Milt Caniff on the social significance of comic strips, from TCJ 108, May 1986
“…It may end being socially significant, or accepted, or whatever, but at the time, almost without exceptions, it was a way to make living. It starts that way, anyway.”
It’s interesting that cartoonists who started their careers in the 1930s, like Milt Caniff and Hal Foster, didn’t view their work as having any significance or artistic merit and was only meant to make them a living. It would take another generation before some cartoonists would see it differently.