View source for Al Capp

{{Short description|American cartoonist and humorist (1909–1979)}}
{{Distinguish|Al Capps|Andy Capp}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=December 2020}}
{{Infobox person
| name        = Al Capp
| image       = Alcappself.png
| image_size  = 200px
| caption     = Self-portrait
| birth_name  = Alfred Gerald Caplin
| birth_date  = {{birth date|1909|09|28|mf=y}}
| birth_place = [[New Haven, Connecticut]], U.S.
| death_date  = {{death date and age|1979|11|05|1909|09|28|mf=y}}
| death_place = [[South Hampton, New Hampshire]], U.S.
| occupation  = [[Cartoonist]], satirist, radio and television commentator
| spouse = Catherine Wingate (Cameron) Capp (1932–1979; his death)
| children = Julie Ann Cairol, Catherine Jan Peirce, Colin Cameron Capp (adopted)
| awards    = [[Inkpot Award]] (1978)<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.comic-con.org/awards/inkpot|title=Inkpot Award|date=December 6, 2012|website=Comic-Con International: San Diego|access-date=October 29, 2020}}</ref>
| known_for = ''[[L'il Abner]]''
}}

'''Alfred Gerald Caplin''' (September 28, 1909&nbsp;– November 5, 1979), better known as '''Al Capp''', was an American [[cartoonist]] and humorist best known for the [[satirical]] [[comic strip]] ''[[Li'l Abner]]'', which he created in 1934 and continued writing and (with help from assistants) drawing until 1977. He also wrote the comic strips ''[[Abbie an' Slats]]'' (in the years 1937–45) and ''[[Long Sam]]'' (1954). He won the [[National Cartoonists Society]]'s [[National Cartoonists Society#Reuben Award|Reuben Award]] in 1947 for Cartoonist of the Year, and their 1979 [[E. C. Segar|Elzie Segar Award]], posthumously for his "unique and outstanding contribution to the profession of cartooning". 

Capp's comic strips dealt with urban experiences in the [[Northern United States]] until the year he introduced "Li'l Abner". Although Capp was from [[Connecticut]], he spent 43 years writing about the fictional [[Southern United States|Southern]] town of [[Dogpatch]], reaching an estimated 60 million readers in more than 900 American newspapers and 100 more papers in 28 countries internationally. [[M. Thomas Inge]] says Capp made a large personal fortune through the strip and "had a profound influence on the way the world viewed the American South".<ref>M. Thomas Inge, "Li'l Abner, Snuffy, Pogo, and Friends: The South in the American Comic Strip," ''Southern Quarterly'' (2011) 48#2 pp 6–74</ref>

==Early life and education==
Capp was born in [[New Haven, Connecticut]], of [[Eastern European Jewry|East European Jewish]] heritage.  He was the eldest child of Otto Philip Caplin (1885–1964)<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.geni.com/people/Otto-Caplin/6000000003443607986|title=Otto Philip Caplin|website=geni_family_tree|year=1885 |access-date=October 29, 2020}}</ref> and Matilda (Davidson) Caplin (1884–1948).<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.geni.com/people/Matilda-Davidson/6000000003443619277|title=Matilda Davidson|website=geni_family_tree|date=December 17, 1884 |access-date=October 29, 2020}}</ref> His brothers, Elliot and Jerome, were cartoonists, and his sister, Madeline, was a publicist. Capp's parents were both natives of [[Latvia]] whose families had migrated to New Haven in the 1880s. "My mother and father had been brought to this country from Russia when they were infants", wrote Capp in 1978. "Their fathers had found that the great promise of America was true&nbsp;– it was no crime to be a Jew." The Caplins were dirt-poor, and Capp later recalled stories of his mother going out in the night to sift through ash barrels for reusable bits of coal.

In August 1919, at the age of nine, Capp was run down by a [[Tram|trolley car]] and had his left leg [[amputation|amputated]] above the knee.<ref>See [http://lil-abner.com/al-capp/ Li'l Abner Official Site: Al Capp biography]</ref> According to his father Otto's unpublished [[autobiography]], young Capp was not prepared for the amputation beforehand; having been in a [[coma]] for days, he suddenly awoke to discover that his leg had been removed.<ref>Kitchen, Denis, and Michael Schumacher, ''Al Capp: A Life to the Contrary'' (2013) p. 4</ref> He was eventually given a [[prosthetic]] leg, but only learned to use it by adopting a slow way of walking which became increasingly painful as he grew older.<ref>See [http://www.tcj.com/reviews/al-capp-a-life-to-the-contrary/ Review: "Al Capp: A Life to the Contrary," by R.C. Harvey, published March 14, 2013]</ref> The childhood tragedy of losing a leg likely helped shape Capp's cynical worldview, which was darker and more sardonic than that of the average newspaper cartoonist.<ref>see [https://web.archive.org/web/20100204233957/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,811832,00.html "Inhuman Man," ''Time'', February 6, 1950]</ref> "I was indignant as hell about that leg," he revealed in a November 1950 interview in ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' magazine.

"The secret of how to live without resentment or embarrassment in a world in which I was different from everyone else", Capp philosophically wrote (in ''[[Life magazine]]'' on May 23, 1960), "was to be indifferent to that difference."<ref>see [https://books.google.com/books?id=3k4EAAAAMBAJ&dq=Al+Capp&pg=PA129 ''Life'', 23 May 1960, pp. 129–140]</ref> The prevailing opinion among his friends was that Capp's [[Jonathan Swift|Swiftian]] [[satire]] was, to some degree, a creatively channeled, compensatory response to his disability.
[[File:Al Capp Self-portrait April 1951.JPG|right|450px|thumb|"I do ''Li'l Abner!!''," a self-portrait by Al Capp, excerpted from the<br />April 16–17, 1951 ''Li'l Abner'' strips; note the reference to [[Milton Caniff]]]]
Capp's father, a failed businessman and an amateur cartoonist, introduced him to drawing as a form of therapy. He became quite proficient, advancing mostly on his own. Among his earliest influences were ''[[Punch (magazine)|Punch]]'' cartoonist–illustrator [[Phil May (caricaturist)|Phil May]] and American comic strip cartoonists [[Thomas Aloysius Dorgan|Tad Dorgan]], [[Cliff Sterrett]], [[Rube Goldberg]], [[Rudolph Dirks]], [[Frederick Burr Opper|Fred Opper]], [[Billy DeBeck]], [[George McManus]], and [[Milt Gross]]. At about this same time, Capp became a voracious reader. According to Capp's brother Elliot, Alfred had finished all of Shakespeare and [[George Bernard Shaw]] by the time he turned 13. Among his childhood favorites were [[Charles Dickens|Dickens]], [[Tobias Smollett|Smollett]], [[Mark Twain]], [[Booth Tarkington]], and later, [[Robert Benchley]] and [[S. J. Perelman]].

Capp spent five years at Bridgeport High School in [[Bridgeport, Connecticut]], without receiving a diploma. He liked to joke about how he failed [[geometry]] for nine straight terms.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://bridgeport.ct.schoolwebpages.com/education/components/scrapbook/default.php?sectiondetailid=5111 |title=Web page at Bridgeport Central High School devoted to Al Capp |access-date=August 14, 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070930185724/http://bridgeport.ct.schoolwebpages.com/education/components/scrapbook/default.php?sectiondetailid=5111 |archive-date=September 30, 2007 |url-status=dead }}</ref> His formal training came from a series of art schools in the [[New England]] area. Attending three of them in rapid succession, the impoverished Capp was thrown out of each for nonpayment of tuition—the [[School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston|Boston Museum School of Fine Arts]], the [[Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts]], and Designers Art School in Boston—the last before launching his career. Capp already had decided to become a cartoonist. "I heard that [[Bud Fisher]] (creator of ''[[Mutt and Jeff]]'') got $3,000 a week and was constantly marrying French countesses", Capp said. "I decided that was for me."

