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”?