Dean Mullaney

This is a sumptuous and well-deserved biography, tribute and partial compendium of Milton Caniff, one of the giants of comic strip history, by all accounts as fine and modest a human being as you would expect from reading his work, and a creator I have long admired. I think his "Terry and the Pirates" is the best adventure comic strip ever produced, and "Steve Canyon" is not far behind, unfairly maligned during the turmoil of the Vietnam War. There is a fair amount of biographical information, but the lion's share of the book is rightly devoted to his artistic and comic strip work, and the author endeavors manfully to portray the essential highlights of a monumental career. My only quibbles are that the chronology seems to jump around here and there, and I would have liked a more representational sampling of the developments of Caniff's two major strips, with special focus on the milestones. But these are minor quibbles; this is a very satisfying look at the life and work of an American icon.… (meer)

Absolutely excellent production. (And one of the cheapest I've bought at new-book price.) I don't think any commercial illustrator or comic strip artist have been given a better remembrance in book form. That is of course of slight importance if you do not admire the work of Noel Sickles, or find the often crude and brutal attitudes of popular culture abhorrent. Sickles was a commercial artist, and made what was demanded by those who paid him, which was, due to his early work as a comic strip artist and official war artist, mainly what the Americans call "action." Regrettably, when he turned to gallery art at the end of his life, the theme was still the killing of enemies. (Why anyone would enjoy having that framed on their wall is beyond me.)
Even if you already knew that Sickles was a marvellous draughtsman, you'll still be astonished at his versatility, and the mass of very well reproduced examples of it in this book.… (meer)