In early 1932, Capp hitchhiked to [[New York City]]. He lived in "airless rat holes" in [[Greenwich Village]] and turned out advertising strips at $2 each while scouring the city hunting for jobs. He eventually found work at the [[Associated Press]] when he was 23 years old. By March 1932, Capp was drawing ''Colonel Gilfeather'', a single-panel, AP-owned property created in 1930 by [[Richard Dorgan|Dick Dorgan]]. Capp changed the focus and title to ''Mister Gilfeather'' but soon grew to hate the feature. He left the Associated Press in September 1932. Before leaving, he met [[Milton Caniff]] and the two became lifelong friends. Capp moved to [[Boston]] and married Catherine Wingate Cameron, whom he had met earlier in art class. She died in 2006 at the age of 96.

Leaving his new wife with her parents in [[Amesbury, Massachusetts]], he subsequently returned to New York in 1933, in the midst of the [[Great Depression]]. "I was 23, I carried a mass of drawings, and I had nearly five dollars in my pocket. People were sleeping in alleys then, willing to work at anything." There he met [[Ham Fisher]], who hired him to ghost on ''[[Joe Palooka]]''. During one of Fisher's extended vacations, Capp's ''Joe Palooka'' [[story arc]] introduced a stupid, coarse, oafish mountaineer named "Big Leviticus", a crude [[prototype]]. (Leviticus was much closer to Capp's later villains Lem and Luke Scragg than to the much more appealing and innocent [[Li'l Abner]].)

Also during this period, Capp was working at night on samples for the strip that eventually became ''Li'l Abner''. He based his cast of characters on the authentic mountain-dwellers he met while hitchhiking through rural [[West Virginia]] and the [[Cumberland Valley]] as a teenager. (This was years before the [[Tennessee Valley Authority]] Act brought basic utilities such as electricity and running water to the region.) Leaving ''Joe Palooka'', Capp sold ''Li'l Abner'' to [[United Feature Syndicate]] (later known as [[United Media]]). The feature was launched on Monday, August 13, 1934, in eight North American newspapers—including the ''[[New York Mirror]]''—and was an immediate success. Alfred G. Caplin eventually became "Al Capp" because the syndicate felt the original would not fit in a cartoon frame.<ref>A review of the 1934 strips reveals that the earliest strips were signed "Al G. Cap", which became "Al G. Capp" and, finally, "Al Capp". However, the middle initial ("Al G. Capp") appeared from time to time during the first year.</ref> Capp had his name changed legally in 1949.

His younger brother, [[Elliot Caplin]], also became a comic strip writer, best known for co-creating the soap opera strip ''[[The Heart of Juliet Jones]]'' with artist [[Stan Drake]] and conceiving the comic strip character ''[[Broom-Hilda]]'' with cartoonist [[Russell Myers]]. Elliot also authored several off-Broadway plays, including ''A Nickel for Picasso'' (1981), which was based on and dedicated to his mother and his famous brother.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1987/11/08/nyregion/theater-a-new-play-explores-fantasies-of-a-man-at-60.html|title=THEATER; A NEW PLAY EXPLORES FANTASIES OF A MAN AT 60 (Published 1987)|first=Alvin|last=Klein|newspaper=The New York Times|date=November 8, 1987|access-date=October 29, 2020}}</ref>

==''Li'l Abner''==
{{Main|Li'l Abner}}
What began as a [[hillbilly]] [[burlesque]] soon evolved into one of the most imaginative, popular, and well-drawn strips of the twentieth century. Featuring vividly outlandish characters, bizarre situations, and equal parts suspense, [[slapstick]], [[irony]], satire, [[black humor]], and biting [[social commentary]], ''Li'l Abner'' is considered a classic of the genre. The comic strip stars Li'l Abner Yokum—the simple-minded, loutish but good-natured, and eternally innocent hayseed who lives with his parents—scrawny but superhuman Mammy Yokum, and shiftless, childlike Pappy Yokum.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Berger |first1=Arthur Asa |title=Li'l Abner: A Study in American Satire |date=1969 |publisher=Twayne Publishers |location=New York, NY}}</ref>

"Yokum" was a combination of ''yokel'' and ''hokum'', although Capp established a deeper meaning for the name during a series of visits around 1965–1970 with comics historians George E. Turner and Michael H. Price: {{Blockquote|It's phonetic [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]]—that's what it is, all right—and that's what I was getting at with the name Yokum, more so than any attempt to sound ''hickish''. That was a fortunate coincidence, of course, that the name should pack a backwoods connotation. But it's a godly conceit, really, playing off a godly name—''[[Joachim]]'' means 'God's determination', something like that—that also happens to have a rustic ring to it.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.comicmix.com/2007/11/11/li-l-abner-lost-in-hollywood-shuffle-by-michael-h-price/|title=Li'l Abner Lost in Hollywood, by Michael H. Price|date=November 11, 2007|website=ComicMix|access-date=2020-10-29}}</ref>}}

The Yokums live in the backwater hamlet of [[Dogpatch]], [[Kentucky]]. Described by its creator as "an average stone-age community", Dogpatch mostly consists of hopelessly ramshackle log cabins, pine trees, "tarnip" fields, and "hawg" wallows. Whatever energy Abner had went into evading the marital goals of Daisy Mae Scragg, his sexy, well-endowed, but virtuous girlfriend, until Capp finally gave in to reader pressure and allowed the couple to marry. This newsworthy event made the cover of ''Life'' on March 31, 1952.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Capp |first1=Al |title='It's Hideously True': Creator of Li'l Abner Tells Why His Hero Is (Sob!) Wed |journal=[[Life Magazine]] |date=31 March 1952 |volume=32 |issue=13 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SFUEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA108 |access-date=6 March 2022}}</ref>

Capp peopled his comic strip with an assortment of memorable characters, including Marryin' Sam, Hairless Joe, Lonesome Polecat, Evil-Eye Fleegle, General Bullmoose, Lena the Hyena, Senator Jack S. Phogbound (Capp's caricature of the anti-[[New Deal]] [[Dixiecrats]]), the ''(shudder!)'' Scraggs, Available Jones, Nightmare Alice, Earthquake McGoon, and a host of others. Especially notable, certainly from a [[G.I.]] point of view, are the beautiful, full-figured women such as Daisy Mae, Wolf Gal, Stupefyin' Jones, and Moonbeam McSwine (a caricature of his wife Catherine, aside from the dirt), all of whom found their way onto the [[nose art|painted noses]] of [[bomber aircraft|bomber planes]] during World War II and the Korean War. Perhaps Capp's most popular creations were the [[Shmoo]]s, creatures whose incredible usefulness and generous nature made them a threat to civilization as we know it.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://main.nc.us/books/books.cgi?theshortlife&happytimesoftheshmoo |first=KNS |last=Maré |website=Mountain Area Information Network |year=2002 |title=''The Short Life & Happy Times of the Shmoo'' by Al Capp; with a foreword by Harlan Ellison |accessdate=2012-12-10 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120617090532/http://main.nc.us/books/books.cgi?theshortlife&happytimesoftheshmoo |archive-date=2012-06-17 }}</ref>

Another famous character was [[Joe Btfsplk]], who wants to be a loving friend but is "the world's worst jinx", bringing bad luck to all those nearby. Btfsplk (his name is "pronounced" by simply blowing a "raspberry" or [[Bronx cheer (gesture)|Bronx cheer]]) always has an iconic dark cloud over his head.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Raymond |first1=Ed |date=November 1, 2012 |title=The Resurrection of Al Capp's Joe Btfsplk |url=https://duluthreader.com/articles/2012/11/02/101028-the-resurrection-of-al-capps-joe-btfsplk |website=Duluth Reader |publisher=Reader Weekly, Inc.}}</ref>

