Milton Caniff, one of the greatest American cartoonists, is perhaps most famous for his comic strip Terry and the Pirates. a 1930s and ’40s flying adventure set in China. China National Aviation Corporation (CNAC) pilot Frank Higgs was an Ohio State classmate and fraternity brother of Caniff’s, and in the comic, Higgs served as the model for Caniff’s character Dude Hennick. As such, CNAC features regularly in Terry and the Pirates.
Here’s a Terry and the Pirates panel that mentions CNAC as it appeared in the Los Angeles Times on November 21, 1943. (Click on the picture and it’ll enlarge pretty well.)
(Thanks to Kai Freise, a CNAC and China’s Wings enthusiast in India, for pushing this along.)
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