York Daily News, a common practice with syndicated comics at the time. And when Caniff was offered the chance to own his own strip by Marshall Field, publisher of the Chicago Sun, the cartoonist left Terry to produce a strip for Field Enterprises. Caniff produced his last strip of Terry and the Pirates in December 1946 and introduced his new strip Steve Canyon in the Chicago Sun-Times the following month.[1] At the time, Caniff was one of only two or three syndicated cartoonists who owned their creations, and he attracted considerable publicity as a result of this circumstance.

  

Steve Canyon

 

Like his previous strip, Steve Canyon was an action strip with a pilot as its main character. Canyon was originally portrayed as a civilian pilot with his own one-airplane cargo airline, but he re-enlisted in the Air Force during the Korean War and remained in the Air Force for the remainder of the strip's run.

 

Milton Caniff's Steve Canyon, although not gaining the popularity of Terry and the Pirates, nevertheless enjoyed greater longevity.

 

While Steve Canyon never achieved the popularity that Terry and the Pirates had at its height as a World War II military adventure or the cult fame Terry generated over the years, it was a successful comic strip with a greater circulation than Terry ever had. A short-lived Steve Canyon television series was produced in 1958, marking the height of the strip's fame. The title character's dedication to the military (Steve Canyon was often termed the "unofficial spokesman" for the Air Force) produced a negative reaction among readers during the Vietnam War, and the strip dropped in circulation as a result. Caniff nonetheless continued to enjoy enormous regard in the profession and in newspapering, and he produced the strip until his death in 1988. The strip was continued for a couple months after he died, but it soon expired, too, in June 1988.

  

Recognition and awards

 

Caniff was one of the founders of the National Cartoonist Society and served two terms as its President, 1948 and 1949. He also received the Society's first Cartoonist of the Year Award in 1947, nominally for his new comic strip, Steve Canyon, but since the award covered work published in 1946, it embraced Terry and the Pirates as well. Caniff would be named Cartoonist of the Year again, receiving the accompanying trophy, the Reuben, in 1972 for 1971, again for Steve Canyon. He was also named to the Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame in 1988. He received the National Cartoonist Society Elzie Segar Award in 1971, the Award for Story Comic Strip in 1979 for Steve Canyon, the Gold Key Award (the Society's Hall of Fame) in 1981, and NCS has since named the Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award in his honor.

 

Caniff died in New York City.

  

Followers

 

Along with Hal Foster and Alex Raymond, Caniff's style would have a tremendous influence on the artists who drew American comic books in the first half of the 20th century. Evidence of his influence can be clearly seen in the work of comic book artists such as Jack Kirby, Frank Robbins, Lee Elias, Bob Kane, Mike Sekowski, Dick Dillin,John Romita,Sr. and Johnny Craig to name just a mere handful.

www.flickr.com/photos/deconstructing-roy-lichtenstein/395...

 

www.tnr.com/blog/spine?pid=49858

 

davidbarsalou.homestead.com/LICHTENSTEINPROJECT.html

 

www.flickr.com/photos/deconstructing-roy-lichtenstein/

 

www.boston.com/news/globe/living/articles/2006/10/18/lich...

 

mass.live.advance.net/printer/printer.ssf?/base/news-6/11...

 

web.archive.org/web/20030310054018/www.newmassmedia.com/a...

 

DECONSTRUCTING ROY LICHTENSTEIN © 2000 David Barsalou

 

MILT CANIFF

The King of the Comic Strips

 

Milton Caniff

From The Early Years To Terry and the Pirates

Milton Caniff, to most comics fans, will always be regarded as the major leading light of the syndicated comic strip. He was a pioneer of a visual style of story telling that's widely imitated but seldom achieved, establishing innovations that would become a yardstick for all that followed in his footsteps. No major comics artists today remain untouched by his influences.

 

Milton Caniff was born on February 28, 1907 in Hillsboro, Ohio. His art career began in a significant way when, as a young boy, he discovered a trunk containing drawings by the early newspaper cartoonist, John T. McCutchen. "This was my first inspiration as an artist in wanting to draw pictures at all, " Caniff would recall. The trunk discovery was significant in another way, in the kind of coincidence that usually only happens in fiction, because years later McCutchen helped to launch the famous Terry and the Pirates!

 

It's likely that Caniff would have become a cartoonist without the trunk. From the very beginning he displayed a talent for art that was amply displayed in school journals and by the eighth grade he had already had a cartoon published in a local paper. By high school he was already freelancing for a newspaper art department, and by the time he reached college Caniff was providing art on the side for the Dayton Journal, the Miami Daily News, and the Columbus Dispatch, while still finding time to attend classes and participate in theatrical productions.

 

After graduating college Caniff found full time work at the Dispatch, spending nights working on a few abortive comic strip attempts. The new job only lasted a short time when the Depression struck, forcing the Dispatch to downsize.

 

Caniff's unemployment only lasted a short while; fortunately the Associated Press of New York had noticed clippings of the young artist's work and offered him a job. The timing was right; Caniff arrived in the Big Apple just in time for 1932's Presidential campaign, and his published portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt appeared in papers all across the country, his first national exposure. While at AP the artist met a fellow worker who would equal his own success as a cartoonist, Al Capp. (Appropriately enough it was on April Fool's Day.) The two men became life-long friends and when Capp left the unfunny strip he had been assigned, Mr. Gilfeather, Caniff inherited the feature, turning it into the more palatable The Gay Thirties.

 

In addition to the single panel feature on life in America, Caniff was given a multi-paneled adventure strip to work on, Dickie Dare. The strip began in July 1933 and featured Dickie's daydreams of fighting along side Robin Hood and his Merry Men, hunting treasure with Long John Silver, and adventuring with Robinson Crusoe. Caniff lasted a year on the strip, which was to continue on until the late fifties, capably handled by Coulton Waugh and his wife, Mabel "Odin" Burvik.

 

Caniff had gotten a better offer from Colonel Patterson of the Chicago Tribune-New York News Syndicate in the fall of 1934. The new job offer came about thanks to another cartoonist who had noticed Caniff's clippings, John McCutchen, the same artist who drew the inspirational cartoons that Caniff had discovered in his mother's trunk!

 

Patterson had been looking for something similar to Dickie Dare, and exotic adventure strip that featured a leading adult and a youthful sidekick. Caniff filled that bill with Terry and the Pirates, which first appeared on October 22, 1934. The continuity opened with the story of Terry Lee, an American boy, his adult pal Pat Ryan, and a clever Chinese servant named Connie, "chief cook and philosopher." The three set out for an abandoned treasure mine but soon find themselves stranded and penniless in a China swarming with brigands, warlords, and hostile Japanese troops.

 

Caniff's early work on the strip was good enough for the times but crude in comparison to what would come later. A big boost in his evolution as an artist came from teaming up with another young comics legend, Noel Sickles, the artist on the AP Scorchy Smith strip.

 

The two men, who had once shared a studio in Ohio, worked in tandem, writing and drawing for each other's strips, in the process developing a novel and time saving method for indicating detail, using a impressionistic brushwork technique known as "chiaroscuro." The technique became Caniff's trademark. As Jules Fieffer once said, "Black is Milton Caniff's primary color."

 

Caniff's mastery of light and dark, his talent for action scenes and camera angles, and his flair for dramatic storytelling all contributed to the popularity of Terry and the Pirates. Another strength of the strip has been its reliance on realism.

 

Caniff realized that potential fan interest must be immediately captured in a strip's first year. "Since a person must read the balloons to get the story," Caniff once said, "I thought I could catch them with vivid color and illustrations rather than straight cartoons. This meant that there'd have to be absolute authenticity."

 

Caniff worked long hours to achieve his goal, consulting with experts in every field. In one sequence involving an amphibious invasion, Caniff dug into thirty-eight books in order to nail down such details as to what military hospitals looked like and whether or not Japanese bombers veered to the right or left when launched from aircraft carriers.

 

Caniff read every book he could find the Orient, becoming more concerned with the problems China faced from the Japanese invaders, predicting in his strip that an inevitable conflict would break out between the U.S. and Hirohito's Imperial forces.

 

Pat and Terry shared the strip with an intriguing cast of supporting characters. To name just a few, there was Captain Judas, Burma, Big Stoop, Chopstick Joe, Dude Hennick, Cherry Blaze, Cue Ball, and one of the greatest of femme fatales, The Dragon Lady, who often played both sides of the fence. Caniff was a master of characterization; readers really got to know and care about many of his cast.

 

This point was amply illustrated in a famous 1941 episode, the death of Raven Sherman. A full week of continuity passed as Raven, wounded by the treacherous Captain Judas, slowly ebbs away on a lonely trail in China until finally, "as it must to every one," she dies. And then, as Caniff says, "The roof fell in!" Caniff was flooded with flower deliveries, mock memorial services, petitions of condolence signed by disparate groups as factory workers and entire colleges, as well as a lot of irate letters. For years afterwards the cartoonist would continue to get black-edged cards on the anniversary of Raven's death. Proving that perhaps, as Caniff put it, "the impacts of both picture and words drives more deeply into human awareness than any anthropologist has yet cared to note."

 

Perhaps so. But Caniff also noted that Raven was killed in October 1941. "If it had happened two months later, nobody would even remember her name today." Milton Caniff, to most comics fans, will always be regarded as the major leading light of the syndicated comic strip. He was a pioneer of a visual style of story telling that's widely imitated but seldom achieved, establishing innovations that would become a yardstick for all that followed in his footsteps. No major comics artists today remain untouched by his influences.

 

Two months after Milton Caniff's famous death-of-Raven sequence, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and the United States' role in the Second World War had begun. Caniff had depicted Japan's aggression in China (as well as Japanese-Nazi collaboration) in Terry and the Pirates years before war broke out. "There was no general realization of impending war between Japan and the United States," said Caniff, "but anyone who could read newspapers could put it together. The Sino-Japanese war just served as a beacon for future sequences. I foresaw a terrific struggle for the Allies."

 

Terry joined in that struggle, having finally grown to young adulthood, and got his wings, becoming a pilot in the air force in China. Pat Ryan, his buddy and mentor, was phased offstage to join the Navy, replaced by another father figure, Colonel Flip Corkin. With the change Terry Lee finally became the sole lead in the strip bearing his name, but the "Pirates," like Pat Ryan, also disappeared.

 

Caniff stepped up the wartime action, with Terry occasionally joining forces with his old nemesis, the Dragon Lady ("tough as a hash-heavy top sergeant"), as well as a new friend in the strip, the very hip, wise-cracking Hot-Shot Charlie.

 

Terry and the Pirates soared in popularity during the war years, thanks to Caniff's storytelling and his incredible attention to detail (once buying film reels from the Army Signal Corps to check on a detail about aircraft carriers). Voluntary informants, readers from around the world, aided the artist. Men and women in the armed services provided invaluable information on anything thing from logistics to military uniforms. Caniff returned the favor by designing countless logos and insignias, designing a large number of instruction manuals and posters, and winning numerous citations from the Navy, War, and Treasury Departments.

 

If Terry and the Pirates helped the war effort by informing and entertaining the civilians, Caniff's Male Call did wonders for the guys in uniform. The strip, which ran uncensored in service newspapers, was heavy on cheesecake and featured the voluptuous Miss Lace, a kind of volunteer Morale Officer, who did her best to cheer up the men, usually by dressing in very low-cut outfits.

 

The strip's popularity peaked during the war years. During that time Terry had been adapted to radio and comics, and in 1940 James W. Horne directed a movie serial version (in the 1950s there was also a Terry TV series). After the war ended Caniff ran into contractual problems with his syndicate and went over to King Features, with a hefty salary increase and the added bonus of owning whatever strip he created. On December 29, 1946, the last of Milton Caniff's Terry and the Pirates appeared. George Wundar inherited the strip, which would continue on (in some years inked by E.C. artist George Evans) for another 25 years, finally folding in 1973. In 1995 Tribune Media Services resurrected Terry, which was written by Michael Uslan and illustrated by Greg and Tim Hildebrandt, later replaced by comics veteran

Dan Spiegle.

 

Steve Canyon, Caniff's new strip, debuted on January 7, 1946, opening simultaneously in 125 papers throughout the country, a unique distinction for a new strip, but understandable given Caniff's reputation. Steve was a compulsive hero ("the kind of guy who doesn'tlike to see people kicked around"). As Caniff described him in a Time magazine interview, Canyon was intended to be a "sort of modern Kit Carson, the strong silent Gary Cooper plainsman type. He'llhave lots of gals, one at every port."

 

Canyon was to be, in Caniff's words, "a picaresque novel," like Cervantes' Don Quixote; a traveler moving from one adventure to the next, accompanied by a friend the hero can talk to (and talk to the reader). In this case, Sancho Panza turned out to be a scrappy oldster, Happy Easter. Caniff also decided to bring in another Terry figure, the teenage Reed Kimberly -- after all, if Steve ever settled down to married life, Caniff needn't abandon any boy-meets-girl plot riffs.

 

Canyon did meet a lot of women. Many of them, like the cold-blooded Copper Calhoun (a nasty version of Daddy Warbucks), Cheetah (a totally amoral bargirl who would steal Reed's heart and then cheerfully step on it), the hapless Summer Olson (hopelessly in love with Steve and always abused by Ms. Calhoun, her employer), and cousin Poteet Canyon (a teenage version of Happy Easter). "Ninety-five percent of the interest in any fiction is what happens to the women, not what happens to the men," Caniff believed.

 

Like many other comic strip adventurers, Steve Canyon went on to become a Cold Warrior with the advent of the nineteen fifties, reentering the air Force after the outbreak of the Korean war. Steve found time between adventures in various Third World hotspots to finally marry Summer Olson in 1970 and after the Vietnam war became entangled in a number of marital problems that eventually resulted in a separation.

 

The Vietnam war also caused a number of problems for the strip itself, as the mood of the many Americans was definitely not in tune with military adventures. And as newspapers around the country began to shrink the panel size of their strips to make room for all-important advertising, Caniff's strip, like most realistic strips, began losing its effectiveness. As the aging Caniff began experiencing health problems, he was forced to drop penciling chores, which were then handled by Dick Rockwell (nephew of illustrator Norman Rockwell) and concentrate on writing and inking it.

 

Although ill heath couldn't keep the artist from the drawing board, he finally succumbed to lung cancer in 1988. Steve Canyon survived him by several weeks, after 41 years of continuity. Caniff's awards, which included two Reubens for his two strips, were numerous but the last Steve Canyon, dated June 4, was a final, wonderful tribute: it was two panels, one drawn by the legendary war cartoonist Bill Mauldin, the other signed by 78 fellow artists of the field he loved. Milton Caniff will be long remembered.

--Steve Stiles

www.stevestiles.com/caniff1.htm

www.stevestiles.com/caniff2.htm

  

Milton Caniff

 

Birth nameMilton Arthur Paul Caniff

BornFebruary 28, 1907

Hillsboro, Ohio

DiedMay 3, 1988 (aged 81)

New York City

NationalityAmerican

Area(s)artist

Notable worksDickie Dare

Terry and the Pirates

Steve Canyon

Awardsfull list

 

Milton Arthur Paul Caniff (February 28, 1907-May 3, 1988) was an American cartoonist famous for the Terry and the Pirates and Steve Canyon comic strips.

 

Early life

 

Caniff was born in Hillsboro, Ohio. He was an Eagle Scout and a recipient of the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award from the Boy Scouts of America. Caniff had done some cartoons for local newspapers as a teenager, while studying at Stivers School for the Arts. Shortly after matriculating at the Ohio State University, from which he graduated in 1930, Caniff began a career in journalism by applying to the Columbus Dispatch. There he worked with the noted cartoonist William "Billy" Ireland until Caniff's position was eliminated.

 

While at Ohio State, Caniff joined the Sigma Chi Fraternity, and later provided illustrations for The Magazine of Sigma Chi and The Norman Shield (the fraternity's pledgeship/reference manual).

  

Cartoonist

 

In 1932, Caniff moved to New York City to accept an artist position in the Features Service of the Associated Press. He did general assignment art for several months, then inherited a panel cartoon called Mister Gilfeather in September 1932 when Al Capp left the feature. Caniff continued Gilfeather until the spring of 1933, when it was retired in favor of a generic comedy in a panel cartoon called The Gay Thirties, which he produced until he left AP in the fall of 1934. In July 1933, Caniff began an adventure fantasy strip, Dickie Dare, influenced by series such as Flash Gordon and Brick Bradford.[1] The eponymous central character was a youth who dreamed himself into adventures with such literary and legendary persons as Robin Hood, Robinson Crusoe and King Arthur. In the spring of 1934, Caniff changed the strip from fantasy to "reality" when Dickie no longer dreamed his adventures but experienced them as he traveled the world with a freelance writer, Dickie's adult mentor, "Dynamite Dan" Flynn.

 

In 1934, Caniff was hired by the New York Daily News to produce a new strip, Terry and the Pirates, the strip which made Caniff famous.[1] Like Dickie Dare, Terry began the strip as a boy who is traveling in China with an adult mentor and freelance writer, Pat Ryan. But over the years the title character aged and by World War II he was old enough to serve in the Army Air Force. During the twelve years that Caniff produced the strip, he introduced many fascinating characters, most of whom were "pirates" of one kind or another--Burma, a blonde with a mysterious possibly criminal past; Chopstick Joe, a Chinese petty criminal; Singh Singh, a warlord in the mountains of China; Judas, a smuggler; Sanjak, a lesbian; and then boon companions such as Hotshot Charlie, Terry's wing man during the War years; Connie and Big Stoop, a Chinese Jeff and Mutt (in stature) who followed Terry and Pat Ryan around the country; and April Kane, a young woman who was Terry's first love. But Caniff's most memorable creation was the Dragon Lady, a pirate queen; she was seemingly ruthless and calculating, but Caniff encouraged his readers to think she had romantic yearnings for Pat Ryan.

 

Lai Choi San, the Dragon Lady, Milton Caniff's most iconic character from Terry And the Pirates (©2006 by Tribune Media Services)

 

During the war, Caniff began a second strip, a special version of Terry and the Pirates without Terry but featuring the blonde bombshell, Burma. Caniff donated all of his work on this strip to the armed forces -- the strip was only available in military newspapers. After complaints from the Miami Herald about the military version of the strip being published by military newspapers in the Herald's circulation territory, the strip was renamed Male Call and given a new star, Miss Lace, a beautiful woman who lived near every military base on the planet and enjoyed the company of enlisted men, but not officers. Her function, Caniff often said, was to remind service men what they were fighting for, and while the situations in the strip brimmed with double entendre, Miss Lace was not, as far as she appeared in the strip, a loose woman, but she "knew the score." Far more so than civilian comic strips which portrayed military characters, Male Call was notable for its honest depiction of what the servicemen were up against: one strip showed Miss Lace dating a soldier on leave who had lost an arm; another strip had her escorting a blinded ex-serviceman. Caniff continued Male Call until seven months after V-J Day, ending it in March 1946.[2]

 

The year 1946 also saw the end of Caniff's association with Terry and the Pirates. While the strip was a major success, it was not owned by its creator but by its distributing syndicate, the Chicago Tribune-New York Daily News, a common practice with syndicated comics at the time. And when Caniff was offered the chance to own his own strip by Marshall Field, publisher of the Chicago Sun, the cartoonist left Terry to produce a strip for Field Enterprises. Caniff produced his last strip of Terry and the Pirates in December 1946 and introduced his new strip Steve Canyon in the Chicago Sun-Times the following month.[1] At the time, Caniff was one of only two or three syndicated cartoonists who owned their creations, and he attracted considerable publicity as a result of this circumstance.

 

Steve Canyon

Like his previous strip, Steve Canyon was an action strip with a pilot as its main character. Canyon was originally portrayed as a civilian pilot with his own one-airplane cargo airline, but he re-enlisted in the Air Force during the Korean War and remained in the Air Force for the remainder of the strip's run.

 

Milton Caniff's Steve Canyon, although not gaining the popularity of Terry and the Pirates, nevertheless enjoyed greater longevity.

 

While Steve Canyon never achieved the popularity that Terry and the Pirates had at its height as a World War II military adventure or the cult fame Terry generated over the years, it was a successful comic strip with a greater circulation than Terry ever had. A short-lived Steve Canyon television series was produced in 1958, marking the height of the strip's fame. The title character's dedication to the military (Steve Canyon was often termed the "unofficial spokesman" for the Air Force) produced a negative reaction among readers during the Vietnam War, and the strip dropped in circulation as a result. Caniff nonetheless continued to enjoy enormous regard in the profession and in newspapering, and he produced the strip until his death in 1988. The strip was continued for a couple months after he died, but it soon expired, too, in June 1988.

