Vol. 1: 1934-1936
By Milton Caniff
Arc 3: On a Mystery Cruise
Jan 21 - Jun 8, 1935
01/12/19
Jan 21 - 26, 1935 - Terry, Pat, and Dale are arrested but Connie saves the day. Dale decides to return to America. Terry tackles a thief who steals a woman’s purse.
I’m still spotting plenty of cases of "Melicans" and "velly" being used in place of "Americans" and "very" by speakers who are Chinese. This isn’t limited to side characters and includes Connie.
01/13/19
Jan 28 - Feb 2, 1935 - Terry returns the stolen purse to the lady. Pat takes Terry and Connie to see Doctor McAndrews, an explorer and an old acquaintance. McAndrews gets them some new clothes and then invites them to join him on a cruise.
There is more humor in this week’s strips that seems to play off of racist stereotypes of Chinese people, namely Connie and Dr. McAndrews servant.
Is it just me or does Terry look a little older than he did in the previous arc?
01/14/19
Feb 4 - 9, 1935 - Terry and Pat are hired by Chauncey Drake, a friend of Dr. McAndrews, to play the parts of his cabin boy and secretary while on the cruise. Connie is also invited to join them on the trip. Weasel and Limey, a couple of thugs, are also on the cruise, masquerading as a sailor and a radio operator. Normandie Drake, the woman whose purse Terry recovered a couple weeks back, and her rude fiancé are also on the cruise. Normandie is Chauncey’s niece.
Do I need to say anything about the racism? It’s still there. Most bothersome to me is when Terry or Pat use that kind of language, even if it was fairly commonplace to do so in the 1930s.
01/15/19
Feb 11 - 16, 1935 - Normandie turns up her nose at Terry and Pat. She figures out that Pat isn’t really her uncle’s secretary. Count Dimitri, her fiancé, sticks his nose into the conversation and insults Pat, so he slugs him. Connie starts working in the kitchen. Weazel and Limey sneak guns aboard the yacht.
The plot thickens as the story develops along multiple plot strands.
More racist humor. Sigh.
01/18/19
Feb 18 - 23, 1935 - Connie discovers that Weazel and Limey have weapons and plan to use them. He tries to tell Terry and Pat on two occasions but they don’t have time to listen to him.
Drake dresses down Pat and Terry in front of his niece but then passes them a note asking them to investigate Count Dimitri Phoneeski. They have Weazel radio the Hong Kong Police asking for information about Phoneeski.
Weazel changes the reply from the HKPD to make it look like there’s nothing suspicious about the Count. Weazel then goes to Count Dimitri and reveals that he knows he’s a phony.
If only Terry and Pat had stopped and listened to Connie things might not be spinning off the way they are. Sigh.
01/19/19
Feb 25 - Mar 2, 1935 - Weazel talks Dimitri into helping him and Limey kill Chauncey Drake. Connie finally gets a chance to tell Terry and Pat about his suspicions about Weazel and Limey. They take the news seriously and isn’t long before Terry is able to confirm Connie’s fears. All of this plus a typhoon is on a collision course with the yacht.
01/21/19
Mar 4 - 9, 1935 - The weather gets much worse as the yacht moves into the stormy sea. Weazel and Limey (with some help from Dimitri) bribe the crew, flood the ship, and get rid of all the life boats, except the ones they need. They lock Terry, Pat, Connie, Normandie, and Chauncey in a cabin. The heroes escape but by then the villains are gone and the ship is damaged beyond repair. It is impossible to steer and the radio is broken so they can’t call for help. Connie has an idea that just might save them.
01/22/19
Mar 11 - 16, 1935 - the ship breaks apart. Terry, Pat, Chauncey, Normandie, and Connie make it to shore thanks to some inflatable toy animals. Normandie decides she’s had enough and takes off into the jungle.
01/24/19
Mar 18 - 23, 1935 - Normandie hears voices and heads in that direction. She finds Weazel, Limey, and Dimitri. They ask her about the others. She claims to be the only survivor. While the others are sleeping she tries signaling for help using smoke signals. Considering the sort of person Normandie is I find it highly unlikely that she would have the knowledge or skill to signal anyone using smoke signals.
