Here’s some advance praise for Miss Mizzou: A Life Beyond Comics as it appears in the front of the book:
“Milton Caniff was inarguably the 20th Century’s most influential cartoonist in the story-strip field. Marilyn Monroe was the quintessential movie star of that same century. The impact of both continues to be felt. When the two collided, it had to be worth writing about and J.B. Winter has done that very thing, in a tome as entertaining as it is well-researched.”
MAX ALLAN COLLINS—bestselling author, “Road to Perdition,” “Quarry,” & “Nathan Heller”
“In his ‘Steve Canyon’ comic strip, Milton Caniff tried hard to create a character as provocative as the Dragon Lady or Burma in his ‘Terry and the Pirates.’ The closest he came was Miss Mizzou, who shows up … wearing a trench coat and, she assures us with a knowing wink, little, or perhaps nothing, else. In this slim and impressively researched volume (the footnotes are as fascinating a read as the main narrative), we find out that Mizzou had an equally tantalizing life beyond the borders of the comic strip.”
R.C. HARVEY—critic, cartoonist, and author of “Meanwhile… A Biography of Milton Caniff”
“In her high heels and trademark trench coat, Miss Mizzou stands tall in the long list of beauties Milton Caniff created to enliven his comic strips ‘Terry and the Pirates,’ ‘Male Call,’ and ‘Steve Canyon.’ J.B. Winter has crafted a spritely, well-researched look at the effect one cartoonist and his curvy creation had on the original ‘Mizzou’—the University of Missouri—and its environs. Caniffites, MU alumni, and residents of Columbia, Missouri will surely enjoy what they find in these pages.”
BRUCE CANWELL—essayist & associate editor, IDW Library of American Comics “Steve Canyon” reprint editions.
“This book knocked me right in the cerebellum sweet spot. Winter looked at what most would call an interesting anecdote and said, ‘There’s way more to this.’ As a Caniff devotee, most of what I read was new to me, as were most of the pictures and news clippings reproduced in the book. This is what we need more of; a work of comics scholarship that isn’t dry and eschews academic blather.”
MATT TAUBER—contributing editor, “Caniff: A Visual Biography”
“In ‘Miss Mizzou: A Life Beyond Comics,’ J.B. Winter deftly assembles the whole story of the comely newspaper strip character that seduced a Midwestern college town. The story is a fully satisfying, well-researched narrative that not only entertains, but casts an intriguing light on our own relationship to fame and popular culture. ‘Miss Mizzou’ would still be a compelling read if I had never heard of Milton Caniff or Columbia Missouri, but being a fan of one and a resident of the other, it was a rare treat.”
MARTIN POPE—Mid-Missouri cartoonist of the Caniff-inspired webcomic “Vorto the Pirate”