Male Call: The Complete War Time Strip, 1942-1946, Featuring Miss Lace

by Milton Caniff, Bill Mauldin (Foreword)

When World War II began, master cartoonist Milton Caniff created a newspaper strip for military newspapers only. Called Male Call, it featured the GI's sweetheart, Miss Lace. Circulated to 3,000 camp papers, it offered a breath of humor and a hint of sex in a world at war. Now in this deluxe collection of the complete Male Call, see what 15 million GIs followed each week from 1942 to 1946. Included are the strips the military censored, Milton Caniff himself talking about the times and the reasons Male Call was created, and a special Foreword by two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Bill Mauldin, creator of Up Front with Willie and Joe. Enjoy!

Genres: Comics

119 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1987

Reviews

[Michael P.]

Most American WW2 era comic strips would have received a G rating, had ratings been invented. MALE CALL would have been PG for its often bawdy content. That was fine with the armed services, which ran the strip in its publications. They knew that grunts wanted even more sex than Milton Caniff delivered.

I am not the ideal person to comment on this strip. I was born just after the Korean War and was not a member of the military. I can only evaluate MALE CALL from that uninformed perspective. It seems lightly amusing, mostly well done, but about other people. Those other people might well have a more praising perspective than I can have.