Terry and the Pirates (2)

Terry and the Pirates
Vol. 1: 1934-1936
By Milton Caniff

Arc 2: Enter the Dragon Lady
Dec 23, 1934 - Mar 10, 1935

12/23/18
Dec 9, 1934 - Terry and Pat board the Maid Marian. They are headed up river to Shanghai. There a couple suspicious characters on board with them who look ready to kidnap Terry as this strip winds down.

12/24/18
Dec 16, 1934 - the Maid Marian is boarded by pirates. The captain is killed. Pat and Terry are captured and meet the pirates leader, a woman. Could this be the Dragon Lady?

12/25/18
Dec 23, 1934 - Terry and Pat dive overboard in an attempt to escape from the pirates. Lai Choi San, the leader of the pirates, threatens to have her men start shooting at Terry and Pat if they don’t return immediately.

12/26/18
Dec 30, 1934 - Terry and Pat admit they are beat and return to the ship rather than get shot. Lai Choi San’s men dig through Terry’s and Pat’s luggage and appropriate some of their clothes.

12/29/18
Jan 6, 1935 - Terry befriends one of the pirates. Pat refers to their captor as the Dragon Lady (for the first time) when talking to Terry. The strip ends with what seems like an attempt at a joke with racial overtones.

12/30/18
Jan 13, 1935 - The Dragon Lady has Pat removed from her quarters so she can speak to Terry privately. She serves him tea. She spikes it with something that drops out of her ring and then insists that Terry drink it. This time around, unlike the previous strip, the Dragon Lady’s dialogue is not peppered with words that are intentionally spelled in such a manner as to convey that she doesn’t know how to pronounce them correctly.

12/31/18
Jan 20, 1935 - Terry is saved from having to drink the poisoned cup of tea when the Dragon Lady’s ship is attacked by another pirate ship. The Dragon Lady falls, hits her head and is knocked out. Terry finds Pat chained up in a room that is starting to flood and is also on fire.

01/01/19
Jan 27, 1935 - Terry frees Pat using a crowbar. Together they try to fight their way through Fang’s pirates but they are captured once again.

01/04/19
Feb 3, 1935 - Terry, Pat, and Lai Choi San are taken prisoner and placed aboard Fang’s ship. He destroys the other ship and then tells the Dragon Lady about his plans for her and for Terry and Pat.

01/06/19
Feb 10, 1935 - Terry makes a deal with Lai Choi San. She gives him a piece of mirror in return for his word that they will help her escape. Terry and Pat are led top side to lure in a passing British merchant ship. Pat uses the piece of mirror to try and warn the merchant ship about the trap. Just like that the Dragon Lady is back to pronouncing very as velly. So much for progress.

01/08/19
Feb 17, 1935 - the captain of the merchant ship gets the message, stays away from Fang’s ship, and relays the message to the US Navy. Pat drops the piece of mirror into the water before Fang can figure out what is going on. Fang is not happy and threatens to torture Terry and Pat.

01/09/19
Feb 24, 1935 - the US Navy shows up and the fight with the pirates begins with Terry and Pat doing what they can to help out

01/10/19
Mar 3, 1935 - The US Navy boards Fang’s ship; Fang and his pirates use Lai Choi San as a human shield and barricade themselves in the rear part of the ship; Terry flushes them out using tear gas

01/11/19
Mar 10, 1935 - the pirates are captured; Terry and Pat fumble the truth about the Dragon Lady when they are asked about her role and so she is set free, thus honoring their agreement with her

Thoughts

This is a fairly straight forward story. Terry and Pat go on a trip and get captured by the Dragon Lady. The Dragon Lady wants to keep Pat but get rid of Terry. Before she can do so all three of them are captured by Fang, another pirate. Terry, Pat, and the Dragon Lady form a temporary alliance until they are able to escape from Fang.

Terry and Pat are the only characters who appear in both of the first two arcs. There is no mention of Connie or any of the other characters from the daily strip.

There is a fairly liberal use of racist slurs toward Chinese people, as there was in the first arc from the daily strips. The Chinese people talk in broken English, but there is a lack of consistency in their pronunciation of words like "very" which is frequently pronounced as "velly". Sometimes these words are pronounced correctly and other times they are not. I wonder if Caniff was influenced by an editor or if some of these strips were reworded after he submitted them. It is also possible that some of these are the original strips and others are reprints from years later than may have been corrected by others to remove the mispronounced words.

See also: Terry and the Pirates - Vol. 1 (1934-1936)