Milton Caniff was one of the most influential American cartoonists of the 20th century; he reshaped the medium and set standards by which all storytelling strips were subsequently judged. He became famous during WWII when the Terry and the Pirates characters patriotically went into the war. Caniff went on to create Steve Canyon, syndicated from 1947 until his death in 1988. This volume is simultaneously a biography, a history of the medium, a peek into the inner workings of a comics syndicate and an analysis of Caniff's work.