  

Recognition and awards

 

Caniff was one of the founders of the National Cartoonist Society and served two terms as its President, 1948 and 1949. He also received the Society's first Cartoonist of the Year Award in 1947, nominally for his new comic strip, Steve Canyon, but since the award covered work published in 1946, it embraced Terry and the Pirates as well. Caniff would be named Cartoonist of the Year again, receiving the accompanying trophy, the Reuben, in 1972 for 1971, again for Steve Canyon. He was also named to the Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame in 1988. He received the National Cartoonist Society Elzie Segar Award in 1971, the Award for Story Comic Strip in 1979 for Steve Canyon, the Gold Key Award (the Society's Hall of Fame) in 1981, and NCS has since named the Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award in his honor.

 

Caniff died in New York City.

 

Followers

Along with Hal Foster and Alex Raymond, Caniff's style would have a tremendous influence on the artists who drew American comic books in the first half of the 20th century. Evidence of his influence can be clearly seen in the work of comic book artists such as Jack Kirby, Frank Robbins, Lee Elias, Bob Kane, Mike Sekowski, Dick Dillin,John Romita,Sr. and Johnny Craig to name just a mere handful.

www.flickr.com/photos/deconstructing-roy-lichtenstein/395...

 

www.tnr.com/blog/spine?pid=49858

 

davidbarsalou.homestead.com/LICHTENSTEINPROJECT.html

 

www.flickr.com/photos/deconstructing-roy-lichtenstein/

 

www.boston.com/news/globe/living/articles/2006/10/18/lich...

 

mass.live.advance.net/printer/printer.ssf?/base/news-6/11...

 

web.archive.org/web/20030310054018/www.newmassmedia.com/a...

 

DECONSTRUCTING ROY LICHTENSTEIN © 2000

David Barsalou MFA

 

This abridgement of Universal's 12-episode serial Buck Rogers stars Buster Crabbe as Dick Calkins' famed comic-strip space adventurer. Buck and Buddy (Jackie Moran) and are recruited to battle against modernistic gangster Killer Kane (Anthony Warde), by Wilma Deering (Constance Moore) and Dr. Huer (C. Montague Shaw). The duo travels to Saturn to get help in their mission, and after Buck and Buddy quell the internal struggles of the Saturnians, Buck triumphs over Killer Kane and his cosmic thugs.

Planet Outlaws Feature link: youtu.be/UD3xKy42KUY

 

Link to all 12 Serial Episodes:

 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTtc-u3zFGk&feature=share&amp...

 

Starring Buster Crabbe, Constance Moore, Jackie Moran, Jack Mulhall, Anthony Warde, C. Montague Shaw, Guy Usher, William Gould, Philson Ahn. Directed by Ford Beebe, Saul A. Goodkind.

Buck Rogers and Buddy Wade are in the middle of a trans-polar dirigible flight when they are caught in a blizzard and crash. Buddy then releases a special gas to keep them in suspended animation until a rescue party can arrive. However, an avalanche covers the craft and the two are in suspended animation for 500 years. When they are found, they awake to find out that the world has been taken over by the outlaw army of Killer Kane. Along with Lieutenant Wilma Deering, Buck and Buddy join in the fight to overthrow Kane and with the help of Prince Tallen of Saturn and his forces, they eventually do and Earth is free of Kane's grip.

 

This is actually a pretty enjoyable serial, but it seems doomed to be forever overshadowed by the much superior Flash Gordon trilogy. Universal brought BUCK ROGERS out in 1939, in between their own chapterplays FLASH GORDON'S TRIP TO MARS and FLASH GORDON CONQUERS THE UNIVERSE; it also starred Buster Crabbe (but with his natural dark hair instead of Flash's golden curls) and although it is filled with space ships and weird gadgets, BUCK ROGERS lacks most of the elements that gave the Flash serials their intense emotional draw.

 

For one thing, there is none of the strong sexual charge that the Flash series had. Instead of nubile Dale Arden and sultry Princess Aura both competing for the hero's attention while the villain openly lusted for the heroine, Buck's epic featured Constance Moore as Col. Wilma Deering. Now, Moore is perfectly fine in her role, but she is after all a soldier in the resistance army and not a fair damsel in distress. She has a nice moment when she wrests a ray gun away from a guard and blasts her way out of her cell, but she and Buck seem to be merely chums on the same side.

 

Also, although BUCK ROGERS has plenty of futuristic gadgets (rayguns and buzzing spaceships which shoot sparks from their backs, teleportation tubes and invisibility rays), there are no grotesque monsters or nonhuman alien races on view. Prisoners have remarkably goofy metal helmets strapped on which turn them into docile zombies, and there are these homely goons called Zuggs moping around, but that's hardly as fascinating as Lion Men and Clay People and horned apes (that Orangapoid critter).

 

What's ironic about all this is that the comic strip BUCK ROGERS by Philip Nolan and Richard Calkins started in 1929, was immensely popular for many years and it success inspired the creation of Flash. Yet the Flash strip benefitted from the genius of Alex Raymond, one of the all-time great cartoon artists, and it produced stunning visual images (from the samples of Buck's strip I've seen, it was imaginative enough but pretty crude and drab). This contrast carried over to the serials.

 

Buck Rogers and his sidekick Buddy Wade (Jackie Moran) are pilots who crash in the Arctic in1938 and survive for 500 years because the 'Nirvano' gas they were carrying put them in a state of suspended animation. They both seem to adapt to waking up in the year 2424 pretty well, where I would think most people would be so traumatized it would take a while to adjust. In this dystopic future, the Earth is ruled by a mega-gangster called Killer Kane (another setback; Anthony Warde would be okay as a crimelord but he just doesn't have the imposing presence to convince me this guy can dominate an entire planet).

 

Luckily, Buck and Buddy have been found by the small resistance movement hopelessly trying to overthrow Kane from their hidden city. Here is Dr Huer (C. Montague Shaw, who I just saw in the UNDERSEA KINGDOM doing the same gig with his wild inventions) and Wilma Deering leading the good fight. For some reason I missed, everyone immediately puts all their trust in Buck and he pretty much takes over. (Maybe he's just one of those charismatic alpha males or something.) Most of the serial involves desperate trips back and forth to Saturn to enlist the aid of the isolationist Saturnians, and this means running the blockade of Kane's ships. The usual fistfights and explosions and captures and escapes normal for this sort of situation ensue. It's a lot of fun if you take it on its own terms, with a strong linear plot and likeable heroes, but it really never kicks into high gear and seems a bit drab.

 

It's interesting that some (but not all) of the Saturnians are played by Asian actors. Prince Tallen, who gets caught up in most of the fun, was portrayed by a very young Philson Ahn, and I thought for years this was the same guy who in 1972 impressed us as the head of the Shaolin Temple in TV's KUNG FU (he taught all the styles, really amazing if you think about it). Turns out that was Phiip Ahn, Philson's brother.

 

Dir: Ford Beebe and Saul A. Goodkind - 12 Chapters

 

BUCK ROGERS (1939): Director Ford Beebe, who also worked on Flash Gordon (1938), came straight from The Phantom Creeps (1939) and then went back to finish Flash Gordon Conquers The Universe (1940). Buck Rogers stars Buster Crabbe or, as his family knew him, Lawrence. Now, Lawrence ‘Larry’ ‘Buster’ Crabbe had previously starred in two Flash Gordon serials, a couple of Tarzan movies and a long string of westerns, so it was only natural for Universal to decide he was perfect as the heroic Buck Rogers, aka that blonde guy who saves the universe but isn’t Flash Gordon. Actually, Buster Crabbe wasn’t the first actor to play Buck Rogers in-the-flesh, so to speak.

That honour goes to an unknown man who played Buck in a Virginia department store, instead of their regular Santa Claus. Santa was off conquering Martians at the time, I think it was an exchange program of sorts. It strikes me that Buck Rogers is not unlike a male fantasy come to life. Just think of it – Buck gets to take a nice five-hundred-year-long sleep-in. With my busy schedule, I’m ecstatic if I can get twenty minutes nap on the weekend. Then, when he wakes up, Buck is the smartest, most dynamic guy around. In reality he’d be treated like something that’s escaped from the zoo. And finally, everyone needs Buck to go on exciting missions, fight the bad guys, test exotic equipment and crash rocket ships – out of the half-dozen flights Buck makes, he only lands successfully once. It’s easy to see the bullet cars used in the movie are the same ones from Flash Gordon’s Trip To Mars (1938), and even the script is rather suspect.

Planet Outlaws

This film is actually a compilation of the Buck Rogers serials that ran originally in 1939. The cliffhanger endings and recap beginnings have been edited out to make it flow better -- with partial success. Some new footage was shot for the introduction and summary. At the opening, there are some newspaper headlines about jets chasing flying discs, and the obligatory checkered V2 launch, etc. to add a modern segue. After that, it's pure 1939.

Sci-fi movie technology had come a long way in the 14 years since Buck's debut. Audiences had grown accustomed to sleek and pointy rockets, flying saucers, strange aliens, etc. The Buck Rogers style world-of-the-future must have looked oddly quaint. (if not laughable) Just why Universal Pictures thought re-releasing Buck Rogers was a good idea is a bit of a mystery. Kids who were 8 or so back in 1939 would be young adults in '53. Perhaps Universal was banking on those young adults would buy tickets for a trip down memory lane.

Plot Synopsis

After a bit of modern ('53) footage about the wonders of modern progress and "flying disks," the old serial begins. Rogers and Buddy crashed in the arctic while on a transpolar flight. They were in suspended animation due to the cold and a vague gas. A patrol finds them in the year 2500 and revives them. In the world of 2500, a despot named Killer Kane is trying to take over the world. The forces of good are holed up in the "hidden city." Buck arranges a decoy maneuver to elude Kane's patrol ships. They fly to the planet Saturn in hopes of finding help. On Saturn, the Council sees Rogers and party as the rebels, and Kane as the rule of law. Rogers et al, escape Saturn, return to earth and seek to disrupt Kane's bamboozling of Prince Tallen, the Saturnian representative. Rogers sneaks into Kane's city, interrupts the treaty signing and convinces Tallen of Kane's evil by revealing Kane's "robot battalion" (slaves wearing mind-control helmets). Rogers and Tallen get to Saturn and the treaty is signed. Rogers escapes Kane's patrols via the Dissolvo Ray which rendered them invisible. Rogers and the war council plan for war. Rogers enlists the Saturnians to help. Meanwhile, Rogers sneaks into Kane's city and de-zombies Minister Krenco to lead an uprising of freed robot-slave-prisoners. Rogers storms Kane's palace and puts one of the robo-slave helmets on Kane. The End

The industrial vision of the future is delightful to watch. The heavily mechanical look of everything is so radically different from the sleek rockets and glowing acrylic audiences were growing accustomed to. The space ships look like they were built at locomotive factories or steamship yards. They spew roman-candle sparks and smoke and buzz as they fly. There are no computers, no radar or electronics. It's a fascinating snapshot of what pre-electronic-age people thought the future would be like.

When originally released in 1939, the Killer Kane character was a thinly disguised allusion to Hitler. In 1953, Kane was intended to represent a communist despot. It wasn't as tidy a fit. The narrator sums it up voicing a hope that scientists will develop the means for men to stand up to today's dictators and make the world safe for democracy. In the early 50s, there's little question of who they meant.

Simple Colors -- One endearing trait of Buck Rogers is the simplicity of the characterizations. The good guys do nothing but good. The bad guys are pure bad. The good guys are crack pilots and sharp shooters and tough as nails. The bad guys do nothing but bad, have trouble hitting a flying barn and are easily knocked out with one punch.

Industrial Baroque -- Somewhat like the baroque era's compulsion to decorate every square inch with swirls and filigree, Industrial Baroque sought to fill every space with heavy-duty hardware. The sets, and especially the rocket interiors are like flying boiler rooms. Valves, pipes, levers, dials, wheels, large flashing light bulbs. To look more "high tech" in the 30s meant cramming in more industrial hardware. Buck Rogers' ships show more affinity for Captain Nemo "steampunk" than the proto-space-age of the 50s.

Family Resemblance -- There is a noticeable similarity in the sets and costumes of Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers. Even serials of the early 50s, like Captain Video and the various Rocketman serials, look more like Flash and Buck than George Pal. The industrial baroque look and costuming are distinctive, making them almost a sub-genre of their own. In that regard, Buck has a timelessness.

Another take on the story and additional background info.

A round-the-world dirigible flight commanded by US Air Force officer Buck Rogers (Buster Crabbe) encounters dangerously stormy weather above the Himalayas; said weather, along with disastrous panic on the part of Rogers’ crewmen, causes the aircraft to crash. The cowardly crewmen ditch the ship and meet quick ends, but Rogers and young Buddy Wade (Jackie Moran), son of the aircraft’s designer, survive the crash. The pair use a cylinder of “Nirvano” gas to place themselves into suspended animation until a rescue party can reach them, but an avalanche buries the ship and all searches prove fruitless; the dirigible and its two dormant inhabitants remain beneath rocks and snow for five hundred years.

Finally, in the year 2440, a spaceship unearths the wreck, and its pilots restore Buck and Buddy to consciousness. The holdovers from the 20th century soon learn that their rescuers are soldiers from the “Hidden City,” a pocket of resistance to the super-criminal who is ruling the 24th-century Earth–one “Killer” Kane (Anthony Warde). Rogers immediately pledges his support to Air Marshal Kragg (William Gould) and Scientist-General Dr. Huer (C. Montague Shaw), the leaders of the Hidden City exiles, and is soon en route to Saturn, hoping to convince that planet’s rulers to aid the Hidden City in freeing the Earth from Kane’s tyranny. To cement the Saturian alliance, Buck must battle Kane’s legions at every step of the way, with able assistance from Buddy and from Dr. Huer’s trusted aide Lieutenant Wilma Deering (Constance Moore).

 

Ever since its original release, Buck Rogers has stood in the shadow of Universal’s Flash Gordon serials; the studio encouraged such association by casting Flash Gordon star Buster Crabbe as a different sci-fi hero, obviously hoping that the chapterplay would capitalize on the goodwill generated by Flash Gordon and Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars. The serial did succeed in reminding audiences of the Flash outings–but it reminded them of how much they had liked those serials and forced inevitable comparisons that were not in Rogers’ favor. Universal’s plans for a second Buck Rogers serial were quickly scrapped when the first outing failed to please matinee audiences; the intended Buck sequel was then replaced on the studio’s production schedule by–what else?–a third Flash Gordon chapterplay. Even today, Buck is typically dismissed by fans as a pale echo of the great Gordon serials.

It’s easy to see why Buck Rogers came as a disappointment to audiences expecting an outing in the Flash Gordon tradition. Its production design, while futuristic, is less quirky and more uniform than that of the Gordons; there are no monsters and no weird semi-human races besides the rather uninteresting Zuggs; there are also no supporting characters as developed or as interesting as Dr. Zarkov, Ming, King Vultan, the Clay King, Princess Aura, Prince Barin, and other major figures in the Flash Gordon chapterplays. And yet, taken on its own terms, Buck Rogers is far from a failure; it does not approach the Flash Gordon trilogy in quality, but then few serials do.

Buck Rogers’ script, by former Mascot writers Norman Hall and Ray Trampe, is fast-moving and manages to avoid repetition for most of its length. The trip to Saturn, the attempts to convince Saturnian leader Prince Tallen (Philson Ahn) of the justice of the Hidden City’s cause, the subsequent rescue of Tallen from Kane’s city, the second journey to Saturn to cement the alliance, and the attempts of Kane’s henchman Laska (Henry Brandon) to sabotage it–all these incidents keep the narrative flowing very nicely for the serial’s first eight chapters. As in many of Trampe and Hall’s Mascot scripts, however, the writers seem to run out of plot before the serial’s end. While Chapters Nine and Ten remain interesting (with Buck being converted into a hypnotized robot, Buddy’s rescue of the hero, and an infiltration of the Hidden City by one of Kane’s men), the last two chapters have a definite wheel-spinning feel to them, throwing in a redundant third trip to Saturn and an unneeded flashback sequence.

The last-chapter climax is also something of a disappointment, with Kane being overthrown quickly and undramatically instead of being definitively crushed. Here, Trampe and Hall seem to have been leaving room for the sequel that never came and trying to avoid duplicating the dramatic but very final destruction of MIng which closed the first Flash Gordon serial (and which needed to be explained away in the second). The other weak spot of the scripting is Buck and Buddy’s rather calm reaction when they realize that their old world (and everyone in it) is dead–and their extraordinarily quick adjustment to their new one. One wouldn’t have wanted the writers to dwell on our heroes’ plight (which would be absolutely crushing in real life), but I do wish Trampe or Hall could have given Buck and Buddy a few emotional lines about their displacement before getting on to the main action; Hall in his scripts for other serials (Hawk of the Wilderness, Adventures of Red Ryder), showed himself capable of far more dramatic moments.

  

As already mentioned, the serial’s visuals are less varied than those of the Flash Gordon serials, but that’s not to say they aren’t impressive by serial standards. Pains seem to have been taken to avoid duplicating too much of Gordon’s “look;” the spaceship miniatures are completely different than the ships in the Gordon trilogy, while Kane’s stronghold–probably the best miniature in the serial–is not the quasi-Gothic palace of Ming but rather an ominous, futuristic-looking version of New York City, complete with towering skyscrapers. The Hidden City’s great rock gates are also nifty, and the massive Saturnian Forum (a life-size set, not a miniature) is very visually impressive. The barren Red Rock Canyon area works well as the Saturnian landscape, but I think it was a mistake to also use the Canyon as the area between the Hidden City and Kane’s capital; Saturn and Earth shouldn’t look so similar.

 

The only major prop or set reused from the Gordon serials are the “bullet cars” from Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars; they’re just as fun to watch in action here as in the earlier serial. Other incidental props and sets–Kane’s robot room, his mind-control helmets, the various televiewing devices, the anti-gravity belts, Dr. Huer’s invisibility ray, and the Star-Trek-like molecular transportation chamber–add further colorful touches to the serial., and are respectably represented by Universal’s always above-average array of sets and props. The Zuggs, the “primitive race” ruled by the Saturnians, are somewhat disappointing, however; while suitably grotesque-looking, they’re nowhere near as menacing or memorable–in appearance or demeanor–as their obvious inspiration, the Clay People in Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars.

The serial’s action scenes are brisk and energetic, suffering not at all from a general lack of fistfights–thanks to the swift-moving direction of Ford Beebe (a Mascot veteran like writers Trampe and Hall) and his co-director Saul Goodkind (usually an editor). The few hand-to-hand tussles–most of them on the rocky hills of Saturn–are executed routinely but skillfully by Dave Sharpe, Tom Steele, Eddie Parker, and other stuntmen; the best of the bunch is the fight between Buck and a Kane man in the control room of the Hidden City, although this is more exciting for the suspenseful situation (Buck trying to close the gates that the henchman has opened to Kane’s oncoming armada) than for any particular flair in the staging.

Most of the action sequences consist of protracted chases and pursuits (both on foot and in rocketships), with occasional quick combats thrown in. Many of these lengthy chases are very exciting–particularly the long incursion into Kane’s city that occupies most of Chapters Three and Four, a great combination of action and suspense. Buddy’s later stealthy visit into Kane’s fortress to rescue Buck from the robot room, and the following escape, is also good, as are Buck’s skillful and repeated elusions of the rebellious Zuggs in Chapter Eight and the bullet car getaway in Chapter Six.

  

The cliffhanger endings are generally well-staged, with proper build-ups, but too many of them involve spaceship crashes that our heroes rather implausibly live through. The impressive collapsing forum at the end of Chapter Eleven and the bullet car crash at the end of Chapter Six provide nice variety amid the spaceship wrecks, but (alas) are also resolved by mere survival. Still, this is preferable to the blatantly cheating resolution of what is otherwise one the best chapter endings–Killer Kane’s pursuit of Buddy in a darkened council chamber and his apparently lethal zapping of the young hero. At least the resolution features a good stunt bit by Dave Sharpe.

The leading performances in Buck Rogers are all excellent (although most other critics would make a single exception; see below). Buster Crabbe, as always, makes a perfect serial hero–both genially cheerful and grimly serious, unassumingly polite and aggressively tough. As in the Flash Gordon trilogy, his down-to-earth attitude also helps to make the wild sci-fi happenings seem perfectly normal.

Jackie Moran (oddly “reduced” to serial acting only a year after playing Huck Finn in David O. Selznick’s big-budget classic Adventures of Tom Sawyer) does a fine job as Buddy Wade, handling his character’s frequent “golly, gee-whiz” lines in a low-key fashion that keeps Buddy from coming off as too naïve; his chipper but calm demeanor complements Crabbe’s well, and he has no problems carrying an entire chapter and part of another on his own.

Constance Moore, despite being saddled with perhaps the most unflattering costume ever worn by a serial leading lady (basically coveralls and a bathing cap), manages to come off as charming. Her Wilma Deering is self-possessed and capable-seeming but never too coldly efficient; she remains warmly likable even when piloting spaceships or explaining technology to Crabbe.

Henry Brandon is very good as Killer Kane’s chief henchman Captain Laska–suave and sly when acting as Kane’s ambassador to Saturn, haughtily arrogant when threatening people, and nervously jittery in the presence of his overbearing leader. Hard-bitten tough guys Wheeler Oakman and Reed Howes, along with the slicker Carleton Young , form Brandon’s backup squad.

