Steve Canyon revived
E&P also reports on a special 60th anniversary edition of STEVE CANYON which will appear on September 24th.
The new version of “Steve Canyon” is written and drawn by retired Air Force Master Sgt. Russ Maheras for the Air Force Times, a civilian weekly newspaper that covers the military. Set in the present day, the color strip “follows Brig. Gen. Steve Canyon as he investigates Taliban activity in a remote valley in the mountains of Afghanistan.”
Maheras has been posting art from his Canyon as well as classic Milton Caniff art and discussing the project over at the Comics Journal message board from which we got this panel. Larger versions and more goodies in the link.
09/18/07 at 3:22 pm
I wish the new guy lots of luck. Those are gigantic shoes he’s gotta fill! I went to the link and it was a tremendous shock going from Maheras’ image of Steve Canyon to the classic one by Milton Caniff. Caniff had such subtlety with his lines to depict subtle emotion… It makes me want to dig out my old Kitchen Sink reprints.
09/18/07 at 9:24 pm
I wish the man luck, as well. Though I would LOVE to see Randy Reynaldo doing the work. He has Caniff down to a science.
09/18/07 at 10:41 pm
Yeah, Randy’s stuff is great! I’ve enjoyed for the past 15 years.
As I mentioned on another thread a week or so ago, artistically, I’m like a kid playing with crayons compared to Caniff. That being said, I’m not filling Caniff’s shoes as much as I’m wearing shoes of my own.
Someone needed to step forward and honor Canyon on its 50th, and now 60th, anniversaries. As a life-long cartoonist, and as someone with more than 20 years of experience in the Air Force, I figured I might as well stick my neck out and be that guy!
09/19/07 at 2:39 am
I don’t mean any disrespect to Mr. Maheras but the samples provided don’t come close to living up to the standard set by Milton Caniff. I think it was Caniff’s masterful and innovative cartooning that made Steve Canyon great, not his knowledge of the military. The craftsmanship of comics should be first and foremost.
Gabriel Hardman
www.comicspace.com/heathencomics
09/19/07 at 10:24 am
In Canyon’s case, it was a combination of three things: The art, the writing and the realistic Air Force backdrop. Take away any of the three and you do not have Steve Canyon.
As I stated, I’m no Caniff, but all the non-purists I’ve shown the strip to so far like it a lot. It is certainly the case among military people, who, by the way, are the intended audience for this particular anniversary strip (hence its publication in all the Military Times publications). The Caniff Estate folks also really liked the strip, and told me Caniff would have been proud of it. No disrespect to Mr. Hardman, but that’s good enough endorsement for me!
10/14/08 at 9:18 am
http://gogle.com google