TERRY AND THE PIRATES by George Wunder: daily comic strip 04/9/1953

Terry and the Pirates was an action-adventure comic strip created by cartoonist Milton Caniff, which originally ran from October 22, 1934 to February 25, 1973. The strip was read by 31 million newspaper subscribers between 1934 and 1946. In 1946, Caniff won the first Cartoonist of the Year Award from the National Cartoonists Society for his work on Terry and the Pirates. After Caniff’s departure, the strip was assigned to Associated Press artist George Wunder, known for his highly detailed panels and a more serious, dramatic writing style than Caniff’s signature humor. Caniff may have created Terry and the Pirates, but Wunder wrote and drew it for 27 years (until its discontinuation on February 25, 1973), making him the artist and writer of record on the strip and bringing the characters from the aftermath of World War II through the Cold War, Korea and Vietnam, by which time Terry had become a full-grown man and reached the rank of Colonel.

Terry and the Pirates has been cited by fellow comic illustrator Doug Wildey as one of his main inspirations for the 1964 Hanna Barbera television cartoon Jonny Quest, and Robert Culp said that George Wunder’s run on the comic strip was his inspiration for the “tone, spirit and noir heightened realism” of the 1965 NBC TV series, I Spy, when he was writing the pilot. Umberto Eco‘s 2005 novel The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana references Terry and the Pirates, and in 1995, the strip was one of 20 included in the “Comic Strip Classics” series of commemorative U.S. postage stamps.

This particular strip comes from the extended episode, “The Social Arbitrator,” which in 1953 was reprinted in booklet form by Harvey Comics, and part of a giveaway sponsored by Canada Dry Ginger Ale. In March 2007, IDW Publishing reprinted the entire series as part of their Library of American Comics, making this a triple-provenance artwork from one of the most important syndicated series of all time. Main characters Terry Lee and Hotshot Charlie are prominently featured.