01/25/19
Mar 25 - 30, 1935 - Terry, Pat, and Connie salvage what they can from the wreck of the yacht, including a lot of canned food. They go looking for Normandie and find Weazel and Limey’s camp. They wait until after dark and then start making drumming noises which leads the bad guys to assume that there are cannibals on the island. Normandie guesses what Terry and Pat are up to and does what she can to encourage their fears. Terry disables their boat while Weazel and Limey are distracted by the drums.
01/26/19
Apr 1 - 6, 1935 - Terry, Pat, and Connie do more to scare Weazel and Limey into thinking that there are cannibals on the island. The bad guys start to prepare for what they fear will be a fight with the cannibals.
02/01/19
Apr 8 - 13, 1935 - Weazel and Limey can’t find their cook and think that the spring has been poisoned. The water is green and slimy. The only thing it was poisoned with was pea soup but they don’t know that.
Pat and Terry sneak up to Weazel’s and Limey’s camp and place a human skeleton just outside the camp. Connie covers for they by beating the drums. The villains start to panic and argue with one another.
This arc feels a bit stretched and repetitive. Hopefully it gets better than this.
02/03/19
Apr 15 - 20, 1935 - Normandie does her best to get Weazel and Limey to turn on one another. Dimitri goes for a drink of water from the spring that he thinks is poisoned. Terry beans him in the head with a can of pea soup. Dimitri is so out of it that he thinks his head hurts because he drank from the stream.
02/06/19
Apr 22 - 27, 1935 - the villains start to turn on one another. Dimitri starts to lose his mind so Limey and Weazel tie him up. Terry and Pat leave what looks like a water bottle for the villains to find. They get into a fight over it and Weazel shoots Limey. He then tries to drink the water only to discover that it is kerosene.
02/10/19
Apr 29 - May 3, 1935 - Limey is dead, Weazel starts to lose his mind. Terry, Pat, and Connie continue to use psychological warfare techniques to drive Weazel around the bend.
02/11/19
May 6 - 11, 1935 - Weazel completely loses his mind and declares he will save Normandie from the cannibals by killing her. Pat rushes into save her. The two men fight. The week ends with Pat and Weazel falling off a cliff as they continue to fight.
02/14/19
May 13 - 18, 1935 - Pat and Weazel fall into the sea but only Pat emerges. Pat and Terry fix the boat and they leave the island for good. As they are leaving Weazel comes out of hiding, still raving about cannibals.
There isn’t enough fuel in the boat to get them home but they are rescued by an ocean liner. Among the people who see them come aboard the larger vessel is a blonde woman who seems quite taken by the bare chested Pat. I think this might be Burma.
02/15/19
May 20 - 25, 1935 - Terry, Pat, and Connie enjoy the comforts of the ocean liner. Pat gets lots of attention from the young women aboard the ship. Chauncey Drake tries to reward them with a check for $10,000 but Pat turns it down. Normandie apologizes to Pat over the way she treated him when they first met.
So glad that Weazel is out of the picture and that the story is finally moving forward again. That bit on the island wasn’t my cup of tea.
02/16/19
May 27 - Jun 1, 1935 - Pat decides that they need to leave, ASAP. He is falling for Normandie and doesn’t think it would work out, despite the fact that she has already fallen for him. They leave the ship when it gets to Singapore, without a proper goodbye. Pat leaves a letter for Normandie. She breaks down into tears when she reads it.
I haven’t mentioned it in a while but the racial humor has not evaporated. It takes many forms but it’s still there. I’m sure that some of it wouldn’t seem bad to a lot of people in 1935 or even today but it is still jarring.
02/19/19
Jun 3 - 8, 1935 - Normandie leaves the Empress of Malay and goes looking for Pat in Singapore. Terry, Pat, and Connie wander around Singapore. They almost run into Normandie but that’s as close as they come to seeing her again. Normandie eventually gives up on finding Pat and heads back to the ship. Terry, Pat, and Connie wind up back at the docks and watch the Empress set sail.
Burma makes a cameo appearance in one panel as Normandie is scouring Singapore.
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