Dogpatch residents regularly combat the likes of city slickers, business tycoons, government officials, and intellectuals with their homespun simplicity. Situations often take the characters to other destinations, including New York City, Washington, D.C., Hollywood, tropical islands, the moon, Mars, and some purely fanciful worlds of Capp's invention, including El Passionato, Kigmyland, The Republic of Crumbumbo, Skunk Hollow, The Valley of the Shmoon, Planets Pincus Number 2 and 7, and a miserable frozen wasteland known as [[Lower Slobbovia]], a pointedly political satire of backward nations and foreign diplomacy that remains a contemporary reference.<ref>{{cite news |last=Baker |first=Russell |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1996/01/13/opinion/observer-hillary-in-lower-slobbovia.html |title=Hillary in Lower Slobbovia – ''NY Times'' Jan. 13, 1996 |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |date=January 13, 1996 |access-date=2009-08-29 }}</ref>

According to cultural historian Anthony Harkins: {{blockquote|Indeed, ''Li'l Abner'' incorporates such a panoply of characters and ideas that it defies summary. Yet though Capp's storylines often wandered far afield, his hillbilly setting remained a central touchstone, serving both as a microcosm and a distorting carnival mirror of broader American society.<ref>''Hillbilly: A Cultural History of an American Icon'' by Anthony Harkins (2004, Oxford Univ. Press) pp. 124–136</ref>}}

The strip's popularity grew from an original eight papers to eventually more than 900. At its peak, ''Li'l Abner'' was estimated to have been read daily in the United States by 60 to 70 million people (the U.S. population at the time was only 180 million), with adult readers far outnumbering children. Many communities, high schools, and colleges staged [[Sadie Hawkins dance]]s patterned after the similar annual event in the strip.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Parkin|first=Katharine|date=2021|title=Sadie Hawkins in American Life, 1937-1957|journal=Journal of Family History|volume=46|issue=4|pages=391–413|doi=10.1177/03631990211021153|s2cid=237456812}}</ref>

Li'l Abner has one odd design quirk that has puzzled readers for decades: the part in his hair always faces the viewer, no matter which direction Abner is facing. In response to the question "Which side does Abner part his hair on?", Capp would answer: "Both." Capp said he finally found the right "look" for Li'l Abner with [[Henry Fonda]]'s character Dave Tolliver in ''[[The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1936 film)|The Trail of the Lonesome Pine]]'' (1936).<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U99JAAAAMAAJ&q=fonda+%22li'l+abner%22|title=Hollywood Speaks: An Oral History|first=Mike|last=Steen|date=October 29, 1974|publisher=Putnam|isbn=9780399111624|access-date=2020-10-29 |via=Google Books}}</ref>

In later years, Capp always claimed to have effectively created the [[miniskirt]], when he first put one on Daisy Mae in the 1930s.<ref>{{Cite web |last=VanHaren |first=Roger |date=2016-02-13 |title=Remembering the days of Dogpatch |url=https://www.wiscnews.com/opinion/remembering-the-days-of-dogpatch/article_4aed5b23-3535-5fc6-a739-b68404ff5da2.html |access-date=2022-11-09 |website=WiscNews |language=en}}</ref>

==Parodies, toppers, and alternate strips==
''Li'l Abner'' also features a comic strip-within-the-strip: ''[[Fearless Fosdick]]'' is a parody of [[Chester Gould]]'s ''[[Dick Tracy]]''. It first appeared in 1942, and it proved so popular that it ran intermittently during the next 35 years. Gould was parodied personally in the series as cartoonist "Lester Gooch"—the diminutive, much-harassed and occasionally deranged "creator" of Fosdick. The style of the ''Fosdick'' sequences closely mimicks ''Tracy'', including the urban setting, the outrageous villains, the galloping [[mortality rate]], the crosshatched shadows, and even the lettering style. In 1952, Fosdick was the star of his own short-lived [[puppet show]] on [[NBC]], featuring the Mary Chase [[marionette]]s.

Besides ''Dick Tracy'', Capp parodied many other comic strips in ''Li'l Abner''—including ''[[Steve Canyon]]'', ''[[Superman (comic strip)|Superman]]'' (at least twice; first as "Jack Jawbreaker" in 1947, and again in 1966 as "Chickensouperman"), ''[[Mary Worth]]'' as "Mary Worm", ''[[Peanuts]]'' (in 1968, with "Peewee", a parody of Charlie Brown, and "Croopy", a parody of [[Snoopy]], drawn by "Bedley Damp", a parody of [[Charles Schulz]]), ''[[Rex Morgan, M.D.]]'', ''[[Little Annie Rooney]]'', and ''[[Little Orphan Annie]]'' (in which Punjab became "Punjbag", an oleaginous slob). ''Fearless Fosdick''—and Capp's other spoofs such as "Little Fanny Gooney" (1952) and "Jack Jawbreaker"—were almost certainly an early inspiration for [[Harvey Kurtzman]]'s ''[[Mad Magazine]]'', which began in 1952 as a comic book that specifically parodied other comics in the same distinctive style and subversive manner.

Capp also lampooned popular recording idols of the day, such as [[Elvis Presley]] ("Hawg McCall", 1957), [[Liberace]] ("Loverboynik", 1956), [[the Beatles]] ("the Beasties", 1964)—and in 1944, [[Frank Sinatra]]. "Sinatra was the first great public figure I ever wrote about," Capp once said. "I called him 'Hal Fascinatra.' I remember my news syndicate was so worried about what his reaction might be, and we were all surprised when he telephoned and told me how thrilled he was with it. He always made it a point to send me champagne whenever he happened to see me in a restaurant{{nbsp}}..." (from ''Frank Sinatra, My Father'' by [[Nancy Sinatra]], 1985). On the other hand, Liberace was "cut to the quick" over Loverboynik, according to Capp, and even threatened legal action—as would [[Joan Baez]] later, over "Joanie Phoanie" in 1967.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.upi.com/topic/Al_Capp/|title=Al Capp News &#124; Wiki - UPI.com|website=UPI|access-date=October 29, 2020}}</ref>

Capp was just as likely to parody himself; his self-caricature made frequent, tongue-in-cheek appearances in ''Li'l Abner''.<ref>''Anything Can Happen in a Comic Strip: Centennial Reflections on an American Art Form'' by [[M. Thomas Inge]] (1995) University Press of Mississippi, pp. 18–19</ref> The gag was often at his own expense, as in the above 1951 sequence showing Capp's interaction with "fans" (see excerpt), or in his 1955 [[Disneyland Park (Anaheim)|Disneyland]] parody, "Hal Yappland". Just about anything could be a target for Capp's satire—in one storyline Li'l Abner is revealed to be the [[Transitional fossil#Missing links|missing link]] between ape and man. In another, the search is on in Dogpatch for a pair of missing socks knitted by the first president of the United States.
 
In addition to creating ''Li'l Abner'', Capp also co-created two other newspaper strips: ''[[Abbie an' Slats]]'' with magazine illustrator [[Raeburn van Buren]] in 1937, and ''[[Long Sam]]'' with cartoonist [[Bob Lubbers]] in 1954, as well as the Sunday "[[topper (comic strip)|topper]]" strips ''Washable Jones'', ''Small Fry'' (a.k.a. ''Small Change''), and ''Advice fo' Chillun''.

==Critical recognition==
According to comics historian [[Coulton Waugh]], a 1947 poll of newspaper readers who claimed they ignored the comics page altogether revealed that many confessed to making a single exception: ''Li'l Abner''. "When ''Li'l Abner'' made its debut in 1934, the vast majority of comic strips were designed chiefly to amuse or thrill their readers. Capp turned that world upside-down by routinely injecting politics and social commentary into ''Li'l Abner''. The strip was the first to regularly introduce characters and story lines having nothing to do with the nominal stars of the strip. The technique—as invigorating as it was unorthodox—was later adopted by cartoonists such as [[Walt Kelly]] [''[[Pogo (comics)|Pogo]]''] and [[Garry Trudeau]] [''[[Doonesbury]]'']", wrote comic strip historian [[Rick Marschall]]. According to Marschall, ''Li'l Abner'' gradually evolved into a broad satire of [[human nature]]. In his book ''America's Great Comic Strip Artists'' (1989), Marschall's analysis revealed a decidedly [[Misanthropy|misanthropic]] subtext.