As Killer Kane himself, perennial henchman actor Anthony Warde has been almost universally panned by critics as “miscast.” I have to dissent strongly, however; Warde does a fine job in the part and plays Kane with a memorable combination of viciousness and uncontrollable anger. The character is not a diabolical schemer like Ming, but rather a super-gangster who’s blasted and bullied his way to the top–and Warde’s bad-tempered, aggressive, and thuggish screen personality fits the part perfectly. He veers between intimidating ranting and harshly sinister sarcasm–as when he describes himself as a “kindly ruler” just after wrathfully sending a formerly trusted councilor to the robot room–but is quite menacing in both aspects.

Philson Ahn, brother of frequent serial and feature actor Phillip Ahn, does a good job as Prince Tallen of Saturn; he possesses his sibling’s deep and distinctive voice, which serves him well as a planetary dignitary. His manner also has a slightly tougher edge to it than his refined brother’s, which helps to keep the viewer in uncertainty in the earlier chapters as to whether Tallen will turn out to be friend or foe. Guy Usher plays Aldar, the head of Saturn’s ”Council of the Wise,” and does his best to seem suitably imposing and dignified, despite the almost comical way in which the “Wise” continually change their opinions–backing Kane, opposing him, giving into his demands, defying him, etc. Cyril Delevanti is enjoyable as a grumpy subordinate member of the Council.*

C. Montague Shaw has limited screen time, but is very good as Dr. Huer, balancing statesmanlike dignity with shrewdness and a touch of enjoyable scientific eccentricity (the last is particularly noticeable during his demonstration of his invisibility gas in Chapter Five). Energetic Jack Mulhall is typically affable and enthusiastic as Captain Rankin of the Hidden City, while Kenne Duncan has a rare good guy role as Mulhall’s fellow-officer Lieutenant Lacy. Perennial screen “underworld rat” John Harmon also plays against type as a Hidden City soldier, as does Stanley Price as a Hidden City pilot rescued from existence as a human robot. The dignified but stolid William Gould is good enough as Air Marshal Kragg, but I would have preferred a more dynamic actor in the role–Kragg is, after all, the top military leader of Kane’s enemies. Mulhall could have handled it well, as could Wade Boteler–who does an excellent job as the grim and concerned Professor Morgan in the first chapter, intensely instructing Buddy and Buck in the use of the Nirvano gas.

Lane Chandler also appears in the first chapter, as a military officer who demonstrates the Nirvano gas to a reporter played by another old pro, Kenneth Harlan. An unusually subdued Theodore Lorch is one of Kane’s councilors, while Karl Hackett has a good part as another councilor who gets into an argument with Kane that leads to Hackett’s being converted into a human robot (his terrified pleas as he’s dragged out of the council chamber are quite chilling). Al Bridge has some memorably sinister lines (“when this helmet is in place, you’ll never think or speak again”) in his periodic scenes as the slave-master of Kane’s human robots.

Unusually for Universal, several bit roles are filled by stuntmen; Eddie Parker and Tom Steele pop in as various soldiers and officers, but aren’t as noticeable as Dave Sharpe, who’s given multiple speaking roles as a Kane soldier, a Hidden City soldier, a Saturnian officer, and a Saturnian soldier. His ubiquity can get a little distracting at times, particularly since some of his appearances follow right on the previous one’s heels; he also seems to have a bit of trouble with the formal-sounding Saturnian dialogue, coming off as much more stiff and affected than in his co-starring turn in Daredevils of the Red Circle.

The serial’s music score, like most other Universals of the period, is an eclectic but usually effective array of stock music, some of it cues from the Flash Gordon serials but the majority of it culled from Universal’s horror features, including (most notably) Franz Waxman’s score for Bride of Frankenstein, which furnishes some memorable opening-titles music.

All in all, though Buck Rogers has its share of flaws, it also has more than enough virtues (the acting, the fast pace, the interesting sci-fi trappings) to make it a good chapterplay. Despite its similar themes, it shouldn’t be pitted against the Flash Gordon trilogy–a match it’s bound to lose–but rather judged against the field of competition in general. When judged in this fashion, it’s just as entertaining–and often more entertaining–than many serials with less shabby reputations.

 

*One has to wonder, though, why some Saturnians are Orientals like Ahn and others Occidentals like Usher and Delevanti; my own theory is that men from various countries emigrated from Earth to Saturn sometime before the bulk of the serial took place; this would explain the racial assortment and also explain why the Hidden City chooses Saturn in particular as an ally (as usual, I’m probably putting too much thought into this).

 

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As theatrical devices, they were first used by the ancient Greeks as an essential part of their theatrical entertainment. They are linked with theatrical developments growing out of the Dionysian masquerades. The more-than-life-sized masks ancient Greeks used completely covered the head and they were made of painted canvas with openings for the eyes and the mouth. The Greek theatrical mask served a threefold purpose. Since only three male speaking actors were permitted on the Greek stage, the use of mask permitted each one of the three to double or triple the number of roles he could assume in one play. It enabled him to play female parts, to appear in various stages of manhood, and to sustain and intensify extreme characterizations when the role demanded them. The second function was to help the spectators to recognize characters more easily, for the open theater was vast, even larger than some of the modern stadiums, and the spectators, of which there were often tens of thousands, were necessarily far removed from the stage. A definitely characterized and familiar mask, such as one of tragedy or comedy, helped identify the character, even when seen from a great distance. A third purpose of the mask was to amplify the voice; the mouth was equipped with a brass device similar to a trumpet which projected the words spoken by the actor to the farthest reaches of the theater. This beautiful mask depicts the supreme god and ruler of Olympus, the chief deity of the pantheon, the father of gods and men, Zeus.

Furthering scientific advancements in the fields of energy storage and conversion materials and more recently to advance atmospheric aerosol research, EMSL’s atom probe tomography system, or APT, delivers powerful interface analysis and 3-D microstructural characterization. The APT provides comprehensive and accurate 3-D chemical imaging of low electrical conductivity materials, such as dielectric and semiconductor materials. Senior Research Scientist Arun Devaraj operates the APT. EMSL is a Department of Energy national scientific user facility located at PNNL.

MILT CANIFF

The King of the Comic Strips

 

Milton Caniff

From The Early Years To Terry and the Pirates

Milton Caniff, to most comics fans, will always be regarded as the major leading light of the syndicated comic strip. He was a pioneer of a visual style of story telling that's widely imitated but seldom achieved, establishing innovations that would become a yardstick for all that followed in his footsteps. No major comics artists today remain untouched by his influences.

 

Milton Caniff was born on February 28, 1907 in Hillsboro, Ohio. His art career began in a significant way when, as a young boy, he discovered a trunk containing drawings by the early newspaper cartoonist, John T. McCutchen. "This was my first inspiration as an artist in wanting to draw pictures at all, " Caniff would recall. The trunk discovery was significant in another way, in the kind of coincidence that usually only happens in fiction, because years later McCutchen helped to launch the famous Terry and the Pirates!

 

It's likely that Caniff would have become a cartoonist without the trunk. From the very beginning he displayed a talent for art that was amply displayed in school journals and by the eighth grade he had already had a cartoon published in a local paper. By high school he was already freelancing for a newspaper art department, and by the time he reached college Caniff was providing art on the side for the Dayton Journal, the Miami Daily News, and the Columbus Dispatch, while still finding time to attend classes and participate in theatrical productions.

 

After graduating college Caniff found full time work at the Dispatch, spending nights working on a few abortive comic strip attempts. The new job only lasted a short time when the Depression struck, forcing the Dispatch to downsize.

 

Caniff's unemployment only lasted a short while; fortunately the Associated Press of New York had noticed clippings of the young artist's work and offered him a job. The timing was right; Caniff arrived in the Big Apple just in time for 1932's Presidential campaign, and his published portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt appeared in papers all across the country, his first national exposure. While at AP the artist met a fellow worker who would equal his own success as a cartoonist, Al Capp. (Appropriately enough it was on April Fool's Day.) The two men became life-long friends and when Capp left the unfunny strip he had been assigned, Mr. Gilfeather, Caniff inherited the feature, turning it into the more palatable The Gay Thirties.

 

In addition to the single panel feature on life in America, Caniff was given a multi-paneled adventure strip to work on, Dickie Dare. The strip began in July 1933 and featured Dickie's daydreams of fighting along side Robin Hood and his Merry Men, hunting treasure with Long John Silver, and adventuring with Robinson Crusoe. Caniff lasted a year on the strip, which was to continue on until the late fifties, capably handled by Coulton Waugh and his wife, Mabel "Odin" Burvik.

 

Caniff had gotten a better offer from Colonel Patterson of the Chicago Tribune-New York News Syndicate in the fall of 1934. The new job offer came about thanks to another cartoonist who had noticed Caniff's clippings, John McCutchen, the same artist who drew the inspirational cartoons that Caniff had discovered in his mother's trunk!

 

Patterson had been looking for something similar to Dickie Dare, and exotic adventure strip that featured a leading adult and a youthful sidekick. Caniff filled that bill with Terry and the Pirates, which first appeared on October 22, 1934. The continuity opened with the story of Terry Lee, an American boy, his adult pal Pat Ryan, and a clever Chinese servant named Connie, "chief cook and philosopher." The three set out for an abandoned treasure mine but soon find themselves stranded and penniless in a China swarming with brigands, warlords, and hostile Japanese troops.

 

Caniff's early work on the strip was good enough for the times but crude in comparison to what would come later. A big boost in his evolution as an artist came from teaming up with another young comics legend, Noel Sickles, the artist on the AP Scorchy Smith strip.

 

The two men, who had once shared a studio in Ohio, worked in tandem, writing and drawing for each other's strips, in the process developing a novel and time saving method for indicating detail, using a impressionistic brushwork technique known as "chiaroscuro." The technique became Caniff's trademark. As Jules Fieffer once said, "Black is Milton Caniff's primary color."

 

Caniff's mastery of light and dark, his talent for action scenes and camera angles, and his flair for dramatic storytelling all contributed to the popularity of Terry and the Pirates. Another strength of the strip has been its reliance on realism.

 

Caniff realized that potential fan interest must be immediately captured in a strip's first year. "Since a person must read the balloons to get the story," Caniff once said, "I thought I could catch them with vivid color and illustrations rather than straight cartoons. This meant that there'd have to be absolute authenticity."

 

Caniff worked long hours to achieve his goal, consulting with experts in every field. In one sequence involving an amphibious invasion, Caniff dug into thirty-eight books in order to nail down such details as to what military hospitals looked like and whether or not Japanese bombers veered to the right or left when launched from aircraft carriers.

 

Caniff read every book he could find the Orient, becoming more concerned with the problems China faced from the Japanese invaders, predicting in his strip that an inevitable conflict would break out between the U.S. and Hirohito's Imperial forces.

 

Pat and Terry shared the strip with an intriguing cast of supporting characters. To name just a few, there was Captain Judas, Burma, Big Stoop, Chopstick Joe, Dude Hennick, Cherry Blaze, Cue Ball, and one of the greatest of femme fatales, The Dragon Lady, who often played both sides of the fence. Caniff was a master of characterization; readers really got to know and care about many of his cast.

 

This point was amply illustrated in a famous 1941 episode, the death of Raven Sherman. A full week of continuity passed as Raven, wounded by the treacherous Captain Judas, slowly ebbs away on a lonely trail in China until finally, "as it must to every one," she dies. And then, as Caniff says, "The roof fell in!" Caniff was flooded with flower deliveries, mock memorial services, petitions of condolence signed by disparate groups as factory workers and entire colleges, as well as a lot of irate letters. For years afterwards the cartoonist would continue to get black-edged cards on the anniversary of Raven's death. Proving that perhaps, as Caniff put it, "the impacts of both picture and words drives more deeply into human awareness than any anthropologist has yet cared to note."

 

Perhaps so. But Caniff also noted that Raven was killed in October 1941. "If it had happened two months later, nobody would even remember her name today." Milton Caniff, to most comics fans, will always be regarded as the major leading light of the syndicated comic strip. He was a pioneer of a visual style of story telling that's widely imitated but seldom achieved, establishing innovations that would become a yardstick for all that followed in his footsteps. No major comics artists today remain untouched by his influences.

 

Two months after Milton Caniff's famous death-of-Raven sequence, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and the United States' role in the Second World War had begun. Caniff had depicted Japan's aggression in China (as well as Japanese-Nazi collaboration) in Terry and the Pirates years before war broke out. "There was no general realization of impending war between Japan and the United States," said Caniff, "but anyone who could read newspapers could put it together. The Sino-Japanese war just served as a beacon for future sequences. I foresaw a terrific struggle for the Allies."

 

Terry joined in that struggle, having finally grown to young adulthood, and got his wings, becoming a pilot in the air force in China. Pat Ryan, his buddy and mentor, was phased offstage to join the Navy, replaced by another father figure, Colonel Flip Corkin. With the change Terry Lee finally became the sole lead in the strip bearing his name, but the "Pirates," like Pat Ryan, also disappeared.

 

Caniff stepped up the wartime action, with Terry occasionally joining forces with his old nemesis, the Dragon Lady ("tough as a hash-heavy top sergeant"), as well as a new friend in the strip, the very hip, wise-cracking Hot-Shot Charlie.

 

Terry and the Pirates soared in popularity during the war years, thanks to Caniff's storytelling and his incredible attention to detail (once buying film reels from the Army Signal Corps to check on a detail about aircraft carriers). Voluntary informants, readers from around the world, aided the artist. Men and women in the armed services provided invaluable information on anything thing from logistics to military uniforms. Caniff returned the favor by designing countless logos and insignias, designing a large number of instruction manuals and posters, and winning numerous citations from the Navy, War, and Treasury Departments.

 

If Terry and the Pirates helped the war effort by informing and entertaining the civilians, Caniff's Male Call did wonders for the guys in uniform. The strip, which ran uncensored in service newspapers, was heavy on cheesecake and featured the voluptuous Miss Lace, a kind of volunteer Morale Officer, who did her best to cheer up the men, usually by dressing in very low-cut outfits.

 

The strip's popularity peaked during the war years. During that time Terry had been adapted to radio and comics, and in 1940 James W. Horne directed a movie serial version (in the 1950s there was also a Terry TV series). After the war ended Caniff ran into contractual problems with his syndicate and went over to King Features, with a hefty salary increase and the added bonus of owning whatever strip he created. On December 29, 1946, the last of Milton Caniff's Terry and the Pirates appeared. George Wundar inherited the strip, which would continue on (in some years inked by E.C. artist George Evans) for another 25 years, finally folding in 1973. In 1995 Tribune Media Services resurrected Terry, which was written by Michael Uslan and illustrated by Greg and Tim Hildebrandt, later replaced by comics veteran

Dan Spiegle.

 

Steve Canyon, Caniff's new strip, debuted on January 7, 1946, opening simultaneously in 125 papers throughout the country, a unique distinction for a new strip, but understandable given Caniff's reputation. Steve was a compulsive hero ("the kind of guy who doesn'tlike to see people kicked around"). As Caniff described him in a Time magazine interview, Canyon was intended to be a "sort of modern Kit Carson, the strong silent Gary Cooper plainsman type. He'llhave lots of gals, one at every port."

 

Canyon was to be, in Caniff's words, "a picaresque novel," like Cervantes' Don Quixote; a traveler moving from one adventure to the next, accompanied by a friend the hero can talk to (and talk to the reader). In this case, Sancho Panza turned out to be a scrappy oldster, Happy Easter. Caniff also decided to bring in another Terry figure, the teenage Reed Kimberly -- after all, if Steve ever settled down to married life, Caniff needn't abandon any boy-meets-girl plot riffs.

 

Canyon did meet a lot of women. Many of them, like the cold-blooded Copper Calhoun (a nasty version of Daddy Warbucks), Cheetah (a totally amoral bargirl who would steal Reed's heart and then cheerfully step on it), the hapless Summer Olson (hopelessly in love with Steve and always abused by Ms. Calhoun, her employer), and cousin Poteet Canyon (a teenage version of Happy Easter). "Ninety-five percent of the interest in any fiction is what happens to the women, not what happens to the men," Caniff believed.

 

Like many other comic strip adventurers, Steve Canyon went on to become a Cold Warrior with the advent of the nineteen fifties, reentering the air Force after the outbreak of the Korean war. Steve found time between adventures in various Third World hotspots to finally marry Summer Olson in 1970 and after the Vietnam war became entangled in a number of marital problems that eventually resulted in a separation.

 

The Vietnam war also caused a number of problems for the strip itself, as the mood of the many Americans was definitely not in tune with military adventures. And as newspapers around the country began to shrink the panel size of their strips to make room for all-important advertising, Caniff's strip, like most realistic strips, began losing its effectiveness. As the aging Caniff began experiencing health problems, he was forced to drop penciling chores, which were then handled by Dick Rockwell (nephew of illustrator Norman Rockwell) and concentrate on writing and inking it.

 

Although ill heath couldn't keep the artist from the drawing board, he finally succumbed to lung cancer in 1988. Steve Canyon survived him by several weeks, after 41 years of continuity. Caniff's awards, which included two Reubens for his two strips, were numerous but the last Steve Canyon, dated June 4, was a final, wonderful tribute: it was two panels, one drawn by the legendary war cartoonist Bill Mauldin, the other signed by 78 fellow artists of the field he loved. Milton Caniff will be long remembered.

--Steve Stiles

www.stevestiles.com/caniff1.htm

www.stevestiles.com/caniff2.htm

  

Milton Caniff

 

Birth nameMilton Arthur Paul Caniff

BornFebruary 28, 1907

Hillsboro, Ohio

DiedMay 3, 1988 (aged 81)

New York City

NationalityAmerican

Area(s)artist

Notable worksDickie Dare

Terry and the Pirates

Steve Canyon

Awardsfull list

 

Milton Arthur Paul Caniff (February 28, 1907-May 3, 1988) was an American cartoonist famous for the Terry and the Pirates and Steve Canyon comic strips.

 

Early life

 

Caniff was born in Hillsboro, Ohio. He was an Eagle Scout and a recipient of the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award from the Boy Scouts of America. Caniff had done some cartoons for local newspapers as a teenager, while studying at Stivers School for the Arts. Shortly after matriculating at the Ohio State University, from which he graduated in 1930, Caniff began a career in journalism by applying to the Columbus Dispatch. There he worked with the noted cartoonist William "Billy" Ireland until Caniff's position was eliminated.

 

While at Ohio State, Caniff joined the Sigma Chi Fraternity, and later provided illustrations for The Magazine of Sigma Chi and The Norman Shield (the fraternity's pledgeship/reference manual).

  

Cartoonist

 

In 1932, Caniff moved to New York City to accept an artist position in the Features Service of the Associated Press. He did general assignment art for several months, then inherited a panel cartoon called Mister Gilfeather in September 1932 when Al Capp left the feature. Caniff continued Gilfeather until the spring of 1933, when it was retired in favor of a generic comedy in a panel cartoon called The Gay Thirties, which he produced until he left AP in the fall of 1934. In July 1933, Caniff began an adventure fantasy strip, Dickie Dare, influenced by series such as Flash Gordon and Brick Bradford.[1] The eponymous central character was a youth who dreamed himself into adventures with such literary and legendary persons as Robin Hood, Robinson Crusoe and King Arthur. In the spring of 1934, Caniff changed the strip from fantasy to "reality" when Dickie no longer dreamed his adventures but experienced them as he traveled the world with a freelance writer, Dickie's adult mentor, "Dynamite Dan" Flynn.

 

In 1934, Caniff was hired by the New York Daily News to produce a new strip, Terry and the Pirates, the strip which made Caniff famous.[1] Like Dickie Dare, Terry began the strip as a boy who is traveling in China with an adult mentor and freelance writer, Pat Ryan. But over the years the title character aged and by World War II he was old enough to serve in the Army Air Force. During the twelve years that Caniff produced the strip, he introduced many fascinating characters, most of whom were "pirates" of one kind or another--Burma, a blonde with a mysterious possibly criminal past; Chopstick Joe, a Chinese petty criminal; Singh Singh, a warlord in the mountains of China; Judas, a smuggler; Sanjak, a lesbian; and then boon companions such as Hotshot Charlie, Terry's wing man during the War years; Connie and Big Stoop, a Chinese Jeff and Mutt (in stature) who followed Terry and Pat Ryan around the country; and April Kane, a young woman who was Terry's first love. But Caniff's most memorable creation was the Dragon Lady, a pirate queen; she was seemingly ruthless and calculating, but Caniff encouraged his readers to think she had romantic yearnings for Pat Ryan.

