Author Archives: winter

Featured Reviewer: Max Allan Collins

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Max Allan Collins is a multifaceted mystery writer with a long list of titles to his credit. He’s probably best known for graphic novel “Road to Perdition” which was the basis of the Academy Award-winning 2002 film. He’s also been a writer for the “Dick Tracy” comic strip and was also the creator of the long running “Ms. Tree” comic book. Beyond comics, he has a long novel writing career, which includes his “Quarry” series, which is currently in development to be a TV show on Cinemax.

After Mickey Spillane died in 2006, Collins started co-authoring several Mike Hammer novels started by Spillane. During my Miss Mizzou research, Collins helped with some information when I was researching a character Mickey Spillane wrote into his book “Kiss Me Deadly” that was similar to Miss Mizzou. When it came to thinking about people to get advance quotes for my book, Collins was definitely on my list. Here’s what he wrote about the Miss Mizzou book:

“Milton Caniff was inarguably the 20th Century’s most influential cartoonist in the story-strip field. Marilyn Monroe was the quintessential movie star of that same century. The impact of both continues to be felt. When the two collided, it had to be worth writing about and J.B. Winter has done that very thing, in a tome as entertaining as it is well-researched.”

I love this summary of the character and how it relates to Marilyn Monroe. Collins has written a little about Monroe himself, which we’ll get to in our next section…

Recommended reading:

byebyebaby seductionoftheinnocent

  • If you’re a fan of Miss Mizzou, you might be a fan of Marilyn Monroe. Collins has written a volume in his Nate Heller series that deals with the death of Marilyn Monroe called “Bye Bye, Baby.” It’s a riveting read, chock full of real life research about Monroe put into fictional form.
  • One of Collin’s latest books that would interest comic fans is “Seduction of the Innocent.” In this book he takes a look at the real life 1950’s comic book scare started by Fredric Wertham and puts a fictional spin on situation with a pulp mystery at its core. Only someone as steeped in comics and 1950s nostalgia as Collins could have written such an intriguing book. The book stands alone, but is the third book in a series that began with “A Killing in Comics” and was followed up by “Strip for Murder.”

Recommended viewing:

cavemankissmedeadly

  • If you’re a Columbia, Missouri, comic fan, you’re probably familiar with Alley Oop, who was created by a former MU student V.T. Hamlin. Collins created the documentary “Caveman: V.T. Hamlin & Alley Oop“ which I remember being shown in town during the 75th anniversary of Alley Oop events that happened in 2008.
  • You might also want to catch the Collins documentary “Mike Hammer’s Mickey Spillane” from 1998 that was repackaged in the 1955 film “Kiss Me Deadly” released by the Criterion Collection. Watch the beginning of “Kiss Me Deadly” for a glimpse of a character similar to Miss Mizzou that I reference in my book.

Do you “Miss Mizzou”?

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IMAGE: Steve Canyon, September 5, 1954. Copyright 2014 the Milton Caniff Estate.

 

I’ve spent the last few years studying Miss Mizzou for my book, but apparently I’ve been so close to the subject that I didn’t recognize something pretty obvious until recently. I knew that Caniff always had the character reminiscing about Columbia and wishing that she could get back there, but it never crossed my mind that she was “missing” Mizzou. This is such an obvious double meaning to her name, but it really works well I think.

Caniff, like many comic artists in his day, would often come up with an novelty name for a character that encapsulated some aspect of the character’s personality. Take for example Pipper the Piper, Foo Ling, Nimbus Neil, and Copper Calhoon to name a few. While this wasn’t the most subtle aspect of Caniff’s strip, you have to keep in mind that comic artists were telling stories a day at a time in just a few small panels. Giving unusual names to the characters helped people remember them from day to day and also helped new and irregular readers figure out the characters quickly.

When I’ve been searching for traces of Caniff’s character online these last few years, I would often type “Miss Mizzou” into a search box. The bulk of the results that I usually got were about people (mostly former Mizzou students) who said they “Miss Mizzou.” I always found it reassuring to know that Caniff’s character was not alone in her nostalgia for the town and the school. Do you too “Miss Mizzou”?

Behind the Miss Mizzou Book Trailer

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This is a book trailer for the book “Miss Mizzou: A Life Beyond Comics” that I created. Let me explain a little background info about the trailer.

In the trailer I use several images from my book, but I also use footage of Milton Caniff that I found on the internet archive that comes from the Prelinger Archvies in San Francisco. The film is around 11 minutes and silent. Given some of the images, I’d place the footage as being shot around 1947, but I might be off a bit.

I re-cut the footage of Caniff to make it look as if he’s creating Miss Mizzou in 1952, but this is not the case. Caniff in the film is actually inking a stylish portrait of the character Madame Lynx. Earlier in the film we see a larger portrait which he labels Lynx:

New Project 07 Later still, he’s drawing a full body portrait of the women we saw before who was labeled Lynx.

New Project 29The part that I used in the trailer is the lower portion of the drawing:

New Project 47If you squint a little bit, the legs and shoes look a little bit like Miss Mizzou, so that’s why I put that footage in the book trailer. I hope I didn’t confuse anyone by using this footage, but I thought it was too good not to use somehow.

The music that was used for the trailer is a track that comes with the iMovie software, and it’s called “44th Street.” I couldn’t find much information about how this music came about, or which “44th Street” it was referencing, but I think it fits in with the character well. Oddly enough, when Marilyn Monroe moved to New York, she studied at the Actors Studio at 432 West 44th Street under Lee Strasberg.

(Updated 11/05/14)

Happy Birthday — Miss Mizzou Turns 62

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IMAGE: Miss Mizzou makes up her name on the spot in her debut in the Steve Canyon comic strip, September 5th, 1952. Image courtesy of the Columbia Tribune. Copyright 2014 the Milton Caniff Estate.

IMAGE: Miss Mizzou makes up her name on the spot in her debut in the Steve Canyon comic strip, September 5th, 1952. Image courtesy of the Columbia Tribune. Copyright 2014 the Milton Caniff Estate.

Today is the day I’m announcing the release of my book “Miss Mizzou: A Life Beyond Comics.” This is also Miss Mizzou’s 62nd birthday. The character coined her name in the above panel from September 5th, 1952.

The character actually started appearing in the comic strip a few weeks before this however. On July 26th, 1952, two characters started to mention her in a two panel aside. On August 1st, she is shown in shadow–you can’t even tell the color of her hair. In the following week we see her blond hair from the back and we get a glimpse of her trademark trench coat. Caniff definitely was playing up the mystery of this character for as long as he could. It wasn’t until August 12th that Caniff pulled in for a close up and also put her name into question.

IMAGE: Steve Canyon daily comic strip, August 12th, 1952. Copyright 2014 the Milton Caniff Estate.

IMAGE: Steve Canyon daily comic strip, August 12th, 1952. Copyright 2014 the Milton Caniff Estate.

I was able to assemble my book and hit “publish” on amazon.com the date of August 12th, which seems somewhat appropriate considering her “close up” introduction to the strip on that very date. I’ve spent the last few weeks preparing for the book release and it just seemed to make sense to officially announce the book today on the official birthday of the character.

In the coming year I’ll be writing more in depth blog posts about Miss Mizzou. Stay tuned for more!