Vol. 1: 1934-1936
By Milton Caniff
Arc 7: St. Louis Blues on the Road to Mandalay
Dec 20, 1935 - Apr 24, 1936
This is the fourth of the Daily only arcs.
11/13/19
Dec 20-21, 1935 - Pat is moping around about losing Normandie. Terry and Connie do their best to give him time to grieve and let him know that they are there for him.
This arc starts on board a ship.
11/15/19
Dec 23-25, 1935 - The small ship that Terry, Pat, and Connie are on board runs into an oil tanker and goes down. They make it on board the tanker only to discover that it looks deserted.
11/16/19
Dec 26-28, 1935 - Terry, Pat, and Connie finally locate someone on board the seemingly deserted oil tanker. The crew member is carrying a gun and tries to force them to jump overboard. Pat punches him.
11/17/19
Dec 30, 1935-Jan 1, 1936 - Terry, Pat, and Connie meet the man in charge of the tanker. He refuses to identify himself and has them locked up in the brig.
11/18/19
Jan 2-4, 1936 - Terry, Pat, and Connie are let out of the brig and taken to see the owner of the ship. A French patrol boat is seen approaching the oil tanker, just as they get to the owner’s cabin. He threatens his prisoners with a gun if they don’t behave.
11/19/19
Jan 6-8, 1936 - an officer of the French Navy’s harbor patrol comes aboard the oil tanker to inspect. Pat unsuccessfully tries to make a break for it.
11/20/19
Jan 9-11, 1936 - Pat, still unconscious, is taken to the boiler room. Terry and Connie are locked up after Terry tries arguing with the owner of the ship.
There are a few panels which have no backgrounds. They look very strange. I wonder if this has something to do with the copies of the original strips from which the book was made.
11/21/19
Jan 13-15, 1936 - There is no sign of Pat as Terry and Connie are put to work scrubbing the deck of the oil tanker. Terry is impatient but Connie convinces him that they will be better served by following orders for now.
11/22/19
Jan 16-18, 1936 - Terry spots something in the captain’s cabin. He puts two and two together and comes to the conclusion that the ship they are on is being used as a warehouse by pirates for all of the stolen goods.
Lots of exposition, a little humor but these three strips are short on action. Also it is unclear what Terry plans to do with the information he pieced together or how it will help them escape. Still no sign of Pat.
11/23/19
Jan 20-22, 1936 - Terry and Connie eavesdrop on a conversation between the captain and the chief engineer. They learn that Terry’s assumption about the cargo the ship is carrying is correct. They also learn that the captain’s name is Judas.
11/24/19
Jan 23-25, 1936 - Terry and Connie get caught eavesdropping by one of Captain Judas’ men. Judas calls Terry a modern Jim Hawkins (from Treasure Island) and considers having his tongue cut out. Judas is diverted before he can decide what to do with Terry.
This isn’t great literature but so far this story is much better that the Sunday strip that I read just before this one.
11/25/19
Jan 27-29, 1936 - Terry and Connie head to the boiler room to rescue Pat
11/26/19
Jan 30-Feb 1, 1936 - Terry, Pat, and Connie deal with the crew in the boiler room and then head above deck to plot their escape from the oil tanker.
11/27/19
Feb 3-5, 1936 - Terry, Pat, and Connie capture one of the smaller ships docked with the oil tanker and make a run for it. Captain Judas is alerted to what they’ve done and sends three of the other junks after them.
11/28/19
Feb 6-8, 1936 - The pirates close in on Terry, Pat, and Connie but then it gets very foggy
11/29/19
Feb 10-12, 1936 - Terry, Pat, and Connie hide in the fog but the pirates get closer to them. Pat tries to throw off the pirates by hurling an anvil into the water.
11/30/19
Feb 13-15, 1936 - Terry, Pat, and Connie evade the pirates. They pass out from exhaustion once they feel they have put enough distance between them and the pirates. They wake up just as the junk is approaching land. They are thrown overboard as it crashes on some rocks.
Connie actually calls out Terry and Pat for making fun of an idea he has. Pat apologizes. I think this might be the first time that has happened. That does nothing about the fact that Connie is drawn like a racist caricature of a Chinese person.
12/01/19
Feb 17-19, 1936 - Terry and Pat make it to dry land and collapse, exhausted. When they awake they realize that Connie isn’t with them. He’s stuck in what remains of the junk and needs some help getting free. Once Connie is free they start thinking about what they should do next. They don’t know where they are, if it is an island or the mainland.
12/02/19
Feb 20-22, 1936 - Terry, Pat, and Connie try sleeping on the beech but Terry wakes up when he hears music, “The St. Louis Blues”. They follow the sound and it leads them to a cabin.