 

Lai Choi San, the Dragon Lady, Milton Caniff's most iconic character from Terry And the Pirates (©2006 by Tribune Media Services)

 

During the war, Caniff began a second strip, a special version of Terry and the Pirates without Terry but featuring the blonde bombshell, Burma. Caniff donated all of his work on this strip to the armed forces -- the strip was only available in military newspapers. After complaints from the Miami Herald about the military version of the strip being published by military newspapers in the Herald's circulation territory, the strip was renamed Male Call and given a new star, Miss Lace, a beautiful woman who lived near every military base on the planet and enjoyed the company of enlisted men, but not officers. Her function, Caniff often said, was to remind service men what they were fighting for, and while the situations in the strip brimmed with double entendre, Miss Lace was not, as far as she appeared in the strip, a loose woman, but she "knew the score." Far more so than civilian comic strips which portrayed military characters, Male Call was notable for its honest depiction of what the servicemen were up against: one strip showed Miss Lace dating a soldier on leave who had lost an arm; another strip had her escorting a blinded ex-serviceman. Caniff continued Male Call until seven months after V-J Day, ending it in March 1946.[2]

 

The year 1946 also saw the end of Caniff's association with Terry and the Pirates. While the strip was a major success, it was not owned by its creator but by its distributing syndicate, the Chicago Tribune-New York Daily News, a common practice with syndicated comics at the time. And when Caniff was offered the chance to own his own strip by Marshall Field, publisher of the Chicago Sun, the cartoonist left Terry to produce a strip for Field Enterprises. Caniff produced his last strip of Terry and the Pirates in December 1946 and introduced his new strip Steve Canyon in the Chicago Sun-Times the following month.[1] At the time, Caniff was one of only two or three syndicated cartoonists who owned their creations, and he attracted considerable publicity as a result of this circumstance.

  

Steve Canyon

 

Like his previous strip, Steve Canyon was an action strip with a pilot as its main character. Canyon was originally portrayed as a civilian pilot with his own one-airplane cargo airline, but he re-enlisted in the Air Force during the Korean War and remained in the Air Force for the remainder of the strip's run.

 

Milton Caniff's Steve Canyon, although not gaining the popularity of Terry and the Pirates, nevertheless enjoyed greater longevity.

 

While Steve Canyon never achieved the popularity that Terry and the Pirates had at its height as a World War II military adventure or the cult fame Terry generated over the years, it was a successful comic strip with a greater circulation than Terry ever had. A short-lived Steve Canyon television series was produced in 1958, marking the height of the strip's fame. The title character's dedication to the military (Steve Canyon was often termed the "unofficial spokesman" for the Air Force) produced a negative reaction among readers during the Vietnam War, and the strip dropped in circulation as a result. Caniff nonetheless continued to enjoy enormous regard in the profession and in newspapering, and he produced the strip until his death in 1988. The strip was continued for a couple months after he died, but it soon expired, too, in June 1988.

  

Recognition and awards

 

Caniff was one of the founders of the National Cartoonist Society and served two terms as its President, 1948 and 1949. He also received the Society's first Cartoonist of the Year Award in 1947, nominally for his new comic strip, Steve Canyon, but since the award covered work published in 1946, it embraced Terry and the Pirates as well. Caniff would be named Cartoonist of the Year again, receiving the accompanying trophy, the Reuben, in 1972 for 1971, again for Steve Canyon. He was also named to the Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame in 1988. He received the National Cartoonist Society Elzie Segar Award in 1971, the Award for Story Comic Strip in 1979 for Steve Canyon, the Gold Key Award (the Society's Hall of Fame) in 1981, and NCS has since named the Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award in his honor.

 

Caniff died in New York City.

  

Followers

 

Along with Hal Foster and Alex Raymond, Caniff's style would have a tremendous influence on the artists who drew American comic books in the first half of the 20th century. Evidence of his influence can be clearly seen in the work of comic book artists such as Jack Kirby, Frank Robbins, Lee Elias, Bob Kane, Mike Sekowski, Dick Dillin,John Romita,Sr. and Johnny Craig to name just a mere handful.

www.flickr.com/photos/deconstructing-roy-lichtenstein/395...

 

www.tnr.com/blog/spine?pid=49858

 

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www.flickr.com/photos/deconstructing-roy-lichtenstein/

 

www.boston.com/news/globe/living/articles/2006/10/18/lich...

 

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DECONSTRUCTING ROY LICHTENSTEIN © 2000 David Barsalou

 

MILT CANIFF

The King of the Comic Strips

 

Milton Caniff

From The Early Years To Terry and the Pirates

Milton Caniff, to most comics fans, will always be regarded as the major leading light of the syndicated comic strip. He was a pioneer of a visual style of story telling that's widely imitated but seldom achieved, establishing innovations that would become a yardstick for all that followed in his footsteps. No major comics artists today remain untouched by his influences.

 

Milton Caniff was born on February 28, 1907 in Hillsboro, Ohio. His art career began in a significant way when, as a young boy, he discovered a trunk containing drawings by the early newspaper cartoonist, John T. McCutchen. "This was my first inspiration as an artist in wanting to draw pictures at all, " Caniff would recall. The trunk discovery was significant in another way, in the kind of coincidence that usually only happens in fiction, because years later McCutchen helped to launch the famous Terry and the Pirates!

 

It's likely that Caniff would have become a cartoonist without the trunk. From the very beginning he displayed a talent for art that was amply displayed in school journals and by the eighth grade he had already had a cartoon published in a local paper. By high school he was already freelancing for a newspaper art department, and by the time he reached college Caniff was providing art on the side for the Dayton Journal, the Miami Daily News, and the Columbus Dispatch, while still finding time to attend classes and participate in theatrical productions.

 

After graduating college Caniff found full time work at the Dispatch, spending nights working on a few abortive comic strip attempts. The new job only lasted a short time when the Depression struck, forcing the Dispatch to downsize.

 

Caniff's unemployment only lasted a short while; fortunately the Associated Press of New York had noticed clippings of the young artist's work and offered him a job. The timing was right; Caniff arrived in the Big Apple just in time for 1932's Presidential campaign, and his published portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt appeared in papers all across the country, his first national exposure. While at AP the artist met a fellow worker who would equal his own success as a cartoonist, Al Capp. (Appropriately enough it was on April Fool's Day.) The two men became life-long friends and when Capp left the unfunny strip he had been assigned, Mr. Gilfeather, Caniff inherited the feature, turning it into the more palatable The Gay Thirties.

 

In addition to the single panel feature on life in America, Caniff was given a multi-paneled adventure strip to work on, Dickie Dare. The strip began in July 1933 and featured Dickie's daydreams of fighting along side Robin Hood and his Merry Men, hunting treasure with Long John Silver, and adventuring with Robinson Crusoe. Caniff lasted a year on the strip, which was to continue on until the late fifties, capably handled by Coulton Waugh and his wife, Mabel "Odin" Burvik.

 

Caniff had gotten a better offer from Colonel Patterson of the Chicago Tribune-New York News Syndicate in the fall of 1934. The new job offer came about thanks to another cartoonist who had noticed Caniff's clippings, John McCutchen, the same artist who drew the inspirational cartoons that Caniff had discovered in his mother's trunk!

 

Patterson had been looking for something similar to Dickie Dare, and exotic adventure strip that featured a leading adult and a youthful sidekick. Caniff filled that bill with Terry and the Pirates, which first appeared on October 22, 1934. The continuity opened with the story of Terry Lee, an American boy, his adult pal Pat Ryan, and a clever Chinese servant named Connie, "chief cook and philosopher." The three set out for an abandoned treasure mine but soon find themselves stranded and penniless in a China swarming with brigands, warlords, and hostile Japanese troops.

 

Caniff's early work on the strip was good enough for the times but crude in comparison to what would come later. A big boost in his evolution as an artist came from teaming up with another young comics legend, Noel Sickles, the artist on the AP Scorchy Smith strip.

 

The two men, who had once shared a studio in Ohio, worked in tandem, writing and drawing for each other's strips, in the process developing a novel and time saving method for indicating detail, using a impressionistic brushwork technique known as "chiaroscuro." The technique became Caniff's trademark. As Jules Fieffer once said, "Black is Milton Caniff's primary color."

 

Caniff's mastery of light and dark, his talent for action scenes and camera angles, and his flair for dramatic storytelling all contributed to the popularity of Terry and the Pirates. Another strength of the strip has been its reliance on realism.

 

Caniff realized that potential fan interest must be immediately captured in a strip's first year. "Since a person must read the balloons to get the story," Caniff once said, "I thought I could catch them with vivid color and illustrations rather than straight cartoons. This meant that there'd have to be absolute authenticity."

 

Caniff worked long hours to achieve his goal, consulting with experts in every field. In one sequence involving an amphibious invasion, Caniff dug into thirty-eight books in order to nail down such details as to what military hospitals looked like and whether or not Japanese bombers veered to the right or left when launched from aircraft carriers.

 

Caniff read every book he could find the Orient, becoming more concerned with the problems China faced from the Japanese invaders, predicting in his strip that an inevitable conflict would break out between the U.S. and Hirohito's Imperial forces.

 

Pat and Terry shared the strip with an intriguing cast of supporting characters. To name just a few, there was Captain Judas, Burma, Big Stoop, Chopstick Joe, Dude Hennick, Cherry Blaze, Cue Ball, and one of the greatest of femme fatales, The Dragon Lady, who often played both sides of the fence. Caniff was a master of characterization; readers really got to know and care about many of his cast.

 

This point was amply illustrated in a famous 1941 episode, the death of Raven Sherman. A full week of continuity passed as Raven, wounded by the treacherous Captain Judas, slowly ebbs away on a lonely trail in China until finally, "as it must to every one," she dies. And then, as Caniff says, "The roof fell in!" Caniff was flooded with flower deliveries, mock memorial services, petitions of condolence signed by disparate groups as factory workers and entire colleges, as well as a lot of irate letters. For years afterwards the cartoonist would continue to get black-edged cards on the anniversary of Raven's death. Proving that perhaps, as Caniff put it, "the impacts of both picture and words drives more deeply into human awareness than any anthropologist has yet cared to note."

 

Perhaps so. But Caniff also noted that Raven was killed in October 1941. "If it had happened two months later, nobody would even remember her name today." Milton Caniff, to most comics fans, will always be regarded as the major leading light of the syndicated comic strip. He was a pioneer of a visual style of story telling that's widely imitated but seldom achieved, establishing innovations that would become a yardstick for all that followed in his footsteps. No major comics artists today remain untouched by his influences.

 

Two months after Milton Caniff's famous death-of-Raven sequence, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and the United States' role in the Second World War had begun. Caniff had depicted Japan's aggression in China (as well as Japanese-Nazi collaboration) in Terry and the Pirates years before war broke out. "There was no general realization of impending war between Japan and the United States," said Caniff, "but anyone who could read newspapers could put it together. The Sino-Japanese war just served as a beacon for future sequences. I foresaw a terrific struggle for the Allies."

 

Terry joined in that struggle, having finally grown to young adulthood, and got his wings, becoming a pilot in the air force in China. Pat Ryan, his buddy and mentor, was phased offstage to join the Navy, replaced by another father figure, Colonel Flip Corkin. With the change Terry Lee finally became the sole lead in the strip bearing his name, but the "Pirates," like Pat Ryan, also disappeared.

 

Caniff stepped up the wartime action, with Terry occasionally joining forces with his old nemesis, the Dragon Lady ("tough as a hash-heavy top sergeant"), as well as a new friend in the strip, the very hip, wise-cracking Hot-Shot Charlie.

 

Terry and the Pirates soared in popularity during the war years, thanks to Caniff's storytelling and his incredible attention to detail (once buying film reels from the Army Signal Corps to check on a detail about aircraft carriers). Voluntary informants, readers from around the world, aided the artist. Men and women in the armed services provided invaluable information on anything thing from logistics to military uniforms. Caniff returned the favor by designing countless logos and insignias, designing a large number of instruction manuals and posters, and winning numerous citations from the Navy, War, and Treasury Departments.

 

If Terry and the Pirates helped the war effort by informing and entertaining the civilians, Caniff's Male Call did wonders for the guys in uniform. The strip, which ran uncensored in service newspapers, was heavy on cheesecake and featured the voluptuous Miss Lace, a kind of volunteer Morale Officer, who did her best to cheer up the men, usually by dressing in very low-cut outfits.

 

The strip's popularity peaked during the war years. During that time Terry had been adapted to radio and comics, and in 1940 James W. Horne directed a movie serial version (in the 1950s there was also a Terry TV series). After the war ended Caniff ran into contractual problems with his syndicate and went over to King Features, with a hefty salary increase and the added bonus of owning whatever strip he created. On December 29, 1946, the last of Milton Caniff's Terry and the Pirates appeared. George Wundar inherited the strip, which would continue on (in some years inked by E.C. artist George Evans) for another 25 years, finally folding in 1973. In 1995 Tribune Media Services resurrected Terry, which was written by Michael Uslan and illustrated by Greg and Tim Hildebrandt, later replaced by comics veteran

Dan Spiegle.

 

Steve Canyon, Caniff's new strip, debuted on January 7, 1946, opening simultaneously in 125 papers throughout the country, a unique distinction for a new strip, but understandable given Caniff's reputation. Steve was a compulsive hero ("the kind of guy who doesn'tlike to see people kicked around"). As Caniff described him in a Time magazine interview, Canyon was intended to be a "sort of modern Kit Carson, the strong silent Gary Cooper plainsman type. He'llhave lots of gals, one at every port."

 

Canyon was to be, in Caniff's words, "a picaresque novel," like Cervantes' Don Quixote; a traveler moving from one adventure to the next, accompanied by a friend the hero can talk to (and talk to the reader). In this case, Sancho Panza turned out to be a scrappy oldster, Happy Easter. Caniff also decided to bring in another Terry figure, the teenage Reed Kimberly -- after all, if Steve ever settled down to married life, Caniff needn't abandon any boy-meets-girl plot riffs.

 

Canyon did meet a lot of women. Many of them, like the cold-blooded Copper Calhoun (a nasty version of Daddy Warbucks), Cheetah (a totally amoral bargirl who would steal Reed's heart and then cheerfully step on it), the hapless Summer Olson (hopelessly in love with Steve and always abused by Ms. Calhoun, her employer), and cousin Poteet Canyon (a teenage version of Happy Easter). "Ninety-five percent of the interest in any fiction is what happens to the women, not what happens to the men," Caniff believed.

 

Like many other comic strip adventurers, Steve Canyon went on to become a Cold Warrior with the advent of the nineteen fifties, reentering the air Force after the outbreak of the Korean war. Steve found time between adventures in various Third World hotspots to finally marry Summer Olson in 1970 and after the Vietnam war became entangled in a number of marital problems that eventually resulted in a separation.

 

The Vietnam war also caused a number of problems for the strip itself, as the mood of the many Americans was definitely not in tune with military adventures. And as newspapers around the country began to shrink the panel size of their strips to make room for all-important advertising, Caniff's strip, like most realistic strips, began losing its effectiveness. As the aging Caniff began experiencing health problems, he was forced to drop penciling chores, which were then handled by Dick Rockwell (nephew of illustrator Norman Rockwell) and concentrate on writing and inking it.

 

Although ill heath couldn't keep the artist from the drawing board, he finally succumbed to lung cancer in 1988. Steve Canyon survived him by several weeks, after 41 years of continuity. Caniff's awards, which included two Reubens for his two strips, were numerous but the last Steve Canyon, dated June 4, was a final, wonderful tribute: it was two panels, one drawn by the legendary war cartoonist Bill Mauldin, the other signed by 78 fellow artists of the field he loved. Milton Caniff will be long remembered.

--Steve Stiles

www.stevestiles.com/caniff1.htm

www.stevestiles.com/caniff2.htm

  

Milton Caniff

 

Birth nameMilton Arthur Paul Caniff

BornFebruary 28, 1907

Hillsboro, Ohio

DiedMay 3, 1988 (aged 81)

New York City

NationalityAmerican

Area(s)artist

Notable worksDickie Dare

Terry and the Pirates

Steve Canyon

Awardsfull list

 

Milton Arthur Paul Caniff (February 28, 1907-May 3, 1988) was an American cartoonist famous for the Terry and the Pirates and Steve Canyon comic strips.

 

Early life

 

Caniff was born in Hillsboro, Ohio. He was an Eagle Scout and a recipient of the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award from the Boy Scouts of America. Caniff had done some cartoons for local newspapers as a teenager, while studying at Stivers School for the Arts. Shortly after matriculating at the Ohio State University, from which he graduated in 1930, Caniff began a career in journalism by applying to the Columbus Dispatch. There he worked with the noted cartoonist William "Billy" Ireland until Caniff's position was eliminated.

 

While at Ohio State, Caniff joined the Sigma Chi Fraternity, and later provided illustrations for The Magazine of Sigma Chi and The Norman Shield (the fraternity's pledgeship/reference manual).

  

Cartoonist

 

In 1932, Caniff moved to New York City to accept an artist position in the Features Service of the Associated Press. He did general assignment art for several months, then inherited a panel cartoon called Mister Gilfeather in September 1932 when Al Capp left the feature. Caniff continued Gilfeather until the spring of 1933, when it was retired in favor of a generic comedy in a panel cartoon called The Gay Thirties, which he produced until he left AP in the fall of 1934. In July 1933, Caniff began an adventure fantasy strip, Dickie Dare, influenced by series such as Flash Gordon and Brick Bradford.[1] The eponymous central character was a youth who dreamed himself into adventures with such literary and legendary persons as Robin Hood, Robinson Crusoe and King Arthur. In the spring of 1934, Caniff changed the strip from fantasy to "reality" when Dickie no longer dreamed his adventures but experienced them as he traveled the world with a freelance writer, Dickie's adult mentor, "Dynamite Dan" Flynn.

 

In 1934, Caniff was hired by the New York Daily News to produce a new strip, Terry and the Pirates, the strip which made Caniff famous.[1] Like Dickie Dare, Terry began the strip as a boy who is traveling in China with an adult mentor and freelance writer, Pat Ryan. But over the years the title character aged and by World War II he was old enough to serve in the Army Air Force. During the twelve years that Caniff produced the strip, he introduced many fascinating characters, most of whom were "pirates" of one kind or another--Burma, a blonde with a mysterious possibly criminal past; Chopstick Joe, a Chinese petty criminal; Singh Singh, a warlord in the mountains of China; Judas, a smuggler; Sanjak, a lesbian; and then boon companions such as Hotshot Charlie, Terry's wing man during the War years; Connie and Big Stoop, a Chinese Jeff and Mutt (in stature) who followed Terry and Pat Ryan around the country; and April Kane, a young woman who was Terry's first love. But Caniff's most memorable creation was the Dragon Lady, a pirate queen; she was seemingly ruthless and calculating, but Caniff encouraged his readers to think she had romantic yearnings for Pat Ryan.

 

Lai Choi San, the Dragon Lady, Milton Caniff's most iconic character from Terry And the Pirates (©2006 by Tribune Media Services)

 

During the war, Caniff began a second strip, a special version of Terry and the Pirates without Terry but featuring the blonde bombshell, Burma. Caniff donated all of his work on this strip to the armed forces -- the strip was only available in military newspapers. After complaints from the Miami Herald about the military version of the strip being published by military newspapers in the Herald's circulation territory, the strip was renamed Male Call and given a new star, Miss Lace, a beautiful woman who lived near every military base on the planet and enjoyed the company of enlisted men, but not officers. Her function, Caniff often said, was to remind service men what they were fighting for, and while the situations in the strip brimmed with double entendre, Miss Lace was not, as far as she appeared in the strip, a loose woman, but she "knew the score." Far more so than civilian comic strips which portrayed military characters, Male Call was notable for its honest depiction of what the servicemen were up against: one strip showed Miss Lace dating a soldier on leave who had lost an arm; another strip had her escorting a blinded ex-serviceman. Caniff continued Male Call until seven months after V-J Day, ending it in March 1946.[2]

 

The year 1946 also saw the end of Caniff's association with Terry and the Pirates. While the strip was a major success, it was not owned by its creator but by its distributing syndicate, the Chicago Tribune-New York Daily News, a common practice with syndicated comics at the time. And when Caniff was offered the chance to own his own strip by Marshall Field, publisher of the Chicago Sun, the cartoonist left Terry to produce a strip for Field Enterprises. Caniff produced his last strip of Terry and the Pirates in December 1946 and introduced his new strip Steve Canyon in the Chicago Sun-Times the following month.[1] At the time, Caniff was one of only two or three syndicated cartoonists who owned their creations, and he attracted considerable publicity as a result of this circumstance.

  

Steve Canyon

 

Like his previous strip, Steve Canyon was an action strip with a pilot as its main character. Canyon was originally portrayed as a civilian pilot with his own one-airplane cargo airline, but he re-enlisted in the Air Force during the Korean War and remained in the Air Force for the remainder of the strip's run.

 

Milton Caniff's Steve Canyon, although not gaining the popularity of Terry and the Pirates, nevertheless enjoyed greater longevity.