Over the years, ''Li'l Abner'' has been adapted to radio, [[Character animation|animated cartoons]], stage production, motion pictures, and television. Capp has been compared, at various times, to Mark Twain, [[Dostoevski]], [[Jonathan Swift]], [[Lawrence Sterne]], and [[Rabelais]].<ref>Brown, Rodger, "Dogpatch USA: The Road to Hokum" article, ''Southern Changes: The Journal of the Southern Regional Council'', Vol. 15, No. 3, 1993, pp. 18–26</ref> Fans of the strip ranged from novelist [[John Steinbeck]]—who called Capp "possibly the best writer in the world today" in 1953 and even earnestly recommended him for the Nobel Prize in literature—to media critic and theorist [[Marshall McLuhan]], who considered Capp "the only robust satirical force in American life". [[John Updike]], comparing Abner to a "hillbilly [[Candide]]", added that the strip's "richness of social and philosophical commentary approached the [[Voltairean]]".<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.city-journal.org/html/exile-dogpatch-13284.html|title=Exile in Dogpatch|date=December 23, 2015|website=City Journal|access-date=October 29, 2020}}</ref> [[Charlie Chaplin]], [[William F. Buckley]], [[Al Hirschfeld]], [[Harpo Marx]], [[Russ Meyer]], [[John Kenneth Galbraith]], [[Ralph Bakshi]], [[Shel Silverstein]], [[Hugh Downs]], [[Gene Shalit]], [[Frank Cho]], [[Daniel Clowes]],<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.cbr.com/ape-spotlight-on-daniel-clowes/|title=APE: Spotlight on Daniel Clowes|date=October 18, 2010|website=CBR|access-date=October 29, 2020}}</ref> and (reportedly) even [[Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom|Queen Elizabeth]] have confessed to being fans of ''Li'l Abner''.

''Li'l Abner'' was also the subject of the first book-length scholarly assessment of an American comic strip ever published. ''Li'l Abner: A Study in American Satire'' by [[Arthur Asa Berger]] (Twayne, 1969) contained serious analyses of Capp's narrative technique, his use of dialogue, self-caricature, and grotesquerie, the place of ''Li'l Abner'' in American satire, and the significance of social criticism and the graphic image. "One of the few strips ever taken seriously by students of American culture," wrote Professor Berger, "''Li'l Abner'' is worth studying ... because of Capp's imagination and artistry, and because of the strip's very obvious social relevance." It was reprinted by the [[University Press of Mississippi]] in 1994.

==The 1940s and 1950s==
[[File:Cappbio46.jpg|right|thumb|300px|Al Capp drew his own autobiography, the 34-page ''Al Capp by Li'l Abner'' (1946), that was distributed to returning World War II amputee veterans.]]
During World War II and for many years afterward, Capp worked tirelessly going to hospitals to entertain patients, especially to cheer recent amputees and explain to them that the loss of a limb did not mean an end to a happy and productive life. Making no secret of his own disability, Capp openly joked about his [[prosthetic]] leg his whole life. In 1946, Capp created a special full-color comic book, ''Al Capp by Li'l Abner'', to be distributed by the [[Red Cross]] to encourage the thousands of amputee veterans returning from the war. Capp also was involved with the [[Elizabeth Kenny|Sister Kenny Foundation]], which pioneered new treatments for [[polio]] in the 1940s. Serving in his capacity as honorary chairman, Capp made public appearances on its behalf for years, contributed free artwork for its annual fundraising appeals, and entertained disabled and [[paraplegic]] children in children's hospitals with inspirational pep talks, humorous stories, and sketches.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.lettersofnote.com/2010/05/dont-keep-remembering-what-youve-lost.html|title=Letters of Note: Dear Chip... (Columbus Hospital, 28 May 1964)|access-date=October 29, 2020|archive-date=October 15, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181015153014/http://www.lettersofnote.com/2010/05/dont-keep-remembering-what-youve-lost.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>

In 1940, an [[RKO Pictures|RKO]] [[Li'l Abner (1940 film)|movie adaptation]] starred Granville Owen (later known as [[Jeff York]]) as Li'l Abner, with [[Buster Keaton]] taking the role of Lonesome Polecat, and featuring a title song with lyrics by [[Milton Berle]]. A successful musical comedy adaptation of the strip opened on [[Broadway theatre|Broadway]] at the St. James Theater on November 15, 1956, and had a long run of 693 performances, followed by a nationwide tour. The [[Li'l Abner (musical)|stage musical]], with music and lyrics by [[Gene de Paul]] and [[Johnny Mercer]], was adapted into a [[Technicolor]] [[Li'l Abner (1959 film)|motion picture]] at [[Paramount Pictures|Paramount]] in 1959 by producer [[Norman Panama]] and director [[Melvin Frank]], with a score by [[Nelson Riddle]]. Several performers repeated their Broadway roles in the film, most memorably [[Julie Newmar]] as Stupefyin' Jones and [[Stubby Kaye]] as Marryin' Sam.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1959/12/12/archives/the-screen-lil-abner.html|title=The Screen: 'Li'l Abner' (Published 1959)|first=Bosley|last=Crowther|newspaper=The New York Times|date=December 12, 1959|access-date=October 29, 2020}}</ref>

Other highlights of that decade included the 1942 debut of Fearless Fosdick as Abner's "ideel" (hero); the 1946 Lena the Hyena Contest, in which a hideous Lower Slobbovian gal was ultimately revealed in the harrowing winning entry (as judged by Frank Sinatra, [[Boris Karloff]], and [[Salvador Dalí]]) drawn by noted cartoonist [[Basil Wolverton]]; and an ill-fated Sunday parody of ''[[Gone with the Wind (novel)|Gone With the Wind]]'' that aroused anger and legal threats from author [[Margaret Mitchell]], and led to a printed apology within the strip. In October 1947, Li'l Abner met Rockwell P. Squeezeblood, head of the abusive and corrupt Squeezeblood Comic Strip Syndicate. The resulting sequence, "Jack Jawbreaker Fights Crime!", was a devastating satire of [[Jerry Siegel]] and [[Joe Shuster]]'s notorious exploitation by [[DC Comics]] over ''[[Superman]]''. It was later reprinted in ''The World of Li'l Abner'' (1953). (Siegel and Shuster had earlier poked fun at Capp in a ''Superman'' story in ''[[Action Comics]] #55'', December 1942, in which a cartoonist named "Al Hatt" invents a comic strip featuring the hillbilly "Tiny Rufe".)

In 1947, Capp earned a ''[[Newsweek]]'' cover story. That same year the ''[[New Yorker magazine|New Yorker's]]'' profile on him was so long that it ran in consecutive issues. In 1948, Capp reached a creative peak with the introduction of the [[Shmoo]]s, lovable and innocent fantasy creatures who reproduced at amazing speed and brought so many benefits that, ironically, the world economy was endangered. The much-copied storyline was a [[parable]] that was [[metaphor]]ically interpreted in many different ways at the outset of the [[Cold War]].

