Editor’s note: The following article was originally published in the Henderson (N.C.) Daily Dispatch.
By David Irvine
Comic strips aren’t always funny — sometimes they can even carry a serious message.
During World War II, comic strip artist Milton Caniff interrupted the story line of his comic strip, “Terry and the Pirates,” to offer a Christmas tribute to the pilots ferrying supplies from India to our Chinese allies. On Dec. 25, 1944, his strip was titled “White Christmas–Himalayas Version.” It pictured a transport plane flying between snow-covered peaks. Caniff wrote that the pilots were doing their job so the folks back home “can look at the American sky and see nothing more dangerous than snow.”