 

While Steve Canyon never achieved the popularity that Terry and the Pirates had at its height as a World War II military adventure or the cult fame Terry generated over the years, it was a successful comic strip with a greater circulation than Terry ever had. A short-lived Steve Canyon television series was produced in 1958, marking the height of the strip's fame. The title character's dedication to the military (Steve Canyon was often termed the "unofficial spokesman" for the Air Force) produced a negative reaction among readers during the Vietnam War, and the strip dropped in circulation as a result. Caniff nonetheless continued to enjoy enormous regard in the profession and in newspapering, and he produced the strip until his death in 1988. The strip was continued for a couple months after he died, but it soon expired, too, in June 1988.

  

Recognition and awards

 

Caniff was one of the founders of the National Cartoonist Society and served two terms as its President, 1948 and 1949. He also received the Society's first Cartoonist of the Year Award in 1947, nominally for his new comic strip, Steve Canyon, but since the award covered work published in 1946, it embraced Terry and the Pirates as well. Caniff would be named Cartoonist of the Year again, receiving the accompanying trophy, the Reuben, in 1972 for 1971, again for Steve Canyon. He was also named to the Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame in 1988. He received the National Cartoonist Society Elzie Segar Award in 1971, the Award for Story Comic Strip in 1979 for Steve Canyon, the Gold Key Award (the Society's Hall of Fame) in 1981, and NCS has since named the Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award in his honor.

 

Caniff died in New York City.

  

Followers

 

Along with Hal Foster and Alex Raymond, Caniff's style would have a tremendous influence on the artists who drew American comic books in the first half of the 20th century. Evidence of his influence can be clearly seen in the work of comic book artists such as Jack Kirby, Frank Robbins, Lee Elias, Bob Kane, Mike Sekowski, Dick Dillin,John Romita,Sr. and Johnny Craig to name just a mere handful.

www.flickr.com/photos/deconstructing-roy-lichtenstein/395...

 

www.tnr.com/blog/spine?pid=49858

 

davidbarsalou.homestead.com/LICHTENSTEINPROJECT.html

 

www.flickr.com/photos/deconstructing-roy-lichtenstein/

 

www.boston.com/news/globe/living/articles/2006/10/18/lich...

 

mass.live.advance.net/printer/printer.ssf?/base/news-6/11...

 

web.archive.org/web/20030310054018/www.newmassmedia.com/a...

 

DECONSTRUCTING ROY LICHTENSTEIN © 2000 David Barsalou

 

Suspended Animation Classic #64

Originally published March 18, 1990 (#11)

 

Flash Gordon

By Michael Vance

 

“Flash Gordon” was created in 1934 by a renowned artist, Alex Raymond, for the Sunday comics pages of newspapers. In 1951, artist Dan Barry resurrected the discontinued daily comic strip, and was joined in 1952 by writer Harvey Kurtzman. Kurtzman created, edited, and wrote many of the early issues of Mad Magazine.

 

For the first time, their two years of collaborative work on “Flash Gordon” has been reprinted in an oversized volume, filled with adventure, butterfly men, time travel, and striking, well-crafted art. Inside, however, you’ll find plenty of flash but little heat.

 

Considering the wealth of ray guns and blazing rocket ships, this surprising lack of fire in Flash must be partially blamed on a flood of awe and action at the expense of characterization. Every character is stereotyped, and you’ll know nothing more about Flash, Dale, and Dr. Zarkov on the last than you knew on the first page of this collection.

 

If you’re hit in the face, it hurts. But by the time you’ve been struck repeatedly, senses numb. The visual punch of devil men, alien beings, and science fiction gizmos also numbs a reader in this overkill of comic strip ‘special effects’. Wise up, Flash. Less is more.

 

But this trip really flickers because its writer didn’t invest his creative spark. A history of cardboard characters and melodramatic situations has grounded lesser talents than Kurtzman. A strict adherence to past continuity is usually even demanded by newspapers and syndicated. But there are really no excuses for average work that are acceptable to a reader. If Kurtzman was hampered by these considerations or just couldn’t get excited by the strip, he should have moved on. Thankfully, he did.

 

“Flash Gordon” isn’t bad. It isn’t exceptional, either. It is average. And average work from one of comics’ best writers is simply…sad.

 

“Flash Gordon”/$13.95, 136 pages/published by Kitchen Sink/available through comics shops.

 

Presidential Candidate 總統候選人

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TianLiang Maa

 

~ A Taiwanese social reformer, philosopher, photographer and film director

 

“Touching Fairness and Justice”

  

馬天亮

 

~ 臺灣的社會改革者，哲學家，攝影師，和電影導演

 

《感動的公平與正義》

  

TianLiang Maa, alternative spelling: Tianliang Ma, also known as Theophilus Raynsford Mann; Ma, Tianliang; Chinese: 馬天亮; 马天亮.

  

SUMMARY

 

TianLiang Maa is a naturalist, occultist, and Taoist. In 1982, Maa developed a technique for abstract photography, applied “Rayonism” into photographic works. Maa staged 32 individual, extraordinary exhibitions around Taiwan, who was the first exhibitor around Formosa. Maa’s works is the beginning of modernization in the modern abstract arts in the world. At the University of Oxford, Maa’s attractive topic was “A View of Architectural History: Towns through the Ages from Winchester through London Arrived at Oxford in England”; also an author at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Michigan in the United States; an alumnus from Christ Church College at the University of Oxford in England, the University of Glamorgan in Wales, and National Taiwan University in Taipei on Taiwan. Maa’s works have been quoted by the scholars many times, making Maa one of the highly cited technological, artistic, and managing public administrators in the academia. Maa was listed in “Taiwan Who’s Who In Business” © 1984, 1987, 1989 Harvard Management Service.

  

Early Life and Record of Genealogy

 

TianLiang Maa possesses both Taiwanese and German surnames from birth. Usually, whenever anyone asks Maa about where he comes from, he would reply “Formosa” as he grew up and was educated in the Far East and lives in Taiwanese and Japanese lifestyles. Moreover, he often teaches and educates younger generations based on the methods of the Far Eastern teaching he experienced when he was young, though he does not oppose the Western ways of teaching and thinking. Maa takes great pride in his roots, which go back 150 years (since 1864); Maa’s ancestry originates and creates generations, and prepares younger generations to succeed their personality and ethical standards and integrity.

 

Education in Taiwan and a Brief of Latest Generation of History in Taiwan / Formosa

 

In 1980, Maa obtained his postgraduate certificate from the Graduate Institute of Electrical Engineering of National Taiwan University in Taipei; successfully completed another graduate studies in Information dBase III Plus and Taiwanese Traditional Chinese Mandarin Information System at National Sun Yat-Sen University in Kaohsiung in 1989.

 

In history, the Portuguese explorers discovered and called the island (Taiwan), “Formosa” (meaning “Beautiful Island”) in 1590. They are non-Chinese people; it was long a Chinese and Japanese pirate base. Fighting continued, between its original inhabitants of Taiwanese and the Chinese settlers, into the 19th century. In 1894-95 first Sino-Japanese War that ended in Manchus of the Qing (Ching) dynasty defeat, the late Manchu Qing Government forced to cede Formosa to Japan. This result was made by the Treaty of Shomonoseki in 1895 and remained under Japanese control until the end of the Second World War. Early on, Taiwan was conquered by the Qing in 1683 and for the first time became part of older China dynasty. However, today, the home country of Maa’s origin has around 165 institutions (93 universities) of higher education, which now has one of the best-educated populations in Asia. Among the major public (state) ones are the National Taiwan University (NTU) at Taipei, and National Sun Yat-Sen University (NSYSU) at Kaohsiung. NSYSU is also called National Chun-Shan University; according to Times Higher Education 2010-2011, NSYSU ranks as the 3rd university in Taiwan, 21st in Asia, and 163rd worldwide. National Taiwan University is ranked 51 to 60 ranks on Times Higher Education World University Rankings - Top Universities by Reputation 2013, the United Kingdom (see www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/...); King's College London (KCL) (21st in the world and 6th in Europe in the 2010, QS World University Rankings), the University of London, and University of Southern California (is one of the world's leading private research universities, located in the heart of Los Angeles), afterward.

 

Backing to Maa’s early school-time of Taiwan Provincial Kaohsiung Industrial Senior High School (Kaohsiung Municipal Kaohsiung Industrial High school), the professional technical education, which is equivalent to Advanced Level General Certificate of Education, commonly referred to as an A-level in the United Kingdom; China Electronic Engineering College, the distance learning programme, which is in equivalence as UK’s Diploma of Higher Education / Undergraduate Diploma (as an Associate Degree in the United States). An additional, his middle education was taught by the Kaohsiung Municipal Chihjh (Ci Sian) Junior High School; and Kaohsiung Municipal San Min Elementary School was his first school in Taiwan.

  

Early Career

 

In 1989, Maa instituted Maa’s Office of Electrical Engineer, he settled himself in electrical technology and industries as a chief engineer in his early years. He put his professional and precise knowledge to good account in business management. A formal business management with business relationship established to provide for regular services, dealings, and other commercial transactions and deed. He had many customers having a business and credit relationship with his firm then he was a successful engineer.

  

Study Abroad and Immigration into the United Kingdom

 

In 1998, Maa studied abroad when he arrived in Great Britain; he studied at School of Built Environment, the University of Glamorgan (Prifysgol Morgannwg) in Merthyr Tydfil, Pontypridd, Wales for a master of science in real estate appraisal. Until the summer of 2000, Maa completed an academic course on “Towns through the Ages” from Christ Church College at the University of Oxford (is ranked the 2nd place worldwide on The Times Higher Education, World University Rankings 2012-2013

www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/...) in England. Afterward, Maa immigrated into the United Kingdom in the early year of 2004.

  

PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS

 

Maa is a naturalist; he trusts spiritual naturalism and naturalistic spirituality, which teaches that “the unknown” created this wonderful world. “The unknown” arranged the nature with its law so that everything in nature is kept balanced and in order. However, human beings failed to control themselves, deliberately went against the law of nature, and resulted in disasters, which we deserved. He also is an occultist, a Taoist, and a Buddhist; but in Britain, he frequently goes to Christian and Catholic churches, where he makes friends with pastors and fathers as well as churchgoers. In his mind, he recognizes “Belief is truth held in the mind; faith is a fire in the heart”. He is always a freethinker, does not accept traditional, social, and religious teaching, but based on his ideas: a thought or conception that potentially and actually exists in his mind as a product of mental activity - his opinion, conviction, and principle. If people have not come across eastern classics and philosophy, we are afraid that people would never understand TianLiang Maa. People cannot judge an eastern philosopher based on western ways of thinking. He studies I Ching discovering eastern classics of ancient origin consisting of 64 interrelated hexagrams along with commentaries. The hexagrams embody Taoist philosophy by describing all nature and human endeavour in terms of the interaction of yin and yang, and the classics may be consulted as an oracle.

 

Back in the 1990s when Maa just arrived at England, he had been offered places to do Ph.D. and LL.M. degrees (degree in Law and Politics of the European Union) by several western professors in the Great Britain. He has met all the requirements for postgraduate admissions to study at UK’s universities.

 

During his time at Oxford, he learnt a lot of British culture and folk-custom while carrying out research with many British and Western professors, experts, and archaeologists. This proves that Maa understands various aspects in British society, culture, and lifestyles. Of course, he does not fully understand about the perspectives of thinking of a typical British. For example, what would be the most valuable in life for a British person? What would a British want to gain from life? What is the goal in life for a British? Is it fortune or a lover? Alternatively, perhaps honour? On the other hand, maybe being able to travel around the world and see the world?

  

FAIRNESS and JUSTICE

 

As TianLiang Maa’s (馬天亮) saying are:

 

“Touching Fairness and Justice”

 

Feel good about themselves, but do not know the sufferings of the people...

Who can get easy life like them?

What is profile of modern society?

What type and style is truly solemn for this society identify?

Where “the characterization” is? Who can see? Did you see it?

 

《感動的公平與正義》

 

自我感覺良好, 不知民間疾苦...

誰能得到安逸的生活如同他們一樣？

這是個什麼樣子的社會？

這個社會認定什麼樣的類型和風格是真正莊重的?

「特徵」在那裡？誰可以看到？你看到了嗎？

  

Jurisprudence and Political Philosophy and Perspectives

 

Maa ever studied judicial review and governmental action, the impact of law and legal techniques, constitutional mechanisms for the protection of basic rights, and ensuring the integrity of commercial activity, the impact of law and legal techniques on government, policymaking, and administration, as well as the creation of markets. He tries to understand these critical trends in the political development of modern state. Maa will combine both theoretical and empirical approaches, and the conditions for democratic transition and the nature of state development in the ‘post-industrial’ era of globalisation and economic integration.

 

According as Maa’s legal experiences, he comprehend that “the knowledge of the law is like a deep well, out of which each man draught according to the strength of his understanding”, and, law and arbitrary power are in eternal enmity. He is also sure law and institutions are constantly tending to gravitate like clocks; they must be occasionally cleansed, and wound up, and set to true time.

 

The government issues a decree - an authoritative order having the force of law, which charged with putting into effect a country's laws and the administering of its functions. Any of the officials promulgate a law or put into practice relating to the government charged with the execution and administration of the nation's laws then they announce and carry out the creation of any order or new policy that will be responsible for the people.

 

Maa had knowledge in connexion with construction law; he also understands architectural arts, and as well learnt the forms by combining materials and parts include as an integral part concerning modern construct. I ever built urban buildings and rural architecture in different styles under new housing and building projects by the governmental administration and construction corporations.

 

Right now, Maa studies the problems caused by ethnic disputes and human armed conflicts in the modern society resulted code of mixed civil and criminal procedure. He wishes an agreement or a treaty to end human hostilities - the absence of war and other hostilities around the world. The interrelation and arrangement of freedom from quarrels and disagreement become harmonious relations living in peace with each other. Actually, erect peace in more friendly ways of making friendships for modern human society is comfortable in my ideal. It is like building monolithic architecture: houses and buildings for the people. Maa would like to do “something beautiful for `the unknown`”.

 

In the ethnic disagreement and armed conflicts as concerning the poor people and children notwithstanding they live through a bad environment on any of poor or crowded village or town in a particular manner - lived frugally. However, after years of industrialisation as a more educated population, becomes more aware of global plenum, continuing to be alive. Environmental groups are increasing and lobbing government will legislate to stop bad environmental and social practices. The establishments of human rights’ wide and untiring efforts will be alleviated people’s suffering. And as well the poor people shall meet and debate sustainable development and for a concerted government led action towards sustainability is an example that the younger generation are concerned for the future. It shall be making the younger easier for their life and make better on their lives, and help them to build a better future.

 

In present world, Maa really knows the full meanings of “Fundamental Human Rights and Equal Opportunities for the People”. He thinks ethics is the moral code governing the daily conduct of the individual toward those about him / her. It represents those rules or principles by which men and women live and work in a spirit of mutual confidence and service. Without going into the question of how an ethical code was formulated or why anybody should obey it, we can look at the matter in a common-sense fashion with reference to its influence upon our legal affairs. In brief, from the law point of view, a reputable ethical code embodies the qualities of accuracy, dependability, fair play, sound judgement, and service. It is based upon honesty.

 

No person can have an ethical code that concerns him / her alone. Living in society, as he / she must, a person encounters others whose rights must be respected as well as his / her own. An honest regard for the rights of others is an essential element of any decent code of ethics, and one that anyone must observe if anybody intends to follow that code. After all, ethics is not something apart from human beings. Indeed, there is no such thing apart from our actions and us. It is the duty, therefore, of every man and woman in legal affairs to see that his daily associations with others are truly in conformity with the plain meaning of the Ten Commandments: “Thou shalt not barratry, thou shalt not bear false witness, thou shalt not receive illegal fee and the rest”.

 

The knowledge Maa has, in connection with legal affairs, was usually come from his precious experiences of his past over ten year’s law and political careers. In an interval regarded as a distinct period of 1980s, he studied mixed civil and crime, and the code of mixed civil and criminal procedure for the problems caused by ethnic disputes and human armed conflicts in the modern society. He was especially one who maintains the language and customs of the group, and social security in Taiwan.

 

Since 30 July of 1988, Maa settled himself in law as a chief executive and scrivener at Central Legal, Real Estate, and Accounting Services Office; it is in the equivalent to a solicitor of the United Kingdom. The Office provided full legal, accounting, real estate, and commercial services to the public. He did his job as a person legally appointed by another to act as his or her agent in the transaction of business, specifically one qualified and licensed to act for plaintiffs and defendants in legal proceedings and affairs. Over and above Maa was a chairman and executive consultant at Taiwan Credit Information Company®, founded in 1994. The company offered services to the public in response to need and demand in the area of credit information.

 

Maa had excellent experiences in political and law work was pertaining to mixed civil and crime, the code of mixed civil and criminal procedure, construction, and commercial law abroad. The experiences of legal services related to the rights of private individuals and legal proceedings concerning these rights as distinguished. In the criminal proceedings, he did many cases for the defendants. Although an act committed or omitted in violation of a law forbidding or commanding it and for which punishment is imposed upon conviction; but he also laid legal claim, required as useful, just, proper, or necessary to the defendants under the human rights in the meantime. This provision ensures to the defendant a real voice in the subject.

 

The men whose judgement we respect are those who do not allow prejudices, preferences, or personalities to influence their decisions. Profit and self-aggrandisement are likewise ignored in their determination to reach an equitable and fair settlement. What are the basic principles upon which good judgement is founded? A keen intellect, a normal emotionally, a through understanding of human nature, experience of law work, sincerity, and integrity.

  

Developed a Technique for Abstract Photography and Abstractionist

 

In 1982, Maa developed a technique for abstractive photography, which applied “rayonism” to the photographic works. In November of 1984, Maa was 26-year-old, he instructed many professors and students of National Taiwan Normal University in photography of abstract impressionism and rayonnisme in Taipei, Taiwan. The word “rayonnisme” is French for rayonism - a style of abstract painting developed in 1911 in Russia.

  

Photographic Exhibitions

 

TianLiang Maa (Theophilus Raynsford Mann) Photographic Exhibition of “Rayonnisme / Rayonism” Tour - Invitational Exhibition of Taiwan 1983-84.

一九八三〜八四年中華民國臺灣 馬天亮攝影巡迴邀請展

 

TianLiang Maa (Theophilus Raynsford Mann) Photographic Exhibition of Rayonnisme / Rayonism (32 individual exhibitions) 1983~1985.

馬天亮『光影』攝影特展（個人展32場）1983〜1985年.

 

Maa staged 32 individual, extraordinary exhibitions and annual special exhibitions on photography of abstractive image and Rayonnisme around Taiwan / Formosa. Maa was the first exhibitor around the country. All of the invited displays were by the Chinese Government, cultural and artistic organisations, and sponsors. Maa’s earliest exhibition took place in the National Taiwan Arts Education Institute (Museum) on 19 December 1983 when Maa was 25 years old; Maa was the youngest exhibitor in the history of the Institute in any solo exhibitions. The Institute that was opened in March 1957, kept a collection of Maa’s work. It is currently updating the Institute’s internal organisation and strengthening co-operation with leading institutes and museums around the world. Meanwhile, it widened the institute’s scope to increase its emphasis on Taiwan’ regional culture and folk arts.

  

Modernization in the Modern Abstract Arts of Taiwan

 

Maa’s works is the beginning of modernization in the modern abstract arts of Taiwan, China and greater Chinese society in the world. The use of “modernisation” as a concept that is opposed to “Traditional” of “Conservative” ideas began with the approach of the 20th century. It spreads rapidly through academic circles, and was broadly accepted as a means to reform society. Chinese Manchu Qing (Ching) dynasty’s first steps toward modernisation began in the Tung-chih era (1862-1874) with the “Self-Empowerment Movement”. During the late 19th century, as late Manchu dynasty was confronted on all sides by foreign aggression, voices throughout society debated the most effective means to reform and strengthen the country. Some advocated “combining the best of East and West”, while others went so far as to call for “complete Westernisation”. Taiwan was at the centre of these waves of reform. Faced with direct threats against the island by foreign enemies, the Chinese Ching dynasty court took special steps to push Taiwan’s modernisation.

 

In a role just like that of a gardener wanting to create a rich and fertile environment for the seeds of culture, one in which Maa may sprout, grow and bloom. Maa aims to provide an educational stimulus for society by introducing his works - Maa can express the neo-romantic spirit deftly from various creations and supporting international artistic exchanges. Maa believes that the first step in creating such a new and independent state is the real emergence of culture and arts, for which the art and science of designing and erecting buildings, and fine arts (including photography and motion picture) of the civilization is a good measurement of success. For the foreseeable future, Maa should be continuing to forge ahead, working diligently and unceasingly towards its mission of raising China and Formosa / Taiwan’s culture in his spare time.