Following his close friend Milton Caniff's lead (with ''[[Steve Canyon]]''), Capp had recently fought a successful battle with the syndicate to gain complete ownership of his feature when the Shmoos debuted. As a result, he reaped enormous financial rewards from the unexpected (and almost unprecedented) merchandising phenomenon that followed. As in the strip, Shmoos suddenly appeared to be everywhere in 1949 and 1950—including a ''Time'' cover story. A paperback collection of the original sequence, ''The Life and Times of the Shmoo'', became a bestseller for [[Simon & Schuster]]. Shmoo dolls, clocks, watches, jewelry, earmuffs, wallpaper, fishing lures, air fresheners, soap, ice cream, balloons, ashtrays, comic books, records, sheet music, toys, games, [[Halloween]] masks, salt and pepper shakers, decals, pinbacks, tumblers, coin banks, greeting cards, planters, neckties, suspenders, belts, curtains, fountain pens, and other Shmoo paraphernalia were produced. A garment factory in [[Baltimore]] turned out a whole line of Shmoo apparel, including "Shmooveralls". The original sequence and its 1959 sequel ''The Return of the Shmoo'' have been collected in print many times since, most recently in 2011, always to high sales figures. The Shmoos later had their own animated television series.

Capp followed this success with other [[allegory|allegorical]] fantasy critters, including the aboriginal and [[Self-defeating personality disorder|masochistic]] "Kigmies", who craved abuse (a story that began as a veiled comment on racial and religious oppression), the dreaded "Nogoodniks" (or ''bad'' shmoos), and the irresistible "Bald Iggle", a guileless creature whose sad-eyed countenance compelled involuntary truthfulness—with predictably disastrous results.

''Li'l Abner'' was [[censorship|censored]] for the first time, but not the last, in September 1947 and was pulled from papers by [[Scripps-Howard]]. The controversy, as reported in ''Time'', centered on Capp's portrayal of the [[United States Senate]]. Edward Leech of Scripps said, "We don't think it is good editing or sound citizenship to picture the Senate as an assemblage of freaks and crooks&nbsp;... boobs and undesirables."<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,804275,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071023081224/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,804275,00.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=October 23, 2007|title=Tain't Funny – TIME|access-date=October 29, 2020}}</ref> Capp criticized [[Senator Joseph McCarthy]] in 1954, calling him a "poet". "He uses [[poetic license]] to try to create the beautifully ordered world of good guys and bad guys that he wants," said Capp. "He seems at his best when terrifying the helpless and naïve."<ref>"Poet: Cartoonist Al Capp said in New York{{nbsp}}..." quoted in ''The Argus'', May 10, 1954</ref>

Capp received the [[National Cartoonists Society]]'s [[National Cartoonists Society#Billy DeBeck Memorial Award|Billy DeBeck Memorial Award]] in 1947 for Cartoonist of the Year. (When the award name was changed in 1954, Capp also retroactively received a [[National Cartoonists Society#Reuben Award|Reuben]] statuette.) He was an outspoken pioneer in favor of diversifying the NCS by admitting women cartoonists. Originally, the Society had disallowed female members. Capp briefly resigned his membership in 1949 to protest their refusal of admission to [[Hilda Terry]], creator of the comic strip ''[[Teena (comic strip)|Teena]]''. According to Tom Roberts, author of ''[[Alex Raymond]]: His Life and Art'' (2007), Capp delivered a stirring speech that was instrumental in changing those rules. The NCS finally accepted female members the following year. In December 1952, Capp published an article in ''Real'' magazine entitled "The REAL Powers in America" that further challenged the conventional attitudes of the day: "The real powers in America are ''women''—the wives and sweethearts behind the masculine dummies...."

Highlights of the 1950s included the much-heralded marriage of Abner and Daisy Mae in 1952, the birth of their son "Honest Abe" Yokum in 1953, and in 1954 the introduction of Abner's enormous, long-lost kid brother Tiny Yokum, who filled Abner's place as a bachelor in the annual Sadie Hawkins Day race. In 1952, Capp and his characters graced the covers of both ''Life'' and ''[[TV Guide]]''. The year 1956 saw the debut of Bald Iggle, considered by some ''Abner'' enthusiasts to be the creative high point of the strip, as well as Mammy's revelatory encounter with the "Square Eyes" Family—Capp's thinly-veiled appeal for racial tolerance. (This [[fable]]-like story was collected into an educational comic book called ''Mammy Yokum and the Great Dogpatch Mystery!'' and distributed by the [[Anti-Defamation League]] of [[B'nai B'rith]] later that year.) Two years later, Capp's studio issued ''[[Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story]]'', a biographical comic book distributed by the [[Fellowship of Reconciliation]].<ref name=Grio>Love, David A. [http://thegrio.com/2011/02/02/eygptians-draw-inspiration-from-civil-rights-movement-comic-book/ "Egyptians draw inspiration from Civil Rights Movement comic book."] ''[[The Grio]]'' (February 2, 2011).</ref><ref>[http://comicon.com/pulse/index.php/2010/03/07/al-capps-martin-luther-king-comic/ "Al Capp's Martin Luther King Comic,"] Comicon.com's ''The Pulse'' (March 7, 2010). {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120322210437/http://comicon.com/pulse/index.php/2010/03/07/al-capps-martin-luther-king-comic/ |date=March 22, 2012}}</ref>

Often, Capp had parodied corporate greed—pork tycoon J. Roaringham Fatback had figured prominently in wiping out the Shmoos. But in 1952, when [[General Motors]] president [[Charles Erwin Wilson|Charles E. Wilson]], nominated for a cabinet post, told [[United States Congress|Congress]] "...what was good for the country was good for General Motors and vice versa", he inspired one of Capp's greatest satires—the introduction of General Bullmoose, the robust, ruthless, and ageless business tycoon. The blustering Bullmoose, who seemed to own and control nearly everything, justified his far-reaching and mercenary excesses by saying "What's good for General Bullmoose is good for ''the USA!''" Bullmoose's corrupt interests were often pitted against those of the pathetic Lower Slobbovians in a classic mismatch of "haves" versus "have-nots". This character, along with the Shmoos, helped cement Capp's favor with the [[Left-wing politics|Left]], and increased their outrage a decade later when Capp, a former [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] liberal, switched targets. Nonetheless, General Bullmoose continued to appear, undaunted and unredeemed, during the strip's final right-wing phase and into the 1970s.

==Feud with Ham Fisher==
After Capp quit his ghosting job on Ham Fisher's ''Joe Palooka'' in 1934 to launch his own strip, Fisher badmouthed him to colleagues and editors, claiming that Capp had "stolen" his idea. For years, Fisher brought the characters back to his strip, billing them as "The ORIGINAL Hillbilly Characters" and advising readers not to be "fooled by imitations". (In fact, Fisher's brutish hillbilly character—Big Leviticus, created by Capp in Fisher's absence—bore little resemblance to Li'l Abner.) According to a November 1950 ''Time'' article, "Capp parted from Fisher with a definite impression, (to put it mildly) that he had been underpaid and unappreciated. Fisher, a man of Roman self esteem, considered Capp an ingrate and a whippersnapper, and watched his rise to fame with unfeigned horror."<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,813720-7,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081006105827/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,813720-7,00.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=October 6, 2008|title=Die Monstersinger – TIME|access-date=October 29, 2020}}</ref>

"Fisher repeatedly brought Leviticus and his clan back, claiming their primacy as comics' first hillbilly family&nbsp;– but he was missing the point. It wasn't the setting that made Capp's strip such a huge success. It was Capp's finely tuned sense of the absurd, his ability to milk an outrageous situation for every laugh in it and then, impossibly, to squeeze even more laughs from it, that found such favor with the public," (from [[Don Markstein]]'s ''[[Toonopedia]]'').<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.toonopedia.com/abner.htm|title=Don Markstein's Toonopedia: Li'l Abner|website=www.toonopedia.com|access-date=October 29, 2020}}</ref>

The Capp-Fisher feud was well known in cartooning circles, and it grew more personal as Capp's strip eclipsed ''Joe Palooka'' in popularity. Fisher hired away Capp's top assistant, [[Moe Leff]]. After Fisher underwent [[plastic surgery]], Capp included a racehorse in ''Li'l Abner'' named "Ham's Nose-Bob". In 1950, Capp introduced a cartoonist character named "Happy Vermin"—a caricature of Fisher—who hired Abner to draw his comic strip in a dimly lit closet (after sacking his previous "temporary" assistant of 20 years, who had been cut off from all his friends in the process). Instead of using Vermin's tired characters, Abner inventively peopled the strip with hillbillies. A bighearted Vermin told his slaving assistant: "I'm proud of having created these characters!! They'll make millions for me!! And if they do&nbsp;– I'll get ''you'' a new light bulb!!"