12/03/19
Feb 24-26, 1936 - Inside the cabin they see a woman alone, dancing to the music. They knock on the door. She is wary of them but she lets them in. She’s packing heat and covers them with it as they enter the cabin. Pat is a bit tongue-tied but he hands over the gun he picked up on board the tanker when she asks for it.
12/04/19
Feb 27-29, 1936 - Terry and Pat have questions but other than her name, Burma, the lady doesn’t offer much in the way information about herself. They talk about leaving the island but she suggests they stay a while because there are no ships coming anytime soon.
Burma has to have been an inspiration for some of the femme fatales from the Spirit.
12/05/19
Mar 2-4, 1936 - Pat and Burma seem attracted to one another but they are both coy about their feelings. I like this a lot and hope that it goes somewhere.
12/07/19
Mar 5-7, 1936 - Burma turns up the heat but when Pat doesn’t take the bait she gets angry. Her amorous feelings become violent ones and she smashes him over the head with a stringed musical she was playing for him as she sang Smoke Gets in Your Eyes to him. I’m still loving this.
12/08/19
Mar 9-11, 1936 - Burma’s assistant agrees to help Terry, Pat, and Connie escape from her island. Everything is looking good until Burma shows up just as they are about to leave.
12/09/19
Mar 12-14, 1936 - Pat tries apologizing to Burma but she just gives him a withering look while she lights a cigarette. She walks off without responding. Terry and Connie hit the rack. Pat stays up smoking a pipe.
Is this the first time Pat has been shown smoking? Where did that pipe come from? Is the fact that both Pat and Burma were shown smoking a bit of foreshadowing?
12/10/19
Mar 16-18, 1936 - Pat smokes his pipe and wonders aloud about Burma. She shows up and wants to know why he isn’t attracted to her.
12/11/19
Mar 19-21, 1936 - Burma accuses Pat of being a coward because he has not tried to kiss her. He grabs her and kisses her. Their make out session gets interrupted by a familiar face, Captain Judas.
12/12/19
Mar 23-25. 1936 - Pat and Burma are both surprised to learn that the other has met Captain Judas before. Pat assumes that Judas is Burma’s boyfriend. Judas has his goons beat up Pat and throw him in the room with Terry and Connie before Burma gets a chance to explain how she knows him.
Great stuff. I love the past few days strips. So far the romances of Pat Ryan have been the high points of this series.
12/13/19
Mar 26-28, 1936 - Pat tells Terry and Connie about Captain Judas and Burma. He’s pretty sure that she is Judas’ girlfriend and that this island is where the pirates are keeping their loot. He seems pretty bummed about all of it including Burma’s part in the whole thing.
12/14/19
Mar 30-Apr 1, 1936 - Terry, Pat, and Connie are locked up and left wondering what their fate will be. Burma’s servant brings them some food.
12/15/19
Apr 2-4, 1936 - Connie finds a key in the tea pot that Burma’s servant brought with the food. They think it’s a key for the door but it isn’t the right kind of key for the lock on the door. Pat guesses that it must be the key to the boat that Burma’s servant told them about.
12/16/19
Apr 6-8, 1936 - Burma and Judas argue about what should be done with Terry, Pat, and Connie. Judas says he’s in love with Burma. She laughs it off which leads him to suggest that maybe she should share their fate.
12/17/19
Apr 9-11, 1936 - Captain Judas decides to go through with his plan and kill Burma. She proves to be a little too quick for him. She throws a kerosene lamp in his face. Terry, Pat, and Connie are upstairs planning their escape when they notice smoke rising up from the floorboards.
12/18/19
Apr 13-15, 1936 - the room fills up with smoke as Terry and Pat debate about how get out of the building. They make a rope out of the bed sheets and climb to the ground. They run for the speedboat but get intercepted by one of Judas’ men.
I love the angle on the final panel. It is a worm’s eye view of the initial moment of the encounter with Judas’ thug.
12/19/19
Apr 16-18, 1936 - Pat fights with Judas’ men while Terry and Connie make a run for the speedboat. Pat makes a break for it once Terry and Connie have verified that the key is for the speedboat. Terry, Pat, and Connie escape in the boat leaving the thugs behind at the shoreline.
There are some nice panels that do a great job of illustrating the action. I especially like the past one in which the thugs are flying through the air as the dock is being ripped apart.
12/20/19
Apr 20-24, 1936 - Terry, Pat, and Connie head for the mainland. It is still night and they aren’t sure which way it is to the mainland. They figure that once the sun starts coming up they can use it to guide them and start heading west.
They find Burma out cold with a bump on her head in the cabin. She mumbles something about kissing Pat when she starts to come to. Once she wakes up Pat reassures her that she’s safe and that Judas is far away.
Thoughts
This is the best arc to date. Burma is the best thing to happen to this strip since Normandie Drake. It looks like Burma will be part of the next arc.
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