  

Became an Author and a Scholar

 

In 1980, TianLiang Maa completed his first book - scenario original “The Soul's Sentimentalizing”, also named: “Hun Yun : Jin Qi Tu Rui” 電影原著《魂韻》(衿契吐蕊) then Maa was at the age of 22. In 1983, The General Library of the University of California, Berkeley in the United States of America, collected and kept Maa’s writings - scenario original「魂韻 : 衿契吐蕊」“Hun Yun : jin qi tu rui”, included a musical composition of his own – “Sonate Nr. 1 C-dur op. 3 für Klavier (piano)”, composed on 3rd April 1977 (then Maa was 18 years old). The works were published in 1980; the theme was based on “The Soul's Sentimentalizing”. Another masterpiece was an Album of Academic Work for News Publication “TianLiang Maa (Theophilus Raynsford Mann) Photographic Exhibition of Rayonnisme / Rayonism”, published in 1985. The Hathi Trust Digital Library, the University of Michigan also collected and kept Maa’s writings.

  

Authorship

 

Maa’s articles and writings were published in more than 200 different kinds of domestic and foreign magazines, newspapers, and periodicals, in the period between May of 1972 and 1990s. It was all started when Maa was just 13-year-old. Many of which have been very influential. These have been quoted by Western and Eastern scholars many times in the last few years, making Maa one of the highly cited technological, artistic, and managing public administrators in the world in the late 20th and early 21st century. The Ministry of the Interior in Taiwan had registered Maa’s professional writings and given him two certificates of copyright. The numbers are 33080 and 33081 on 4th July of 1985; and Taiwan’s Gazette of The Presidential Office issue No. 4499, featured his writings on 4th September 1985.

  

Became an Academic and Film Director

 

Today, Maa is a professor at Space Time Life Research Academy, and a photographer, film director, and computer engineer now live and work in London.

  

Director Works:

FILMS:

Experimental Film “New Image for the Spring” © 1982

Documentary Film “Rayonnisme” © 2011

“The Soul's Sentimentalizing” of the feature film is based on the scenario original “The Soul's Sentimentalizing” (preparation)

 

FASHION SHOWS:

New Image for the Spring of Shapely Models International © 1982

High Lights on the Summer and Fall Fashion of Shapely Models Int’l © 1982

 

ART EXHIBITIONS:

The Cadillac Club International Fine Arts Exhibition © 1981

The Cinematic & Photographic Arts Salon and the Hall of the Arts, Pegasus Academy of Arts © 1981

  

Musician Work:

MUSIC COMPOSITION:

Sonate Nr. 1 C-dur op. 3 für Klavier (piano) © 1977, © 1980, © 1981, © 1983, the theme was based on “The Soul's Sentimentalizing”.

  

PHOTOGRAPHIC ALBUMS:

Portrait and Landscape in France © 2000

Portrait and Landscape in Scotland © 2001

Portrait and Landscape in England © 2009

Portrait at Queen Mary, University of London © 2010

Rayonism of London © 2011

Portrait at The University of Nottingham, United Kingdom © 2011

Snowy London © 2012

Portrait at King's College London © 2013

  

BOOKS:

Scenario Original「魂韻」(衿契吐蕊) “Hun yun: jin qi tu rui” © December 1980, © 1981, © 1983 (Date of First Publication: 31 December 1980, Second Edition on 29 July 1981, Date of Revision: Revised Edition on 8 May 1983), Languages: Chinese (traditional), and English language.

“Album of the Cadillac Club International Fine Arts Exhibition” © 1981

“Album of the Cinematic & Photographic Arts Salon and the Hall of the Arts, Pegasus Academy of Arts” © 1981

“Album of New Image for the Spring of Shapely Models International” © 1982

“Album of High Lights on the Summer and Fall Fashion of Shapely Models Int’l” © 1982

“Romantic Carol” © 1982

Album of Academic Work for News Publication: “TianLiang Maa (Theophilus Raynsford Mann) Photographic Exhibitions of Rayonnisme” © May 1985

新聞出版之學術著作專輯「馬天亮『光影』“Rayonism” 攝影展」© May 1985

New version of scenario original “The Soul's Sentimentalizing” (to be published)

「曾經輝煌到頂天立地」(individual biography, to be published)

“My Life, My History, and My Love” (based on a legend, to be published, a film scenario will be developed later)

「感動的公平與正義」“Touching Fairness and Justice” (political science and social studies, to be published)

  

Research Interests:

 

University of Oxford

Research Studies in Archaeology:

Maa’s attractive topic was “A View of Architectural History: Towns through the Ages from Winchester through London Arrived at Oxford in England”.

 

National Taiwan University

Graduate Certificate,

Graduate Institute of Electrical Engineering:

Maa’s monograph of seminar was “Applied the sequence control in the electric power distribution engineering”.

 

University of Glamorgan

M.Sc. Course,

Master of Science in Real Estate Appraisal:

Maa’s thesis - major subject, with relevant construction law was “The Assignment is under Economics of Construction Management in Architecture”.

 

National Sun Yat-Sen University

Postgraduate Certificate,

Postgraduate Studies in Computing:

Maa’s required subject was Information dBase III Plus and Taiwanese Traditional Mandarin Chinese Information System. He combined academic course work and practical laboratory sessions in “Applied Mandarin Phonetic Symbols into Traditional Taiwanese Personal Computer and Its Information System”.

  

Associations:

 

Since 1980, a member of Chinese Taipei Film Archive (CTFA, National Film Archive, Taiwan; founded in 1978), The Motion Picture Foundation, R.O.C. (member of Fédération Internationale des Archives du Film, FIAF; The International Federation of Film Archives was founded in Paris in 1938 by the British Film Institute, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, the Cinémathèque Française and the Reichsfilmarchiv in Berlin.)

 

Commissioner of the cinema, photography, radio, and television committee of The Culture and Arts Association (Chinese Writers and Artists Association) of Taiwan ever since September 1983.

 

Classic member, the membership is equivalent to a doctorate membership of the Chinese Institute of Electrical Engineering since 23 March 1984.

 

On 15 March 1989, Maa promoted and founded the Consortium Juridical Person Mr. TianLiang Maa Social Benefit Foundation 財團法人馬天亮先生社會公益基金會籌備處 (Social Charity 社會慈善事業) in Taiwan.

near.archives.gov.tw/cgi-bin/near2/nph-redirect?rname=tre...

 

Classic member, the membership is equal to a professor or associate professor of The Chinese Institute of Engineers since 30 September 1991.

  

Honours:

 

Listed on ‘Taiwan Who’s Who In Business’, © 1984, © 1987, and © 1989 Harvard Management Service.

中華民國企業名人錄編纂委員會, 哈佛企業管理顧問公司.

 

On 26 August 1985, Maa was awarded a professional certificate of the Outdoor Artistry Activities issued by Education Bureau, Kaohsiung City Government, Taiwan. He acquired awards and certificates of honour about twenty times from National Taiwan Arts Education Center (Museum) on 24 December 1983; Kaohsiung Municipal Social Education Center on 17 March 1984, Kaohsiung Cultural Center, Taipei Cultural Center (Taipei Municipal Social Education Hall); and Taiwan Province Government, Taipei City Government, Kaohsiung City Government, and many cultural centres and art galleries, and so on.

  

Careers:

 

Honorary Professor at Space Time Life Research Academy, 7 June 2012 to present; Professor at Space Time Life Research Academy, 1 September 2011 to 1 June 2012 in London, United Kingdom:

Academia,

Teaching and Research:

business management and consultant, political philosophy, Chinese classics, Chinese humanities, modern Chinese language and literature, photography (portrait, fashion, commercial, digital, architectural, abstract photography), visual arts and film production.

www.facebook.com/stlra/info

教學與研究：

企業管理及顧問、政治哲學、中華經典 (古典漢學、文學、藝術、語言) 、中華人文、中華現代語言與文學、攝影 (人像、時裝、商業、數位/數碼、建築、抽象攝影) ，視覺藝術和影片製作。

 

Consultant and Translator at Eternal Life Consultants of Immigration and Translations Services, 10 March 2004 to present in London, United Kingdom:

consultants of immigration, translations, and legal services.

www.facebook.com/elcits/info

永生移民顧問翻譯服務社的移民諮詢顧問和翻譯：

移民事務，翻譯和法律服務。

 

Computer Hardware & Networking Engineer at Maa Office of Electrical Engineer, 8 March 2004 to present in London, United Kingdom:

Computer Engineering and Network Services. Repairing of Motherboards, Monitors, Power Supplies, CD-ROM Drives; UPS, Hard Disk Drives, H.D.D Data Recovery; BIOS Programming, and all types of Computer Hardware and Software Solutions.

www.facebook.com/maaelec/info

計算機工程和網絡服務。維修主機板，顯示器，電源供應器，光碟機/光盘驱动器，不斷電系統，硬碟/硬盘，硬盤數據恢復，基本輸入輸出系統編程，以及所有類型的電腦/計算機硬體/硬件和軟體/軟件解決方案。

 

Film Director & Photographer at Photographer and Film Director (Shapely), 2 April 2007 to present in London, United Kingdom:

1) Photo, Video and Film Production; 2) Graphic Design, Web Design, Social Networking, Social Media and Advertising; 3) Architectural Design and Interior Design.

www.facebook.com/filmshapely/info

 

Reformer and Philosopher at Taiwanese Social Reformer and Philosopher, 7 April 2012 (location: Los Angeles, California) to present in London, United Kingdom:

Social Reform in Taiwan

www.facebook.com/twreform/info

  

《魂韻》(衿契吐蕊) - 馬天亮22歲寫的電影原著。TianLiang Maa (Theophilus Raynsford Mann) wrote “Hun Yun” (Jin Qi Tu Rui), scenario original “The Soul’s Sentimentalizing” © 1980, 1981, 1983, was at the age of 22.

Website

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Sonate Nr. 1 C-dur op. 3 für Klavier (piano) by Theophilus Raynsford Mann (TianLiang Maa 馬天亮) © 1977, © 1980, © 1981, © 1983. The Sonate composed on 3rd April 1977 then Maa was 18-year-old. The work was published in 1980; the theme was based on “The Soul's Sentimentalizing”.

Website

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photo.roodo.com/photos/mtltwp/albums/small/100477.html

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LINKS:

 

University of California, Berkeley

berkeley.worldcat.org/search?q=Ma%2C+Tianliang&dblist...

berkeley.worldcat.org/title/hun-yun/oclc/813684284?refere...

oskicat.berkeley.edu/record=b11283690~S1

 

University of Michigan

mirlyn.lib.umich.edu/Record/006237256

catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/006237256

 

WorldCat® Identities

www.worldcat.org/search?q=au%3AMa%2C+Tianliang%2C&dbl...

www.worldcat.org/wcidentities/np-ma,%20tianliang$1958

 

Google Books

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scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=3569983911138966023&am...

 

National Bibliographic Information Network (NBINet)

nbinet3.ncl.edu.tw/search~S10?/a%7bu99AC%7d%7bu5929%7d%7b...

192.83.186.170/search*cht/a%E9%A6%AC%E5%A4%A9%E4%BA%AE

 

National Yang Ming University 國立陽明大學

library.ym.edu.tw/search~S7*cht?/tThe+Soul%27s+and+sentim...

 

National Taiwan University of Science and Technology 國立臺灣科技大學

millennium.lib.ntust.edu.tw/record=b1016706~S1

 

Wikimedia Commons 維基共享資源

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國家圖書館 期刊文獻資訊網, 臺灣期刊論文索引

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聲音藝術的審美角度, 大學雜誌, 天然

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為文化中心把脈, 幼獅文藝

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科學家與守財奴, 中國地方自治

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Yahoo, Bing, Google Search

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Atomzone

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lurvely.com www.lurvely.com/photographer/77438197_N03/

 

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Nature - National Library Board Singapore

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画像検索

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Japan Photos and Pictures

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man fashion

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Travel Splash

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Country profile Taiwan

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University of California, Berkeley period

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University of Michigan period

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University of Oxford period

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University of Glamorgan period

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University of Huddersfield period

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art galleries uk

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Mitrasites system

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articles.whmsoft

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German

www.wer-ist.org/person/Jin_Mann

 

www.naif.org.tw/upload/76/20140408_202152.28156.pdf

  

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Presenters: Michael Brodeur-Campbell, Michael Brendel, Jill Jensen, and David Shonnard.

 

Title: Heterologous Expression of Three Trichoderma reesei Cellulases in Kluyveromyces Lactis

 

Abstract:

Transportation accounts for 1/3 of U.S. CO2 emissions and is almost entirely dependent on petroleum-derived liquid fuels. Biofuels from lignocellulosic biomass have the potential to significantly reduce the ecological impact of transportation if technical hurdles to implementation can be overcome. In this research, three cellulose hydrolyzing enzymes from Trichoderma reesei were expressed in the yeast Kluyveromyces lactis. The recombinant proteins were purified and preliminary characterization was performed to determine total protein and enzymatic activity on carboxymethyl cellulose - a cellulose derivative. Continuing work will determine enzymatic activity on a variety of substrates as a baseline for future enzyme improvement studies.

Week 5 Identify the Artist IV Theme “Floozies and their male counterparts”

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec French 1864-1901

Lust on the Promenade (Au promenoir la convoitise), 1889

Gouache on paper board

The original purpose of this painting remains a mystery. The sketchy technique and vibrant color indicate it was most likely a study for a large work. The “promenade” of the title refers to the gallery or arcade in a theater. Toulouse-Lautrec’s characterization of “Lust” as a leering man in formal evening attire suggests the extra-theatrical interests of many patrons of the caberet performances so prevalent in turn-of-the-century Paris. Just as Edgar Degas was linked with the world of the ballet, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec became famous for his prints and paintings of café society. He is best known for his graphic work portraying the female actresses, dancers and singers who performed in popular entertainment venues.

Anonymous loan, 1.2012L

From the placard: Memorial Art Gallery

 

mag.rochester.edu/

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_de_Toulouse-Lautrec

www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/laut/hd_laut.htm

www.toulouse-lautrec-foundation.org/biography.html

  

Monster High is an American fashion doll franchise created by Mattel in July, 2010. The characters are inspired by monster movies, sci-fi horror, thriller fiction, and various creatures therefore distinguishing them from most fashion dolls. They were created by Garrett Sander, with illustrations by Kellee Riley.[2]

The Monster High franchise also includes other consumer products such as stationery, bags, key chains, various toys and video games. There are also Monster High TV specials, a web series, a direct to DVD movie, and software. Lisi Harrison is the author of the Monster High books. The characters are depicted as being either related to or as offspring of famous monsters such as Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster, the Mummy, Medusa, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, the Phantom of the Opera, and zombies and more. The characters are usually referred to as ghouls, rather than girls.

  

The dolls are approximately 27 cm tall. Or about 1 foot tall. Their bodies are made from ABS plastic. Their heads are made from soft PVC. They have various skin tones (blue, green, pink, brown, etc.) Each character has a unique head mold. No Monster High doll has the same shape head. The type of hair the dolls have is saran. The boys hair is either fuzzy or hard colored plastic. Aside from physical attributes, the dolls are quite different in the characterization of their clothes. And they all have their own unique freaky flaw, hair, etc. They might repeat bags and sunglasses. For example, 13 Wishes Howleen has the same bag as the original Clawdeen only that it is a different color. One is gold and another is purple and black. But they are both sisters. Plus, Howleen likes to borrow a lot of Clawdeen's stuff. And Gloom Beach Frankie Stein has the same sunglasses as the Scaris Frankie Stein. One s blue and one is yellow. All of them have various attributes of the monsters they are related to (i.e. fangs, stitches, wolf ears, fins, bandages,snakes, etc.)[3] Although Monster high and Barbie are from the same creator, Mattel, Monster High is starting to become more popular than Barbie.

  

________________________

  

Monster High est une franchise américaine de poupées mannequins lancée par Mattel en juillet 2010 aux États-Unis, tirée d'une série de livres du même nom (de Lisi Harrison). Les personnages sont inspirés de personnes assez monstrueuses issues de la littérature fantastique, de la mythologie, ou encore de films cultes. Les Monster High sont toutes des enfants de monstres (Frankie Stein est la fille de Frankenstein, Draculaura est celle de Dracula, Deuce Gorgon est le fils de Méduse...).

La franchise Monster High se décline sur de très nombreux produits comme des vêtements, des bijoux fantaisie et de la papeterie, mais ses principales ventes se font grâce aux poupées mannequins du même nom. Elle s'accompagne également d'épisodes spéciaux pour la télévision et le marché DVD, et d'une web-série.S

Le concept de Monster High met en scène des adolescents tous descendants de créatures plus ou moins célèbres. Certaines poupées sont relookėes.

  

Les poupées mannequins mesurent une vingtaine de centimètres ; les garçons sont plus grands que les filles, même s'il existe des différences de taille chez certaines poupées (Twyla et Howleen Wolf sont plus petites, Nefera de Nile et Mme. Santête sont plus grandes...). Les corps (qui comptent de nombreuses articulations) sont fabriqués en plastique ABS et les têtes sont en PVC souple. Chaque personnage bénéficie d'un moule différent pour sa tête. Les cheveux sont en saran ou en kanekalon, voire en PVC pour les garçons dont les cheveux sont, pour la plupart des personnages, moulés. Les poupées filles de Monster High peuvent enlever leurs mains et bras mais les garçons ne peuvent enlever que leurs bras. Lagoona Blue, Rochelle Goyle et C.A. Cupid ont des éléments amovibles que les autres poupées n'ont pas (des nageoires pour Lagoona Blue, des ailes pour Rochelle Goyle et C.A. Cupid). Comme les filles ont des chaussures à talons, elles ne peuvent pas bouger leurs pieds, tandis que les garçons ont les pieds articulés.

Chaque personnage est caractérisé par un style vestimentaire et une gamme de couleurs qui se retrouvent dans différentes collections et qui reflètent leur personnalité dans la web-série.

  

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Estilismo: Lidia Aparicio y Saray Leadger

Fotografía: Ashary

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Modelo: Anónimo

 

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Pt nanoparticles on Si ball.

 

Courtesy of María del Mar Abad Ortega

 

Image Details

Instrument used: Titan Family

Magnification: 57000 X

Voltage: 300 kV

Spot: 7

Detector: STEM BF

 

Workers load boxes containing contaminated soil that surrounded Tank-W-1A.

 

The high-priority EM cleanup project involved extensive characterization, removal of contaminated soil and excavation of the 4,000-gallon stainless steel tank.

Starring Buster Crabbe, Jean Rogers, Charles Middleton, Frank Shannon, Beatrice Roberts, Donald Kerr, Richard Alexander, C. Montague Shaw. Directed by Ford Beebe, Robert F. Hill, and Frederick Stephani.Flash, Dale, and Dr. Zarkov return from their former space adventures only to find that their enemy, Ming the Merciless of planet Mongo, has a new weapon: a deadly ray that crosses space to wreak havoc on earth. Earth's only hope is for our heroes to take off again and stop the ray at its source on Mars, where they (and a stowaway) must battle Ming's ally, Queen Azura, who turns her enemies into lumpish clay people. Can they survive 15 chapters of deadly perils? Find out next week...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZ2HUfD0QSw&feature=share&amp...

Universal, 15 Chapters, 1938. Starring Larry “Buster” Crabbe, Jean Rogers, Charles Middleton, Frank Shannon, Beatrice Roberts, Richard Alexander, Donald Kerr, C. Montague Shaw, Wheeler Oakman.

Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars picks up almost exactly where Flash Gordon left off, with our courageous trio of interplanetary adventurers–Flash Gordon (Larry “Buster” Crabbe), Dale Arden (Jean Rogers), and Dr. Zarkov (Frank Shannon)–returning to Earth from the planet Mongo. They are greeted to a royal welcome, since their voyage has saved the Earth from being destroyed by the late Emperor Ming of Mongo. Zarkov, however, attempts to curb the Earthlings’ ebullience by cautioning them that the defeat and death of Ming does not mean that their planet is free from other threats of extraterrestrial invasion. As usual, Zarkov is correct; shortly after his warning speech, the Martian Queen Azura (Beatrice Roberts) begins an operation designed to siphon off the “nitron” (aka nitrogen) in the Earth’s atmosphere. Azura’s primary goal is to create nitron-powered weapons with which to wage a war against her mortal foes, the Clay People of Mars. She’s indifferent to the devastating effect that it will have on the Earth, while her chief adviser and military consultant regards the destruction of Earth as the main attraction of the plan. That adviser is none other than Ming (Charles Middleton), still very much alive and longing for revenge on Flash and Zarkov for toppling him from his throne and driving him into exile on Mars.

As the Earth begins to experience catastrophic floods and storms, due to the effects of Azura’s “Nitron Lamp,” Zarkov, Flash, and Dale launch another interplanetary trip to discover the cause of the catastrophes, which Zarkov has determined are due to a beam that emanates from outer space. They discover an unexpected stowaway aboard after takeoff–reporter “Happy” Hapgood (Donald Kerr), who had set out to track down Zarkov and get his opinion of the world-wide disasters. Not long after arriving on Mars, our quartet of Earth adventurers find themselves embroiled in the war between Azura and the Clay People. The latter are one-time rivals of the Queen, who have been transformed into living clay by Azura’s magical powers and banished to underground caverns from whence they carry on a guerilla war against Azura’s forces. The Clay People’s king enlists the aid of Flash and his party, as both of them want to stop Azura’s nitron-collecting plans, and, with additional aid from Prince Barin (Richard Alexander)–who arrives on Mars to try to convince the Martians to expel Ming–Flash and his party pit themselves against Azura’s magic, Ming’s machinations, Ming’s savage allies the Forest People, and many other hazards, in their quest to save the Earth.

