(William K. Fowlemouth, the organizer, T. J. Trashbloom, t...)
William K. Fowlemouth, the organizer, T. J. Trashbloom, the ecologist, the Misses McFertile and McFruitful, welfare mothers, the Reverend Utter Chaos and a huge supporting cast of Cappian characters populate these funny, hardhitting stories by America's best-known comic strip artist. Al Capp's satiric survey of the liberal establishment covers the worlds of politics, entertainment, family life, and education. As the author says in THE HARDHAT'S BEDTIME STORY BOOK: "Some of your best friends may secretly be practicing conservatism...."
Li'l Abner: The Complete Dailies and Color Sundays, Vol. 2: 1937-1938
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• The big news in the second volume of the complete Li'...)
• The big news in the second volume of the complete Li'l Abner is Al Capp's creation of the first Sadie Hawkins Day, in which the womenfolk chase the menfolk, and whosoever gets caught is brought to the altar before Marryin' Sam himself! Presenting the Li'l Abner daily strips and color Sundays from 1937 and 1938.
-The Library of American Comics is the world's #1 publisher of classic newspaper comic strips, with 14 Eisner Award nominations and three wins for best book. LOAC has become "the gold standard for archival comic strip reprints...The research and articles provide insight and context, and most importantly the glorious reproduction of the material has preserved these strips for those who knew them and offers a new gateway to adventure for those discovering them for the first time.” - Scoop
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The adorable squash-shaped character was so popular it ...)
The adorable squash-shaped character was so popular it immediately spawned the largest merchandising craze in the nation's history. In the words of Life magazine, the nation was "Shmoo-struck." The Short Life and Happy Times of the Shmoo collects, for th
Li'l Abner: The Complete Dailies and Color Sundays, Vol. 1: 1934-1936
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• Head for the hills with The Library of American Comic...)
• Head for the hills with The Library of American Comics! Next stop: Dogpatch, the sleepy little home of Pansy and Lucifer Ornamental Yokum and their 19-year-old son, Li'l Abner!
• Eisner Award-winning editor/designer Dean Mullaney and biographical writer Bruce Canwell return to Dogpatch's roots in Volume 1 of The Complete Li'l Abner, containing Al Capp's comedy masterpiece from 1934-1936, including full-color Sunday pages never before collected in book form. Li'l Abner moves to New York to live with his rich aunt and has to dodge both kidnappers and grasping socialites! Back home in Dogpatch, Marrying Sam works to get Abner and gorgeous Daisy Mae to the altar, while shiftless Hannibal Hoops schemes to split them apart! Then it's a classic case of mistaken identity when Li'l Abner's evil twin, the ruthless criminal Gat Garson, comes to town...
-The Library of American Comics is the world's #1 publisher of classic newspaper comic strips, with 14 Eisner Award nominations and three wins for best book. LOAC has become "the gold standard for archival comic strip reprints...The research and articles provide insight and context, and most importantly the glorious reproduction of the material has preserved these strips for those who knew them and offers a new gateway to adventure for those discovering them for the first time.” - Scoop
(SC, TPB, VF, Used-Good, Cover Crease, Story and Art by Al...)
SC, TPB, VF, Used-Good, Cover Crease, Story and Art by Al Capp. Published in 1992, Softcover, 8 1/4-in. x 10 3/4-in., 128 pages, B&W. Cover price $11.95.
Capp, cartoonist, writer, and social critic, used his comic strip to satirize all aspects of American society: sex, politics, law enforcement, outdoor advertising signs, John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, and even other comic strips.
Background
Al Capp was born Alfred Gerald Caplin on September 28, 1909 in New Haven, Connecticut, United States; the eldest of four children of Latvian natives Matilda Davidson and Otto Philip Caplin. His father studied law but became an unsuccessful salesman with a penchant for drawing cartoons.
Education
The young Caplin attended the public schools of Bridgeport, Connecticut His main interests were sports, girls, and hitchhiking. At nine years of age, while jumping from the back of a moving ice truck, he was hit by a street car, resulting in amputation of his left leg and the need to use a prosthesis for the rest of his life. By eleven he was drawing cartoons for sale to neighboring children. At Bridgeport High School, he did well in history and English, but he failed geometry nine times, so he never graduated. When he was fifteen, he spent a summer hitchhiking to Memphis, for the first and only time seeing the backwoods South, which he later used as the locale for his comic strip. Capp attended a variety of art schools in Philadelphia and Boston. Because his family was poor and he was working his way through school, he regularly told school officials that the "check was in the mail" and then attended classes until they caught up with him. At this point he would go to another school and repeat the charade.
