I was interviewed on Columbia Morning with David Lile on radio station KFRU on Tuesday, October 21st about the Miss Mizzou book.
Author Archives: winter
KOPN Radio Interview
I was interviewed on “The (so called) Good Life” on radio station KOPN last Wednesday about the Miss Mizzou book.
Book Available Locally at Mizzou Store and Barnes & Noble
My book “Miss Mizzou: A Life Beyond Comics” is now available locally in two Columbia, Missouri, locations:
The Mizzou Store – 901 E Rollins St. inside the MU Student Center. The Mizzou Store was formally known as the University Bookstore and changed their name in 2013.
Barnes & Noble – 2208 Bernadette Drive inside the Columbia Mall. If you’re outside Columbia, you should be able to order a copy through your local Barnes & Noble store or get it through their online store.
I’m so happy that these locations are able to carry the book. Swing by sometime and snag yourself a copy!
The Duchess of Denver & Miss Mizzou
IMAGE: Steve Canyon Volume 3: 1951-1952, published in 2013. Copyright 2014 the Milton Caniff Estate.
If you look at the cover of the “Steve Canyon Volume 3” put out by the Library of American Comics, you might think that Miss Mizzou is featured on the cover punching Steve Canyon. This is not Miss Mizzou, but another blonde character named the Duchess of Denver.
The Duchess of Denver made her debut in the strip on April 17, 1951. The Duchess had a background in the theatre, but in her appearance she’s part of a scam run by her crooked husband. Steve Canyon and Foo Ling save her from her predicament, but it seems like she wasn’t happy with being saved either. She later apparently drowns at sea at the end of the storyline.
IMAGE: Steve Canyon daily comic strip, April 17, 1951 — Copyright 2014 the Milton Caniff Estate. The introduction of the character the Duchess of Denver. Her name is mentioned on the sequence from the previous day, but she first appears in this strip.
If you look at her as Caniff drew her in the strip, she looks quite similar in some ways to Miss Mizzou; the only major difference is her haircut. This begs the question: Was the look of the Duchess influenced by Marilyn Monroe, just like Miss Mizzou? I kind of doubt it. While Monroe was starting to get some momentum in 1951 (She was named “Miss Cheescake” by the “Stars and Stripes” newspaper later in August.) the major feature that’s against this comparison is Monroe’s hair style. In 1950-1951, Monroe had a hairstyle that was mostly straight compared to the Duchess and her curly hair.
One might be tempted to think that the debut of the Duchess of Denver might have been a play by Caniff similar to the Miss Mizzou roll-out the next year; she’s seemingly named after a specific town after all. Unfortunately I doubt her debut caused many eyebrows to be furled in Colorado. The name “Duchess of Denver” was probably borrowed from the Lord Peter Wimsey mystery novels by Dorothy Sayers from the 1920s and 1930s, so I doubt Denver, Colorado, saw Caniff’s character as anything but a an amusing facsimile. If you read enough of Caniff you begin to see that he often references things from the 1920s and 1930s, just like many artists reference the influences of their younger years.
Featured Reviewer: R.C. Harvey
R.C. Harvey is a cartoonist, critic, and author of many books on cartooning. I first came upon his work through his Rants and Raves column in the now defunct “Comic Buyers Guide,” which is probably where I first heard about Milton Caniff. Yes, R.C. Harvey is probably to blame for my interest in Caniff. You can still subscribe to his ongoing Rants and Raves column on his website.
I asked Harvey to send me an advance review blurb for the book, and he provided a wonderful quote. I had to truncate it slightly for the book, but here’s the whole quote below:
In his Steve Canyon comic strip, Milton Caniff tried hard to create a character as provocative as the Dragon Lady or Burma in his Terry and the Pirates. The closest he came was Miss Mizzou, who shows up only five times, each time wearing a trench coat and, she assures us with a knowing wink, little, or perhaps nothing, else. In this slim and impressively researched volume (the footnotes are as fascinating a read as the main narrative), we find out that Mizzou had an equally tantalizing life beyond the borders of the comic strip, and J.B. Winter never fails to remind us of what she was wearing (or not) beneath the trench coat.
I like that he references the Dragon Lady and Burma in regards to Miss Mizzou. I didn’t mention much of this relationship between Caniff’s past characters in the main text of my book, so this was a perfect compliment to include in the front of the book as a blurb.
Recommended reading:
- Every Caniff fan should own R.C. Harvey’s biography “Meanwhile…: A Biography of Milton Caniff, Creator of Terry and the Pirates and Steve Canyon.” This is a thick and heavily researched volume, filled with rare and fascinating facts about Caniff.
- R.C. Harvey has also collected a series of interviews with Caniff and released it as “Milton Caniff: Conversations.” These interviews give a rare peek inside Caniff’s thinking and are the perfect compliment to Harvey’s biography. Did you know it’s the only other book other than mine that has Miss Mizzou on the cover?