Traveling in the same social circles, the two men engaged in a 20-year mutual vendetta, as described by the ''[[New York Daily News]]'' in 1998: "They crossed paths often, in the midtown watering holes and at National Cartoonists Society banquets, and the city's gossip columns were full of their snarling public donnybrooks."<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/1998/09/18/1998-09-18_spitting_on_pictures_funny_p.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091008035428/http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/1998/09/18/1998-09-18_spitting_on_pictures_funny_p.html|url-status=dead|title=Maeder, Jay. "Spitting on Pictures Funny Papers, 1955", ''Daily News'', September 18, 1998.|website=[[New York Daily News]]|archive-date=October 8, 2009|access-date=October 29, 2020}}</ref> In 1950, Capp wrote a nasty article for ''[[The Atlantic]]'', entitled "I Remember Monster". The article recounted Capp's days working for an unnamed "benefactor" with a miserly, swinish personality, who Capp claimed was a never-ending source of inspiration when it came time to create a new unregenerate villain for his comic strip. The thinly-veiled boss was understood to be Ham Fisher.

Fisher retaliated, doctoring photostats of ''Li'l Abner'' and falsely accusing Capp of sneaking obscenities into his comic strip. Fisher submitted examples of ''Li'l Abner'' to Capp's syndicate and to the New York courts, in which Fisher had identified pornographic images that were hidden in the background art. However, the X-rated material had been drawn there by Fisher. Capp was able to refute the accusation by simply showing the original artwork.

In 1954, when Capp was applying for a Boston television license, the [[Federal Communications Commission]] (FCC) received an anonymous packet of pornographic ''Li'l Abner'' drawings. The National Cartoonists Society (NCS) convened an ethics hearing, and Fisher was expelled for the forgery from the same organization that he had helped found; Fisher's scheme had backfired in spectacular fashion. Around the same time, his mansion in Wisconsin was destroyed by a storm. On December 27, 1955, Fisher committed suicide in his studio. The feud and Fisher's suicide were used as the basis for a lurid, highly fictionalized murder mystery, ''Strip for Murder'' by [[Max Allan Collins]].

Another "feud" seemed to be looming when, in one run of Sunday strips in 1957, Capp lampooned the comic strip ''[[Mary Worth]]'' as "Mary Worm". The title character was depicted as a nosy, interfering busybody. [[Allen Saunders]], the creator of the ''Mary Worth'' strip, returned Capp's fire with the introduction of the character "Hal Rapp", a foul-tempered, ill-mannered, and (ironically, as Capp was a [[teetotaler]]<ref>{{cite magazine|last1=Maloney |first1=Russell |title=Li'l Abner's Capp: His Characters are America's Favorite Hillbillies |magazine=Life |date=June 24, 1946 |volume=20 |issue=25 |page=76 |quote=He is an unostentatious teetotaler, willing to hold a drink in his hand to keep his host from asking questions. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LkoEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA76}}</ref><ref>Kitchen, Denis, and Michael Schumacher, ''Al Capp: A Life to the Contrary'' (2013) [[Bloomsbury Publishing]], p.40</ref>) inebriated cartoonist. Later, the "feud" was revealed to be a collaborative hoax that Capp and his longtime pal Saunders had cooked up together. The Capp-Saunders "feud" fooled both editors and readers, generated plenty of free publicity for both strips—and Capp and Saunders had a good laugh when all was revealed.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,893653,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071023075814/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,893653,00.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=October 23, 2007|title=Rap for Capp – TIME|access-date=October 29, 2020}}</ref>

==Production methods==
Like many cartoonists, Capp made extensive use of assistants (notably Andy Amato, Harvey Curtis, Walter Johnson, and [[Frank Frazetta]]). During the extended peak of the strip, the workload grew to include advertising, merchandising, promotional work, public service comics, and other specialty work—in addition to the regular six dailies and one [[Sunday strip]] per week. From the early 1940s to the late 1950s, there were scores of Sunday strip-style magazine ads for [[Cream of Wheat]] using the ''Abner'' characters, and in the 1950s, Fearless Fosdick became a spokesman for [[Wildroot Cream-Oil]] hair tonic in a series of daily strip-style print ads. The characters also sold chainsaws, underwear, ties, detergent, candy, soft drinks—including a licensed version of Capp's moonshine creation, [[Kickapoo Joy Juice]]—and [[General Electric]] and [[Procter & Gamble]] products, all requiring special artwork.

No matter how much help he had, Capp insisted on his drawing and inking the characters' faces and hands—especially of Abner and Daisy Mae—and his distinctive touch is often discernible. "He had ''the touch,''" Frazetta said of Capp in 2008. "He knew how to take an otherwise ordinary drawing and really make it ''pop''. I'll never knock his talent."

As is usual with collaborative efforts in comic strips, his name was the only one credited— although, sensitive to his own experience working on ''Joe Palooka'', Capp frequently drew attention to his assistants in interviews and publicity pieces. A 1950 cover story in ''Time'' even included photographs of two of his employees, whose roles in the production were detailed by Capp. Ironically, this highly irregular policy (along with the subsequent fame of Frank Frazetta) has led to the misconception that his strip was "ghosted" by other hands. The production of ''Li'l Abner'' has been well documented, however. In point of fact, Capp maintained creative control over every stage of production for virtually the entire run of the strip. Capp originated the stories, wrote the dialogue, designed the major characters, rough penciled the preliminary staging and action of each panel, oversaw the finished pencils, and drew and inked the hands and faces of the characters. Frazetta authority David Winiewicz described the everyday working mode of operation in ''Li'l Abner Dailies: 1954 Volume 20'' (Kitchen Sink, 1994):

{{Blockquote|text=By the time Frazetta began working on the strip, the work of producing ''Li'l Abner'' was too much for one person. Capp had a group of assistants who he taught to reproduce his distinctive individual style, working under his direct supervision. Actual production of the strip began with a rough layout in pencil done by Al Capp, from Capp's script or a co-authored script, and the page passed to Andy Amato and Walter Johnson. Amato inked the figures, then Johnson added backgrounds and any mechanical objects. Harvey Curtis was responsible for the lettering and also shared inking duties with Amato&nbsp;... To make sure that the work stayed true to his style, the final touches were added by Capp himself. He enjoyed adding a distinctive glint to an eye or an idiosyncratic contortion to a character's face. The finished strip was truly an ensemble effort, a skillful blending of talents.}}

There was also a separate line of comic book titles published by the Caplin family-owned [[Toby Press]], including ''Shmoo Comics'' featuring Washable Jones. Cartoonist [[Mell Lazarus]], creator of ''[[Miss Peach]]'' and ''[[Momma]]'', wrote a comic novel in 1963 entitled ''The Boss Is Crazy, Too'' which was partly inspired by his apprenticeship days working with Capp and his brother Elliot at Toby. In a seminar at the [[Charles Schulz Museum]] on November 8, 2008, Lazarus called his experience at Toby "the five funniest years of my life". Lazarus went on to cite Capp as one of the "four essentials" in the field of newspaper cartoonists, along with Walt Kelly, [[Charles Schulz]], and [[Milton Caniff]].