 

Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars is fully as good as the first Flash Gordon serial, although its strengths are in slightly different areas. While Trip to Mars doesn’t measure up to Flash Gordon when it comes to colorful characters and fantastic monsters, its focused plotline surpasses the episodic story of the earlier serial. In Flash Gordon, the protagonists merely responded to the perpetual perils that were hurled at them by Ming, King Vultan, and King Kala, while Ming’s own plans for destroying the Earth were largely abandoned after the first chapter in favor of his attempts to marry Dale and destroy Flash. In Trip to Mars, Flash, Dale, and Zarkov initiate events instead of just coping with them, and Ming’s new grand design drives the plot far more strongly than his earlier one, giving the good guys a clear-cut objective (the destruction of the Nitron Lamp) beyond simple escape from Mongo.

While Trip to Mars has no characters to rival Flash Gordon’s King Vultan and no bizarre beasts like the Orangopoid or the Fire Dragon, it still has excellent other-worldly atmosphere. The sets are not as varied and intricate as in the first serial, but still surpass the backdrops of almost any other chapterplay. Especially striking are Ming’s “powerhouse,” with its laboratory equipment and its disintegration room, Azura’s massive palace with its unique architectural design (particularly the futuristic pocket doors), the Clay People’s eerie caves, and the wonderfully-designed realm of the Forest People, with its twisted trees, climbing vines, hidden tunnels amid tree roots, and treehouse-like observation platforms.

 

In addition to the big sets, there are dozens of other major and minor props and special effects that make Trips to Mars memorably atmospheric; there’s the the Martians’ flying capes, the Martian televiewer screens (which are cleverly incorporated into the recap sequences at the beginning of each chapter), the Clay People’s vapor-healing chamber, and the bridge of light that connects Azura’s rocket tower to the rest of her palace and is powered by a simple switch like any Earthling lamp (the scene where Flash and Zarkov are first forced to cross the unsafe-looking thing is quite funny), to name but a few. I also appreciate the fact that Azura’s spaceship squadrons–her “stratosleds”–are designed differently than any of the ships in the first Flash Gordon serial; one would expect the aerial fleets of differing planets to differ in appearance. Another neat touch of internal consistency is the use of three completely different forms of salute by the three principal Martian races–Queen Azura’s subjects, the Clay People, and the Forest People.

The serial’s screenplay maintains good continuity with the previous Flash outing, despite being the work of a completely different team of writers–Ray Trampe, Norman S. Hall, Wyndham Gittens, and Herbert Dalmas. The new writing team avoids any of the clunky lines that occasionally crept into Flash Gordon’s dialogue exchanges; they also, despite having to resort to a few flashbacks to the first serial for padding purposes, manage to make their plot fit its fifteen-chapter length quite nicely. The major plot thread of the heroes’ attempts to destroy Ming and Azura’s Nitron Lamp is skillfully interwoven with several subplots–the Clay People’s efforts to regain their natural shape, the attempts by both Flash and Ming to get hold of the Black Sapphire of Kalu (a talisman that can neutralize Azura’s magic), and Ming’s plot to undermine Azura and seize the Martian throne.

Trip to Mars’ script wisely spreads its plot developments over the course of the serial, instead of introducing all its ideas in the first chapter and letting them tread water until the final one: the Clay People aren’t introduced till the second chapter or the Forest People until the sixth, while Prince Barin first arrives in Chapter Seven. The Nitron Lamp is destroyed in Chapter Nine and rebuilt over the course of the following chapters until it must be destroyed again at the climax, and one of the principal villains is killed off in Chapter Thirteen.

The cliffhangers aren’t quite as varied as in the first Flash serial, due to the lack of the various monsters that frequently attacked Flash for chapter-ending purposes in the earlier outing. However, writers still manage to avoid excessive repetition; for instance, while there are three chapter endings involving stratosled crashes, each one is set up differently–the first has Flash crashing a stratosled into another stratosled to stop it from bombing Dale and Happy, the second has a stratosled crashing on top of Flash and Zarkov, and the third has Flash and the pilots of a ’sled grapping for the controls as it soars towards yet another crash. There’s also an excellent cliffhanger in which Flash, Dale, Happy, and Zarkov are surrounded by an ever-narrowing ring of fire in the Forest People’s kingdom, and a memorably unusual one that has a hypnotized Dale stabbing an unsuspecting Flash in the back.

 

Though Trip to Mars has no swordfights or wrestling matches corresponding to those in Flash Gordon, it still features a nice variety of action scenes–including stratosled dogfights, fights among the vines and treetops of the Forest Kingdom, and chases through Azura’s big palace; the palace sequence in Chapter Five, which has the nimble Flash vaulting through windows to avoid the guards, is a particular standout. Directors Ford Beebe (a Universal serial veteran) and Robert Hill (a talented director who rarely escaped from low-budget independent serials and B-films) do a fine job of orchestrating these action scenes, assisted by stuntmen Eddie Parker (doubling Buster Crabbe), George DeNormand, Tom Steele, Bud Wolfe, and Jerry Frank. All of the aforementioned stuntmen, except Parker, also pop up in minor acting roles.

The performances in Trip to Mars are all first-rate; the returning actors from the first serial are all just as good as they were in Flash Gordon, while the new major players fit in smoothly. Buster Crabbe’s Flash is just as tough, chipper, athletic, and likable as in the first serial–and a good deal more wise and resourceful than before, improvising strategy and coming up with plans in tough situations instead of just trying to batter his way out. Frank Shannon’s Zarkov, as consequence of Flash’s new-found intelligence, has a reduced part, not guiding the good guys’ actions as he did in the first serial; he still functions as the scientific brains of the group, though, and is still as intense, serious, and sincere as before.

Jean Rogers, with her long blonde hair bobbed and dyed brown to better match the comic-strip version of Dale Arden (she’s also dressed in less arresting fashion), isn’t as stunning as in Flash Gordon, but is still a warm, welcome, and lovely presence. Her part here is smaller than in the first serial, though, since Ming is not romantically interested in her this time out (Ming, though no gentleman, evidently prefers blondes). Richard Alexander’s Prince Barin is a lot more self-assured when it comes to delivering dialogue this time around (helped, no doubt, by the absence of any overly high-flown lines), while his convincingly royal bearing and his commanding size are as effective as before.

Charles Middleton’s Ming is even more entertainingly sinister here than he was in Flash Gordon, getting a good deal more screen time and given a more devilish appearance by a notably forked beard. Though still given opportunities to break into tyrannical and bloodthirsty rages (particularly in his insane rant in the final chapter), Middleton spends much of the serial displaying duplicity and sly subtlety instead, since his Ming must pretend to friendship with Azura even while plotting against her. Middleton carries off this slightly more multi-faceted version of Ming masterfully, winning a few laughs with his crafty cynicism while remaining thoroughly sinister and hateful.

 

Beatrice Roberts does a fine job as Queen Azura, eschewing the sneering, aggressive demeanor of other serial villainesses for a regal, dignified manner (with a wryly humorous undercurrent) that contrasts interestingly with her often cruel behavior. Her Azura comes off as selfish and ruthless, but not an abusive tyrant like Ming. Donald Kerr as reporter Happy Hapgood, the other principal new character, is as controversial among fans as most other serial comedy-relief characters are. Speaking for myself, though, I found him quite likable and entertaining; he provides an amusingly commonplace point-of-view towards the fantastic world of Mars and is never obtrusive, gratingly stupid, or obnoxious. Additionally, his character is allowed to be quite heroic and helpful when the chips are down, a far cry from one-dimensional cowardly “comic” pests like Sonny Ray in Perils of Pauline or Lee Ford in SOS Coast Guard.

Wheeler Oakman is very good as Tarnak, Ming’s wily lab assistant and co-conspirator against Azura. C. Montague Shaw, concealed under heavy makeup for most of the serial, conveys an impressive air of ruined dignity as the King of the Clay People and manages to seem both sinister and sympathetic at different times. Usual hero Kane Richmond brings appropriate depth of characterization to his key role as a Martian pilot, who proves instrumental in helping Flash overthrow Ming in the later chapters. Anthony Warde has a small part as Toran, king of the Forest People, but extracts as much snarling nastiness as possible from the role. Future director Thomas Carr is his second-in-command, Kenne Duncan is the officer in charge of Azura’s airdrome, Lane Chandler and Jack Mulhall both appear as pilots of her Death Squadron, and Warner Richmond has a small role as one of Ming’s palace cohorts.

 

Hooper Atchley and James Blaine pop up as self-important Earth scientists, propounding ingenious and inaccurate theories as to the causes of the damage brought about by the Nitron Lamp, while Edwin Stanley is the general presiding over a council comprised of these two and additional savants. Louis Merrill (a radio actor who played character roles in several feature films) has a brief but memorable turn as the blunt and slightly uncouth Dr. Metz, who alone among the scientists has the humility to admit that Zarkov is the only one capable of unravelling the riddle of the disasters. Merrill’s characterization is so vivid that one wishes the actor had taken a larger part in this chapterplay or in other serials.

Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars is a nearly ideal sequel, in that it manages to preserve the basic strengths of its predecessor while deviating from it in some areas and improving on it in others. It’s also a nearly ideal serial, independent of its relation to the earlier Flash Gordon; it balances good acting, atmosphere, action, and plotting in such fine style that it would still be a notable achievement if it were the sole entry in the Flash Gordon series.

   

The DOE Office of Environmental Management Recovery Act Deputy Director Thomas Johnson spoke during the opening ceremony for the new Environmental Protection Agency Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL) Field Office in Canoga Park, Calif. The DOE provided $38 million in Recovery Act funds to the EPA to conduct a radiological characterization study of portions of SSFL where the Atomic Energy Commission conducted research.

Suspended Animation Classic #827 First published October 31, 2004 (#42) (Dates are approximate)

Femforce

By Mark Allen

 

Femforce #126/$6.95 and 38 pages from AC Comics/various writers and artists/available at comics shops.

 

Femforce is a great big delicious bag of eye candy for men. It is chockfull of beautiful women in skimpy uniforms who fight with fists and/or superhuman powers against bad people in uniforms.

 

Don’t get me wrong, Buckwheat. There is nothing wrong with eye candy. One can’t eat steak at every meal.

 

Femforce is not a great big bag of philosophy, religion, politics, societal issues, or even characterization. Femforce is about beautiful women and adventure.

 

Many of the characters and stories will remind you of superheroes from the ‘30s, ‘40s, and ‘50s. The likeness is intentional.

 

If those things are your ‘bag’ ( now obscure ‘60s term meaning ‘something you like’) and you prefer plot and pretty over profundity, this action-packed issue offers the antics of Femforce ( a team of superwomen), She-Cat, and Colt.

 

The art on each is better-than-average super-heroine fare with lots of hitting and jumping around and close-ups of female body parts (‘the kind men like’) that titillate but never cross the line into lurid.

 

My favorite artist of the bunch is Don Secrease.

 

The writing is more than serviceable with the self-conscious dialog that characterized comic books in their infancy. But you won’t know the names of half the characters or much about their histories, which makes it difficult for new readers to join the fun.

 

This is an editorial oversight that could be easily remedied by publishing a summary of these things at the beginning of each issue or each story, and with more careful writing.

 

But why bother since Femforce is eye candy?

 

Well, bucko if you ever want to do more than just ogle a beautiful woman, you will eventually need to know something about her. Women are like that.

 

Femforce is recommended for simple, straightforward entertainment and for fans of comics from the ‘40s and ‘50s.

 

This abridgement of Universal's 12-episode serial Buck Rogers stars Buster Crabbe as Dick Calkins' famed comic-strip space adventurer. Buck and Buddy (Jackie Moran) and are recruited to battle against modernistic gangster Killer Kane (Anthony Warde), by Wilma Deering (Constance Moore) and Dr. Huer (C. Montague Shaw). The duo travels to Saturn to get help in their mission, and after Buck and Buddy quell the internal struggles of the Saturnians, Buck triumphs over Killer Kane and his cosmic thugs.

Planet Outlaws Feature link: youtu.be/UD3xKy42KUY

 

Link to all 12 Serial Episodes:

 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTtc-u3zFGk&feature=share&amp...

 

Starring Buster Crabbe, Constance Moore, Jackie Moran, Jack Mulhall, Anthony Warde, C. Montague Shaw, Guy Usher, William Gould, Philson Ahn. Directed by Ford Beebe, Saul A. Goodkind.

Buck Rogers and Buddy Wade are in the middle of a trans-polar dirigible flight when they are caught in a blizzard and crash. Buddy then releases a special gas to keep them in suspended animation until a rescue party can arrive. However, an avalanche covers the craft and the two are in suspended animation for 500 years. When they are found, they awake to find out that the world has been taken over by the outlaw army of Killer Kane. Along with Lieutenant Wilma Deering, Buck and Buddy join in the fight to overthrow Kane and with the help of Prince Tallen of Saturn and his forces, they eventually do and Earth is free of Kane's grip.

 

This is actually a pretty enjoyable serial, but it seems doomed to be forever overshadowed by the much superior Flash Gordon trilogy. Universal brought BUCK ROGERS out in 1939, in between their own chapterplays FLASH GORDON'S TRIP TO MARS and FLASH GORDON CONQUERS THE UNIVERSE; it also starred Buster Crabbe (but with his natural dark hair instead of Flash's golden curls) and although it is filled with space ships and weird gadgets, BUCK ROGERS lacks most of the elements that gave the Flash serials their intense emotional draw.

 

For one thing, there is none of the strong sexual charge that the Flash series had. Instead of nubile Dale Arden and sultry Princess Aura both competing for the hero's attention while the villain openly lusted for the heroine, Buck's epic featured Constance Moore as Col. Wilma Deering. Now, Moore is perfectly fine in her role, but she is after all a soldier in the resistance army and not a fair damsel in distress. She has a nice moment when she wrests a ray gun away from a guard and blasts her way out of her cell, but she and Buck seem to be merely chums on the same side.

 

Also, although BUCK ROGERS has plenty of futuristic gadgets (rayguns and buzzing spaceships which shoot sparks from their backs, teleportation tubes and invisibility rays), there are no grotesque monsters or nonhuman alien races on view. Prisoners have remarkably goofy metal helmets strapped on which turn them into docile zombies, and there are these homely goons called Zuggs moping around, but that's hardly as fascinating as Lion Men and Clay People and horned apes (that Orangapoid critter).

 

What's ironic about all this is that the comic strip BUCK ROGERS by Philip Nolan and Richard Calkins started in 1929, was immensely popular for many years and it success inspired the creation of Flash. Yet the Flash strip benefitted from the genius of Alex Raymond, one of the all-time great cartoon artists, and it produced stunning visual images (from the samples of Buck's strip I've seen, it was imaginative enough but pretty crude and drab). This contrast carried over to the serials.

 

Buck Rogers and his sidekick Buddy Wade (Jackie Moran) are pilots who crash in the Arctic in1938 and survive for 500 years because the 'Nirvano' gas they were carrying put them in a state of suspended animation. They both seem to adapt to waking up in the year 2424 pretty well, where I would think most people would be so traumatized it would take a while to adjust. In this dystopic future, the Earth is ruled by a mega-gangster called Killer Kane (another setback; Anthony Warde would be okay as a crimelord but he just doesn't have the imposing presence to convince me this guy can dominate an entire planet).

 

Luckily, Buck and Buddy have been found by the small resistance movement hopelessly trying to overthrow Kane from their hidden city. Here is Dr Huer (C. Montague Shaw, who I just saw in the UNDERSEA KINGDOM doing the same gig with his wild inventions) and Wilma Deering leading the good fight. For some reason I missed, everyone immediately puts all their trust in Buck and he pretty much takes over. (Maybe he's just one of those charismatic alpha males or something.) Most of the serial involves desperate trips back and forth to Saturn to enlist the aid of the isolationist Saturnians, and this means running the blockade of Kane's ships. The usual fistfights and explosions and captures and escapes normal for this sort of situation ensue. It's a lot of fun if you take it on its own terms, with a strong linear plot and likeable heroes, but it really never kicks into high gear and seems a bit drab.

 

It's interesting that some (but not all) of the Saturnians are played by Asian actors. Prince Tallen, who gets caught up in most of the fun, was portrayed by a very young Philson Ahn, and I thought for years this was the same guy who in 1972 impressed us as the head of the Shaolin Temple in TV's KUNG FU (he taught all the styles, really amazing if you think about it). Turns out that was Phiip Ahn, Philson's brother.

 

Dir: Ford Beebe and Saul A. Goodkind - 12 Chapters

 

BUCK ROGERS (1939): Director Ford Beebe, who also worked on Flash Gordon (1938), came straight from The Phantom Creeps (1939) and then went back to finish Flash Gordon Conquers The Universe (1940). Buck Rogers stars Buster Crabbe or, as his family knew him, Lawrence. Now, Lawrence ‘Larry’ ‘Buster’ Crabbe had previously starred in two Flash Gordon serials, a couple of Tarzan movies and a long string of westerns, so it was only natural for Universal to decide he was perfect as the heroic Buck Rogers, aka that blonde guy who saves the universe but isn’t Flash Gordon. Actually, Buster Crabbe wasn’t the first actor to play Buck Rogers in-the-flesh, so to speak.

That honour goes to an unknown man who played Buck in a Virginia department store, instead of their regular Santa Claus. Santa was off conquering Martians at the time, I think it was an exchange program of sorts. It strikes me that Buck Rogers is not unlike a male fantasy come to life. Just think of it – Buck gets to take a nice five-hundred-year-long sleep-in. With my busy schedule, I’m ecstatic if I can get twenty minutes nap on the weekend. Then, when he wakes up, Buck is the smartest, most dynamic guy around. In reality he’d be treated like something that’s escaped from the zoo. And finally, everyone needs Buck to go on exciting missions, fight the bad guys, test exotic equipment and crash rocket ships – out of the half-dozen flights Buck makes, he only lands successfully once. It’s easy to see the bullet cars used in the movie are the same ones from Flash Gordon’s Trip To Mars (1938), and even the script is rather suspect.

Planet Outlaws

This film is actually a compilation of the Buck Rogers serials that ran originally in 1939. The cliffhanger endings and recap beginnings have been edited out to make it flow better -- with partial success. Some new footage was shot for the introduction and summary. At the opening, there are some newspaper headlines about jets chasing flying discs, and the obligatory checkered V2 launch, etc. to add a modern segue. After that, it's pure 1939.

Sci-fi movie technology had come a long way in the 14 years since Buck's debut. Audiences had grown accustomed to sleek and pointy rockets, flying saucers, strange aliens, etc. The Buck Rogers style world-of-the-future must have looked oddly quaint. (if not laughable) Just why Universal Pictures thought re-releasing Buck Rogers was a good idea is a bit of a mystery. Kids who were 8 or so back in 1939 would be young adults in '53. Perhaps Universal was banking on those young adults would buy tickets for a trip down memory lane.

Plot Synopsis

After a bit of modern ('53) footage about the wonders of modern progress and "flying disks," the old serial begins. Rogers and Buddy crashed in the arctic while on a transpolar flight. They were in suspended animation due to the cold and a vague gas. A patrol finds them in the year 2500 and revives them. In the world of 2500, a despot named Killer Kane is trying to take over the world. The forces of good are holed up in the "hidden city." Buck arranges a decoy maneuver to elude Kane's patrol ships. They fly to the planet Saturn in hopes of finding help. On Saturn, the Council sees Rogers and party as the rebels, and Kane as the rule of law. Rogers et al, escape Saturn, return to earth and seek to disrupt Kane's bamboozling of Prince Tallen, the Saturnian representative. Rogers sneaks into Kane's city, interrupts the treaty signing and convinces Tallen of Kane's evil by revealing Kane's "robot battalion" (slaves wearing mind-control helmets). Rogers and Tallen get to Saturn and the treaty is signed. Rogers escapes Kane's patrols via the Dissolvo Ray which rendered them invisible. Rogers and the war council plan for war. Rogers enlists the Saturnians to help. Meanwhile, Rogers sneaks into Kane's city and de-zombies Minister Krenco to lead an uprising of freed robot-slave-prisoners. Rogers storms Kane's palace and puts one of the robo-slave helmets on Kane. The End

The industrial vision of the future is delightful to watch. The heavily mechanical look of everything is so radically different from the sleek rockets and glowing acrylic audiences were growing accustomed to. The space ships look like they were built at locomotive factories or steamship yards. They spew roman-candle sparks and smoke and buzz as they fly. There are no computers, no radar or electronics. It's a fascinating snapshot of what pre-electronic-age people thought the future would be like.