Career
He wrote several books and numerous articles for popular magazines, served as a movie and drama critic, was a newspaper columnist, did regular radio spots, and was a frequent guest on television talk shows.
In 1932 the Associated Press Feature Service made Capp the nation's youngest cartoonist by hiring him to carry on "Mr. Gilfeather, " an already established strip. He was a failure. He went back to art school and, to make ends meet, did illustrations, usually of attractive women with windblown skirts, for a Boston newspaper. In 1934, Ham Fisher, the creator of the "Joe Palooka" strip, hired him as an assistant. When Fisher went on vacation, a group of hillbillies, principally one named Big Leviticus, appeared for the first time in the strip. Fisher and Capp both later claimed to have created these characters. After less than a year, Capp left Fisher's employ when he sold his own strip about hillbillies, "Li'l Abner, " to United Feature. The strip, which began on Aug. 13, 1934, in eight newspapers, quickly became one of the nation's most popular comic strips in its forty-three-year run, appearing in one thousand newspapers at its peak in the early 1960's. Its characters became national bywords. The ignorant but innocently appealing Li'l Abner Yokum (the name taken from the words "yokel" and "hokum"), his corncob smoking mother, Mammy Yokum, and curvaceous Daisy Mae Scragg were regulars in the mythical town of Dogpatch, but there was an ever-expanding supporting cast: Senator Jack S. ("Good old Jack S. ") Phogbound; Marryin' Sam; Lena the Hyena, the world's ugliest woman; the lovable Schmoo; Skonk Works proprietor, Big Barnsmell; hog tycoon, J. Roaringham Fatback; Appassionata Van Climax; Joe Bftsplk, the man with his own perpetual bad luck cloud; Evil-Eye Fleegle and his triple whammy; Moonbeam McSwine; and Jubilation T. Cornpone. Sadie Hawkins Day, the one day each year in Dogpatch when women could chase men for marriage, became a fixture in many colleges, high schools, and adult social gatherings every November.
One of his characters, Fearless Fosdick, was a satire on the popular Dick Tracy. Early on, some conservatives found his satire un-American, and several times individual newspapers refused to print some segments, usually because the female characters were considered too suggestive. Capp believed his cartooning talent gave him a place among the leading storytellers of his age.
His artwork appeared in leading galleries. Capp also wrote the story line for the cartoon feature "Abbie an' Slats. " "Li'l Abner" was made into two movies and a Broadway musical, and Capp helped write an unsuccessful song about it. During World War II, he created a comic book ("Al Capp, " by Li'l Abner) about his own experience in losing his leg; the military distributed this to injured fighting men. Capp also created a Sunday cartoon feature entitled "Small Change" for the War Bond Division of the Treasury Department. During the McCarthy era in the early 1950's, the national attitude opposing any criticism of American life upset Capp, and he supported liberal causes and politicians. By the 1960's, however, he became a conservative critic who particularly lambasted student radicals in hundreds of abrasive speeches on college campuses each year. "The lunatics are running the asylum, " he thundered, while simultaneously praising Vice-President Spiro Agnew. Whereas once his satire and criticism had been lighthearted, it now became harsh and bitter. In commenting on the student deaths at Kent State University in 1970, for example, he told shocked audiences: "The real martyrs at Kent State were the kids in National Guard uniforms. " When this harshness began to be reflected in "Li'l Abner, " Capp's readership plummeted. In 1972 he pleaded guilty to attempted adultery with a Wisconsin coed and became a recluse. He announced his retirement in 1977, and the last "Li'l Abner" appeared on November 13 that year. Capp died from emphysema two years later in Cambridge, Massachussets.
(William K. Fowlemouth, the organizer, T. J. Trashbloom, t...)
Personality
Capp was a dark, heavy-set man with a thick crop of hair and a booming voice. He laughed loudly and frequently at his own and others' jokes. He seemed never to appear without a cigarette in his mouth and flicked ashes in all directions as he spoke. He was a regular on the New York social scene, though he was a teetotaler who regularly took antacids for a chronically upset stomach.
Critics have placed Capp in the company of Lewis Carroll, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, and Francois Rabelais. John Steinbeck thought him the greatest writer of his age and worthy of a Nobel Prize. A contemporary newspaper once said of his comic strip that it was "as much a part of the national life as ice cream cones and taxes. "
Connections
At a Boston art school, he met Catherine Wingate Cameron, and in 1930 they were married, eventually having three children.