When originally released in 1939, the Killer Kane character was a thinly disguised allusion to Hitler. In 1953, Kane was intended to represent a communist despot. It wasn't as tidy a fit. The narrator sums it up voicing a hope that scientists will develop the means for men to stand up to today's dictators and make the world safe for democracy. In the early 50s, there's little question of who they meant.

Simple Colors -- One endearing trait of Buck Rogers is the simplicity of the characterizations. The good guys do nothing but good. The bad guys are pure bad. The good guys are crack pilots and sharp shooters and tough as nails. The bad guys do nothing but bad, have trouble hitting a flying barn and are easily knocked out with one punch.

Industrial Baroque -- Somewhat like the baroque era's compulsion to decorate every square inch with swirls and filigree, Industrial Baroque sought to fill every space with heavy-duty hardware. The sets, and especially the rocket interiors are like flying boiler rooms. Valves, pipes, levers, dials, wheels, large flashing light bulbs. To look more "high tech" in the 30s meant cramming in more industrial hardware. Buck Rogers' ships show more affinity for Captain Nemo "steampunk" than the proto-space-age of the 50s.

Family Resemblance -- There is a noticeable similarity in the sets and costumes of Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers. Even serials of the early 50s, like Captain Video and the various Rocketman serials, look more like Flash and Buck than George Pal. The industrial baroque look and costuming are distinctive, making them almost a sub-genre of their own. In that regard, Buck has a timelessness.

Another take on the story and additional background info.

A round-the-world dirigible flight commanded by US Air Force officer Buck Rogers (Buster Crabbe) encounters dangerously stormy weather above the Himalayas; said weather, along with disastrous panic on the part of Rogers’ crewmen, causes the aircraft to crash. The cowardly crewmen ditch the ship and meet quick ends, but Rogers and young Buddy Wade (Jackie Moran), son of the aircraft’s designer, survive the crash. The pair use a cylinder of “Nirvano” gas to place themselves into suspended animation until a rescue party can reach them, but an avalanche buries the ship and all searches prove fruitless; the dirigible and its two dormant inhabitants remain beneath rocks and snow for five hundred years.

Finally, in the year 2440, a spaceship unearths the wreck, and its pilots restore Buck and Buddy to consciousness. The holdovers from the 20th century soon learn that their rescuers are soldiers from the “Hidden City,” a pocket of resistance to the super-criminal who is ruling the 24th-century Earth–one “Killer” Kane (Anthony Warde). Rogers immediately pledges his support to Air Marshal Kragg (William Gould) and Scientist-General Dr. Huer (C. Montague Shaw), the leaders of the Hidden City exiles, and is soon en route to Saturn, hoping to convince that planet’s rulers to aid the Hidden City in freeing the Earth from Kane’s tyranny. To cement the Saturian alliance, Buck must battle Kane’s legions at every step of the way, with able assistance from Buddy and from Dr. Huer’s trusted aide Lieutenant Wilma Deering (Constance Moore).

 

Ever since its original release, Buck Rogers has stood in the shadow of Universal’s Flash Gordon serials; the studio encouraged such association by casting Flash Gordon star Buster Crabbe as a different sci-fi hero, obviously hoping that the chapterplay would capitalize on the goodwill generated by Flash Gordon and Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars. The serial did succeed in reminding audiences of the Flash outings–but it reminded them of how much they had liked those serials and forced inevitable comparisons that were not in Rogers’ favor. Universal’s plans for a second Buck Rogers serial were quickly scrapped when the first outing failed to please matinee audiences; the intended Buck sequel was then replaced on the studio’s production schedule by–what else?–a third Flash Gordon chapterplay. Even today, Buck is typically dismissed by fans as a pale echo of the great Gordon serials.

It’s easy to see why Buck Rogers came as a disappointment to audiences expecting an outing in the Flash Gordon tradition. Its production design, while futuristic, is less quirky and more uniform than that of the Gordons; there are no monsters and no weird semi-human races besides the rather uninteresting Zuggs; there are also no supporting characters as developed or as interesting as Dr. Zarkov, Ming, King Vultan, the Clay King, Princess Aura, Prince Barin, and other major figures in the Flash Gordon chapterplays. And yet, taken on its own terms, Buck Rogers is far from a failure; it does not approach the Flash Gordon trilogy in quality, but then few serials do.

Buck Rogers’ script, by former Mascot writers Norman Hall and Ray Trampe, is fast-moving and manages to avoid repetition for most of its length. The trip to Saturn, the attempts to convince Saturnian leader Prince Tallen (Philson Ahn) of the justice of the Hidden City’s cause, the subsequent rescue of Tallen from Kane’s city, the second journey to Saturn to cement the alliance, and the attempts of Kane’s henchman Laska (Henry Brandon) to sabotage it–all these incidents keep the narrative flowing very nicely for the serial’s first eight chapters. As in many of Trampe and Hall’s Mascot scripts, however, the writers seem to run out of plot before the serial’s end. While Chapters Nine and Ten remain interesting (with Buck being converted into a hypnotized robot, Buddy’s rescue of the hero, and an infiltration of the Hidden City by one of Kane’s men), the last two chapters have a definite wheel-spinning feel to them, throwing in a redundant third trip to Saturn and an unneeded flashback sequence.

The last-chapter climax is also something of a disappointment, with Kane being overthrown quickly and undramatically instead of being definitively crushed. Here, Trampe and Hall seem to have been leaving room for the sequel that never came and trying to avoid duplicating the dramatic but very final destruction of MIng which closed the first Flash Gordon serial (and which needed to be explained away in the second). The other weak spot of the scripting is Buck and Buddy’s rather calm reaction when they realize that their old world (and everyone in it) is dead–and their extraordinarily quick adjustment to their new one. One wouldn’t have wanted the writers to dwell on our heroes’ plight (which would be absolutely crushing in real life), but I do wish Trampe or Hall could have given Buck and Buddy a few emotional lines about their displacement before getting on to the main action; Hall in his scripts for other serials (Hawk of the Wilderness, Adventures of Red Ryder), showed himself capable of far more dramatic moments.

  

As already mentioned, the serial’s visuals are less varied than those of the Flash Gordon serials, but that’s not to say they aren’t impressive by serial standards. Pains seem to have been taken to avoid duplicating too much of Gordon’s “look;” the spaceship miniatures are completely different than the ships in the Gordon trilogy, while Kane’s stronghold–probably the best miniature in the serial–is not the quasi-Gothic palace of Ming but rather an ominous, futuristic-looking version of New York City, complete with towering skyscrapers. The Hidden City’s great rock gates are also nifty, and the massive Saturnian Forum (a life-size set, not a miniature) is very visually impressive. The barren Red Rock Canyon area works well as the Saturnian landscape, but I think it was a mistake to also use the Canyon as the area between the Hidden City and Kane’s capital; Saturn and Earth shouldn’t look so similar.

 

The only major prop or set reused from the Gordon serials are the “bullet cars” from Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars; they’re just as fun to watch in action here as in the earlier serial. Other incidental props and sets–Kane’s robot room, his mind-control helmets, the various televiewing devices, the anti-gravity belts, Dr. Huer’s invisibility ray, and the Star-Trek-like molecular transportation chamber–add further colorful touches to the serial., and are respectably represented by Universal’s always above-average array of sets and props. The Zuggs, the “primitive race” ruled by the Saturnians, are somewhat disappointing, however; while suitably grotesque-looking, they’re nowhere near as menacing or memorable–in appearance or demeanor–as their obvious inspiration, the Clay People in Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars.

The serial’s action scenes are brisk and energetic, suffering not at all from a general lack of fistfights–thanks to the swift-moving direction of Ford Beebe (a Mascot veteran like writers Trampe and Hall) and his co-director Saul Goodkind (usually an editor). The few hand-to-hand tussles–most of them on the rocky hills of Saturn–are executed routinely but skillfully by Dave Sharpe, Tom Steele, Eddie Parker, and other stuntmen; the best of the bunch is the fight between Buck and a Kane man in the control room of the Hidden City, although this is more exciting for the suspenseful situation (Buck trying to close the gates that the henchman has opened to Kane’s oncoming armada) than for any particular flair in the staging.

Most of the action sequences consist of protracted chases and pursuits (both on foot and in rocketships), with occasional quick combats thrown in. Many of these lengthy chases are very exciting–particularly the long incursion into Kane’s city that occupies most of Chapters Three and Four, a great combination of action and suspense. Buddy’s later stealthy visit into Kane’s fortress to rescue Buck from the robot room, and the following escape, is also good, as are Buck’s skillful and repeated elusions of the rebellious Zuggs in Chapter Eight and the bullet car getaway in Chapter Six.

  

The cliffhanger endings are generally well-staged, with proper build-ups, but too many of them involve spaceship crashes that our heroes rather implausibly live through. The impressive collapsing forum at the end of Chapter Eleven and the bullet car crash at the end of Chapter Six provide nice variety amid the spaceship wrecks, but (alas) are also resolved by mere survival. Still, this is preferable to the blatantly cheating resolution of what is otherwise one the best chapter endings–Killer Kane’s pursuit of Buddy in a darkened council chamber and his apparently lethal zapping of the young hero. At least the resolution features a good stunt bit by Dave Sharpe.

The leading performances in Buck Rogers are all excellent (although most other critics would make a single exception; see below). Buster Crabbe, as always, makes a perfect serial hero–both genially cheerful and grimly serious, unassumingly polite and aggressively tough. As in the Flash Gordon trilogy, his down-to-earth attitude also helps to make the wild sci-fi happenings seem perfectly normal.

Jackie Moran (oddly “reduced” to serial acting only a year after playing Huck Finn in David O. Selznick’s big-budget classic Adventures of Tom Sawyer) does a fine job as Buddy Wade, handling his character’s frequent “golly, gee-whiz” lines in a low-key fashion that keeps Buddy from coming off as too naïve; his chipper but calm demeanor complements Crabbe’s well, and he has no problems carrying an entire chapter and part of another on his own.

Constance Moore, despite being saddled with perhaps the most unflattering costume ever worn by a serial leading lady (basically coveralls and a bathing cap), manages to come off as charming. Her Wilma Deering is self-possessed and capable-seeming but never too coldly efficient; she remains warmly likable even when piloting spaceships or explaining technology to Crabbe.

Henry Brandon is very good as Killer Kane’s chief henchman Captain Laska–suave and sly when acting as Kane’s ambassador to Saturn, haughtily arrogant when threatening people, and nervously jittery in the presence of his overbearing leader. Hard-bitten tough guys Wheeler Oakman and Reed Howes, along with the slicker Carleton Young , form Brandon’s backup squad.

As Killer Kane himself, perennial henchman actor Anthony Warde has been almost universally panned by critics as “miscast.” I have to dissent strongly, however; Warde does a fine job in the part and plays Kane with a memorable combination of viciousness and uncontrollable anger. The character is not a diabolical schemer like Ming, but rather a super-gangster who’s blasted and bullied his way to the top–and Warde’s bad-tempered, aggressive, and thuggish screen personality fits the part perfectly. He veers between intimidating ranting and harshly sinister sarcasm–as when he describes himself as a “kindly ruler” just after wrathfully sending a formerly trusted councilor to the robot room–but is quite menacing in both aspects.

Philson Ahn, brother of frequent serial and feature actor Phillip Ahn, does a good job as Prince Tallen of Saturn; he possesses his sibling’s deep and distinctive voice, which serves him well as a planetary dignitary. His manner also has a slightly tougher edge to it than his refined brother’s, which helps to keep the viewer in uncertainty in the earlier chapters as to whether Tallen will turn out to be friend or foe. Guy Usher plays Aldar, the head of Saturn’s ”Council of the Wise,” and does his best to seem suitably imposing and dignified, despite the almost comical way in which the “Wise” continually change their opinions–backing Kane, opposing him, giving into his demands, defying him, etc. Cyril Delevanti is enjoyable as a grumpy subordinate member of the Council.*

C. Montague Shaw has limited screen time, but is very good as Dr. Huer, balancing statesmanlike dignity with shrewdness and a touch of enjoyable scientific eccentricity (the last is particularly noticeable during his demonstration of his invisibility gas in Chapter Five). Energetic Jack Mulhall is typically affable and enthusiastic as Captain Rankin of the Hidden City, while Kenne Duncan has a rare good guy role as Mulhall’s fellow-officer Lieutenant Lacy. Perennial screen “underworld rat” John Harmon also plays against type as a Hidden City soldier, as does Stanley Price as a Hidden City pilot rescued from existence as a human robot. The dignified but stolid William Gould is good enough as Air Marshal Kragg, but I would have preferred a more dynamic actor in the role–Kragg is, after all, the top military leader of Kane’s enemies. Mulhall could have handled it well, as could Wade Boteler–who does an excellent job as the grim and concerned Professor Morgan in the first chapter, intensely instructing Buddy and Buck in the use of the Nirvano gas.

Lane Chandler also appears in the first chapter, as a military officer who demonstrates the Nirvano gas to a reporter played by another old pro, Kenneth Harlan. An unusually subdued Theodore Lorch is one of Kane’s councilors, while Karl Hackett has a good part as another councilor who gets into an argument with Kane that leads to Hackett’s being converted into a human robot (his terrified pleas as he’s dragged out of the council chamber are quite chilling). Al Bridge has some memorably sinister lines (“when this helmet is in place, you’ll never think or speak again”) in his periodic scenes as the slave-master of Kane’s human robots.

Unusually for Universal, several bit roles are filled by stuntmen; Eddie Parker and Tom Steele pop in as various soldiers and officers, but aren’t as noticeable as Dave Sharpe, who’s given multiple speaking roles as a Kane soldier, a Hidden City soldier, a Saturnian officer, and a Saturnian soldier. His ubiquity can get a little distracting at times, particularly since some of his appearances follow right on the previous one’s heels; he also seems to have a bit of trouble with the formal-sounding Saturnian dialogue, coming off as much more stiff and affected than in his co-starring turn in Daredevils of the Red Circle.

The serial’s music score, like most other Universals of the period, is an eclectic but usually effective array of stock music, some of it cues from the Flash Gordon serials but the majority of it culled from Universal’s horror features, including (most notably) Franz Waxman’s score for Bride of Frankenstein, which furnishes some memorable opening-titles music.

All in all, though Buck Rogers has its share of flaws, it also has more than enough virtues (the acting, the fast pace, the interesting sci-fi trappings) to make it a good chapterplay. Despite its similar themes, it shouldn’t be pitted against the Flash Gordon trilogy–a match it’s bound to lose–but rather judged against the field of competition in general. When judged in this fashion, it’s just as entertaining–and often more entertaining–than many serials with less shabby reputations.

 

*One has to wonder, though, why some Saturnians are Orientals like Ahn and others Occidentals like Usher and Delevanti; my own theory is that men from various countries emigrated from Earth to Saturn sometime before the bulk of the serial took place; this would explain the racial assortment and also explain why the Hidden City chooses Saturn in particular as an ally (as usual, I’m probably putting too much thought into this).

 

Frankenstein (Universal, 1931).

 

youtu.be/1qNeGSJaQ9Q It’s Alive !!!

 

Universal Studios made themselves famous for "horror" films in the 1930s. Following the success of their Dracula, starring Bela Lugosi, Universal put out a variation on Mary Shelley's story that would become hugely influential for decades. Universal's Frankenstein. Much has already been written about this film, so this review will not attempt to cover everything. James Whale's Frankenstein was a hybrid -- partly a horror movie, but also partly a sci-fi movie. The goal of FrankenFEST is to explore the science fiction aspects of the many Frankenstein films. Some have more "science". Some are more "horror". Some are just silly.

Synopsis

Henry Frankenstein and his hunchback assistant Fritz dig up a recently buried body and take down a hanged man. Henry still needs an undamaged brain, so Fritz sneaks into a medical college to steal one. He drops the first brain-in-a-jar, so takes the second, labeled "abnormal brain." Henry has his creature assembled on a table and awaits the storm's peak for the jolt to infuse life. Just then, his fiancee, Elizabeth, friend Victor and former teacher, Professor Waldman, come knocking at the door of Henry's spooky tower. Reluctantly, he lets them in. Baited by Victor's accusation that Henry is crazy, Henry shows them his experiment. The storm peaks and the creature moves. "It's Alive!" Waldman stays to help. Victor and Elizabeth express worry to Henry's dad, Baron Frankenstein. Meanwhile, Henry shows off his creature to Waldman. It needs time to mature. However, Fritz taunts it with fire, sending the creature into a rage. It murders Fritz. It beats up Henry before Waldman injects it with anesthetic. Victor, Elizabeth and the Baron arrive and take the sick and battered Henry back to the village. Waldman stays to get rid of the monster. Before he can, the anesthetic wears off. The monster kills Waldman and escapes. In the village, all is festive, music and dancing for the wedding. Elizabeth is troubled with premonitions of doom. The monster comes across a little girl who wants a playmate. She tosses flowers in the lake to watch them float. When she's out of flowers, the monster tosses her in to float. She doesn't. The monster is upset and flees. He goes into the village and sneaks into Elizabeth's bedroom. Before he can do anything, her screams bring everyone running. He escapes unseen. Maria's father brings her dead body into town. The Burgomeister organizes three search parties to find the killer. Henry leads the mountain group. The monster finds Henry alone, knocks him out and carries him away. The mob see this and purse them to a windmill. The monster throws Henry from the upper railing, but he catches on a windmill blade, so doesn't die. The mob burn down the windmill. Henry recovers with Elizabeth's doting. The baron makes a toast to a future "son of Frankenstein." The End

 

The "science" in Whale's Frankenstein is mostly medical or biological. Waldman describes Henry's work as being in "chemical galvanism" and "electro-biology." Henry himself describes the key being "rays" beyond violet in the spectrum. This "Life Ray" is apparently available in electricity. Much of Henry's lab is filled with large things that spark or arc. Electricity is, in this pre-atomic world, the magical stuff that can do wonders. Compare Henry's lab and creation with Rotwang's in Metropolis ('27). The motif of the mad scientist's lab being stocked with sparky things dates back to this era.

Compared to the Novel

The main characters are retained, although the names of Henry and Victor are swapped, for some reason. Universal's screenplay was more of an adaptation of a stage play written by Peggy Webling in 1927. Her successful play had to do something similar to Edison's screenplay, in paring the story down to some basic elements. Whale's film focused more on the hubris of unfettered "science" than on the philosophical elements of creator-creature obligations. The hubris of the "mad" scientist, as a plot trope, would endure many decades into future films.

 

Iconic Monster -- The famous monster was a combination of make-up specialist Jack Pierce (who created the flat-top head and bolts on the neck) and the characterization given by actor Boris Karloff. Their "monster" was too captivating to the public imagination, too iconic to ever really die -- as we shall see -- that he would reappear in many later films. Little children would dress up as the monster for halloween. Parodies and spin-offs would key off the Pierce-Karloff monster.

Much of the look of the film stems from the artistic style of German Expressionism. This style is a whole topic unto itself. The stark light and dark, the use of up-lighting, the asymmetry and odd angles all enhance the feeling of instability. Nothing is soft. Nothing is "quite right." Contrast Henry's tower with the village sets. They're all normal enough, and almost Disney quaint. The normal world vs. HIS world: dark, unstable and "off". The artistic style of German Expressionism would not remain popular beyond WWII, but its visuals in association with the mad scientist's lab would endure far beyond.

Far back into the 1800s, probably not long after Shelley penned her story, people would often confuse the monster and the man. The monster, in both the novel and the 1931 movie, had no name. He was, like the novel, called only, "my creation", "the monster" or "the fiend." It was Henry who carried the family name of Frankenstein. Yet, to the public imagination, such a strong character as the monster simply could not go nameless. He was often referred to as "Frankenstein" as if that were his name. That's not the case, but it has been a common enough mistake that it has stuck. The monster is more famous than the man.The more famous character gets the name. After all, children do not dress up as Henry (or Victor) Frankenstein.

Aside from the many Expressionist visuals, there is one scene which, though brief, is an interesting inclusion of a famous painting. When the monster accosts Elizabeth in her room, just as he sneaks out, and the others burst in, note Elizabeth's position on the bed. This very brief moment is also captured on the poster art.This seems an unmistakeable visual reference to Henry Fuseli's famous 1791 painting: "Nightmare" .Maybe this something that only art history majors might enjoy, but it was an interesting bit for Whale to include.

A curious note, is how much Frankenstein as a story had become intertwined with the classic vampire story: Dracula. For one, Universal released them both in 1931. Beyond proximity, Universal had originally cast Bela Lugosi as the monster, but he declined the part. Lugosi would, however, end up playing the monster in a few later iterations. As well, Webling's play, which served as source material, also followed a successful Dracula production by the same star. The two characters sprang from very different literary roots and told very different cautionary tales, yet, they would become paired in the popular imagination, as if they were somehow brothers.

Universal's 1931 Frankenstein is a movie classic that is not to be missed. It is a well-told and well-paced story, but more importunely, it is foundational to almost all the Frankenstein films to come.

The Wondrous Stag.

Book thesis on the characterization of female and male characters in western & eastern folktales.