Capp detailed his approach to writing and drawing the stories in an instructional course book for the [[Famous Artists School]], beginning in 1956. In 1959, Capp recorded and released an album for [[Folkways Records]] (now owned by the [[Smithsonian]]) on which he identified and described "The Mechanics of the Comic Strip".<ref>[http://www.folkways.si.edu/albumdetails.aspx?itemid=1284 An Interview with Al Capp – Smithsonian Folkways]</ref>

Frazetta, later famous as a [[fantasy art]]ist, assisted on the strip from 1954 to December 1961. Fascinated by Frazetta's abilities, Capp initially gave him a free hand in an extended daily sequence (about a biker named "Frankie", a caricature of Frazetta) to experiment with the basic look of the strip by adding a bit more realism and detail (particularly to the inking). After editors complained about the stylistic changes, the strip's previous look was restored. During most of his tenure with Capp, Frazetta's primary responsibility—along with various specialty art, such as a series of ''Li'l Abner'' greeting cards—was tight-penciling the Sunday pages from studio roughs. This work was collected by [[Dark Horse Comics]] in a four-volume hardcover series entitled ''Al Capp's Li'l Abner: The Frazetta Years''. In 1961, Capp, complaining of declining revenue, wanted to have Frazetta continue with a 50% pay cut. "[Capp] said he would cut the salary in half. Goodbye. That was that. ''I'' said goodbye," (from ''Frazetta: Painting with Fire''). However, Frazetta returned briefly a few years later to draw a public service comic book called ''Li'l Abner and the Creatures from Drop-Outer Space'', distributed by the [[Job Corps]] in 1965.

==Personality==
Capp, Milton Caniff (''[[Terry and the Pirates (comic strip)|Terry and the Pirates]]'', ''Steve Canyon'') and Walt Kelly (''Pogo'') were close personal friends and professional associates throughout their adult lives, and occasionally, referenced each other in their strips. According to one anecdote (from ''Al Capp Remembered'', 1994), Capp and his brother Elliot ducked out of a dull party at Capp's home—leaving Walt Kelly alone to fend for himself entertaining a group of Argentine envoys who didn't speak English. Kelly retaliated by giving away Capp's baby grand piano. According to Capp, who loved to relate the story, Kelly's two perfectly logical reasons for doing so were: a. to cement diplomatic relations between [[Argentina]] and the United States, and b. "Because you can't play the piano, anyway!" (''[[Beetle Bailey]]'' creator [[Mort Walker]] confirmed the story, relating a slightly expanded version in his autobiography, ''Mort Walker's Private Scrapbook'', 2001.)

Milton Caniff offered another anecdote (from ''Phi Beta Pogo'', 1989) involving Capp and Walt Kelly, "two boys from Bridgeport, Connecticut, nose to nose," onstage at a meeting of the Newspaper Comics Council in the sixties. "Walt would say to Al, 'Of course, Al, this is really how you should draw Daisy Mae, I'm only showing you this for your own good.' Then Walt would do a sketch. Capp, of course, got ticked off by this, as you can imagine! So he retaliated by doing ''his'' version of Pogo. Unfortunately, the drawings are long gone; no recording was made. What a shame! Nobody anticipated there'd be this dueling back and forth between the two of them&nbsp;..."

Although he was often considered a difficult person,<ref name="printmag.com">{{Cite web|url=https://www.printmag.com/post/lil-abner-al-capp-monster-cartoonist|title=Li'l Abner's Al Capp: A Monstrous Creature, a Masterful Cartoonist|first=Steven|last=Heller|date=March 4, 2013|website=PRINT|access-date=October 29, 2020}}</ref> some acquaintances of Capp have stressed that the cartoonist also had a sensitive side. In 1973, upon learning that 12-year-old [[Edward M. Kennedy Jr.|Ted Kennedy Jr.]], the son of his political rival [[Ted Kennedy|Ted Kennedy Sr.]], had his right leg amputated, Capp wrote the boy an encouraging letter that gave candid advice about dealing with the loss of a limb,<ref>Kitchen, Denis, and Michael Schumacher, ''Al Capp: A Life to the Contrary'' (2013) [[Bloomsbury Publishing]], p.243</ref> which Capp himself had experienced as a boy. One of Capp's grandchildren recalls that at one point, tears were streaming down the cartoonist's cheeks while he was watching a documentary about the [[Jonestown]] massacre.<ref>Kitchen, Denis, and Michael Schumacher, ''Al Capp: A Life to the Contrary'' (2013) [[Bloomsbury Publishing]], p.244</ref> Capp gave money anonymously to charities and "people in need" at various points in his life.<ref name="printmag.com"/>

==Sexual harassment and assault claims==
In her autobiography, American actress [[Goldie Hawn]] stated that Capp sexually propositioned her on a [[casting couch]] and exposed himself to her when she was 19 years old. When she refused his advances, Capp became angry and told her that she was "never gonna make anything in your life" and that she should "go and marry a Jewish dentist. You'll never get anywhere in this business."<ref name=couch>{{Cite web|url=https://people.com/movies/goldie-hawn-remembers-casting-couch-sexual-predator-who-left-her-in-tears-at-19/|title=Goldie Hawn Remembers the Casting-Couch Sexual Predator Who Left Her in Tears|website=People|access-date=2020-10-29}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LrI-86BHE0QC&q=a+lotus+grows+in+the+mud+al+capp&pg=PT113 |title=A Lotus Grows in the Mud |last=Hawn |first=Goldie |date=February 28, 2006 |publisher=Penguin |isbn=9781101205327 |language=en}}</ref>

Two biographies, one about Goldie Hawn and the other about [[Grace Kelly]], describe Capp as trying to force Kelly to have sex with him, and he later tried to do the same with Hawn.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/books/2013/07/12/cartoonist-al-capp-exposed-in-new-bio/2511355/|title=Cartoonist Al Capp exposed in 'Life to the Contrary'|website=USA Today|access-date=2020-10-29 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|last=Kilian|first=Michael|date=May 3, 1987|title=OH, GRACE, WE HARDLY KNEW YOU|work=[[Chicago Tribune]]|url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1987-05-03-8702020869-story.html}}</ref>

In 1971, investigative journalist [[Jack Anderson (columnist)|Jack Anderson]] wrote that Capp had exposed his genitals to four female students at the University of Alabama.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/books/2013/07/12/cartoonist-al-capp-exposed-in-new-bio/2511355/|title=Cartoonist Al Capp exposed in 'Life to the Contrary'|website=USA Today|language=en|access-date=2019-10-04}}</ref>

In 1972, after an incident at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire, Capp was arrested. He pleaded guilty to a charge of attempted adultery, while charges of indecent exposure and sodomy were dropped. He was fined US$500 ({{Inflation|US|500|1972|fmt=eq}}).<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1972/02/12/archives/al-capp-is-fined-500-plus-costs-in-morals-charge.html|title=Al Capp Is Fined $500 Plus Costs In Morals Charge|date=February 12, 1972|newspaper=NYTimes.com}}</ref>

In 2019, [[Jean Kilbourne]] was inspired by the [[MeToo movement]] to publish in ''[[Hogan's Alley (magazine)|Hogan's Alley]]'' her own experience of being groped and sexually solicited by Al Capp while doing freelance writing and research work for him in contemplation of a permanent job in 1967.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.hoganmag.com/blog/2019/4/15/dogpatch-dispatch-my-encounter-with-al-capp|title=Dogpatch Dispatch: My Encounter with Al Capp|date=April 15, 2019|work=Hogan's Magazine}}</ref>

==Public service works==
Capp provided specialty artwork for civic groups, government agencies, and charitable or nonprofit organizations, spanning several decades.<ref>[http://cartoonician.com/2012/05/presarvin-freedom-al-capp-treasury-man/"Presarvin' Freedom: Al Capp, Treasury Man," ''Hogan's Alley Online Magazine'', 9 May 2012] {{webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20120708021015/http://cartoonician.com/2012/05/presarvin-freedom-al-capp-treasury-man/ |date=July 8, 2012 }}</ref> The following titles are all single-issue, educational comic books and pamphlets produced for various [[public services]]:

*''Al Capp by Li'l Abner''— Public service giveaway issued by the [[American Red Cross|Red Cross]] (1946)
*''Yo' Bets Yo' Life!''— Public service giveaway issued by the [[U.S. Army]] ({{circa|1950}})
*''Li'l Abner Joins the Navy''— Public service giveaway issued by the [[U.S. Navy|Dept. of the Navy]] (1950)
*''Fearless Fosdick and the Case of the Red Feather''— Public service giveaway issued by Red Feather Services, a forerunner of [[United Way of America|United Way]] (1951)
*''The Youth You Supervise''— Public service giveaway issued by the [[U.S. Department of Labor]] (1956)
*''Mammy Yokum and the Great Dogpatch Mystery!''— Public service giveaway issued by the [[Anti-Defamation League]] of [[B'nai B'rith]] (1956)
*''Operation: Survival!''— Public service giveaway issued by the [[Civil Defense|Dept. of Civil Defense]] (1957)
*''Natural Disasters!''— Public service giveaway issued by the Department of Civil Defense (1957)
*''[[Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story]]''— Public service giveaway issued by [[The Fellowship of Reconciliation]] (1958)<ref name=Grio />
*''Li'l Abner and the Creatures from Drop-Outer Space''— Public service giveaway issued by the [[Job Corps]] (1965)
*''Statue of Josiah Flintabattey Flonatin''— design of a statue for the northern Manitoba city of Flin Flon's mascot [City of Flin Flon's tribute [https://www.cityofflinflon.ca/p/-statue-of-josiah-flintabattey-flonatin]] (1962)

In addition, Dogpatch characters were used in national campaigns for the [[U.S. Treasury]], the Cancer Foundation, the [[March of Dimes]], the National Heart Fund, the Sister Kenny Foundation, the [[Boy Scouts of America]], [[Community Chest (organization)|Community Chest]], the National Reading Council, Minnesota Tuberculosis and Health Association, [[Christmas Seal & Charity Stamp Society|Christmas Seals]], the National Amputation Foundation, and [[Disabled American Veterans]],<ref name="news.google.com">{{Cite web|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2506&dat=19500511&id=DZZIAAAAIBAJ&pg=4808,2345975|title="Al Capp Replies to Critic of Newspaper Comic Strips;" ''The News and Courier'', 11 May 1950|access-date=October 29, 2020}}{{Dead link|date=October 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> among others.

==Public figure==
In the Golden Age of the American comic strip, successful cartoonists received a great deal of attention; their professional and private lives were reported in the press, and their celebrity was often nearly sufficient to rival their creations. As ''Li'l Abner'' reached its peak years, and following the success of the Shmoos and other high moments in his work, Al Capp achieved a public profile that is still unparalleled in his profession, and arguably exceeded the fame of his strip. "Capp was the best known, most influential and most controversial cartoonist of his era," writes publisher (and leading Shmoo collector) [[Denis Kitchen]]. "His personal celebrity transcended comics, reaching the public and influencing the culture in a variety of media. For many years he simultaneously produced the daily strip, a weekly syndicated [[newspaper column]], and a 500-station [[radio program]]{{nbsp}}..." He ran the Boston Summer Theatre with ''[[The Phantom (comics)|The Phantom]]'' cartoonist [[Lee Falk]], bringing in Hollywood actors such as [[Mae West]], [[Melvyn Douglas]], and [[Claude Rains]] to star in their live productions. He even briefly considered running for a Massachusetts Senate seat. Vice President [[Spiro Agnew]] urged Capp to run in the [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic Party]] [[Massachusetts]] primary in 1970 against [[Ted Kennedy]], but Capp ultimately declined. (He did, however, donate his services as a speaker at a $100-a-plate fundraiser for Republican Congressman [[Jack Kemp]].)
[[File:Al Capp at 1966 Art Festival in Florida.jpg|thumb|Al Capp at 1966 Art Festival in [[Fort Walton Beach, Florida]]]]
Besides his use of the comic strip to voice his opinions and display his humor, Capp was a popular guest speaker at universities, and on radio<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,779734,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071023075534/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,779734,00.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=October 23, 2007|title=The Press: Bane of the Bassinet, ''Time'', 15 March 1948|access-date=October 29, 2020}}</ref> and television. He remains the only cartoonist to be embraced by television; no other comic artist to date has come close to Capp's televised exposure.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reportsitem.aspx?id=102060|title=Al Capp Views the Networks (April 1952) ''Nieman Reports''|access-date=October 29, 2020}}</ref> Capp appeared as a regular on ''[[The Author Meets the Critics]]'' (1948–'54) and made regular, weekly appearances on ''[[Today (NBC program)|Today]]'' in 1953. He was also a periodic panelist on ABC and NBC's ''[[Who Said That?]]'' (1948–'55), and co-hosted DuMont's ''[[What's the Story]]?'' (1953). Between 1952 and 1972, he hosted at least ''five'' television shows–three different talk shows called ''The Al Capp Show'' (1952 and 1968) and ''Al Capp'' (1971–'72), ''Al Capp's America'' (a live "chalk talk", with Capp providing a barbed commentary while sketching cartoons, 1954), and a CBS game show called ''[[Anyone Can Win]]'' (1953). He also hosted similar vehicles on the radio—and was a familiar celebrity guest on various other broadcast programs, including [[NBC Radio]]'s long-running ''[[Monitor (NBC radio)|Monitor]]'' with its famous ''Monitor'' Beacon audio signature, as a commentator dubbed "An expert of nothing with opinions on everything."

His frequent appearances on NBC's ''[[The Tonight Show]]'' spanned three emcees ([[Steve Allen]], [[Jack Paar]], and [[Johnny Carson]]), from the 1950s to the 1970s. One memorable story, as recounted to Johnny Carson, was about his meeting with then-President [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]]. As Capp was ushered into the [[Oval Office]], his [[Prosthesis|prosthetic leg]] suddenly collapsed into a pile of disengaged parts and hinges on the floor. The President immediately turned to an aide and said, "Call [[Walter Reed Army Medical Center|Walter Reed]] (Hospital), or maybe [[National Naval Medical Center|Bethesda]]," to which Capp replied, "Hell no, just call a good local mechanic!" (Capp also spoofed Carson in his strip, in a 1970 episode called "The Tommy Wholesome Show".)

Capp portrayed himself in a cameo role in the [[Bob Hope]] film ''That Certain Feeling'', for which he also provided promotional art. He was interviewed live on ''[[Person to Person]]'' on November 27, 1959, by host [[Charles Collingwood (journalist)|Charles Collingwood]]. He also appeared as himself on ''[[The Ed Sullivan Show]]'', [[Sid Caesar]]'s ''[[Your Show of Shows]]'', ''[[The Red Skelton Show]]'', ''[[The Merv Griffin Show]]'', ''[[The Mike Douglas Show]]'', and guested on [[Ralph Edwards]]' ''[[This Is Your Life (American franchise)|This Is Your Life]]'' on February 12, 1961, with honoree [[Peter Palmer (actor)|Peter Palmer]] (the actor who played Li'l Abner in the Paramount film). Capp also freelanced very successfully as a magazine writer and newspaper columnist, in a wide variety of publications including ''[[Life magazine|Life]]'', ''Show'', ''Pageant'', ''[[The Atlantic]]'', ''[[Esquire (magazine)|Esquire]]'', ''Coronet'', and ''[[The Saturday Evening Post]]''. Capp was impersonated by comedians [[Rich Little]] and [[David Frye]]. Although Capp's endorsement activities never rivaled Li'l Abner's or Fearless Fosdick's, he was a celebrity spokesman in print ads for Sheaffer Snorkel fountain pens (along with colleagues and close friends [[Milton Caniff]] and Walt Kelly), and—with an irony that became apparent later—a brand of cigarettes ([[Chesterfield cigarettes|Chesterfield]]).

Capp resumed visiting war amputees during the [[Korean War]] and [[Vietnam War]]. He toured Vietnam with the [[USO]], entertaining troops along with [[Art Buchwald]] and [[George Plimpton]]. He served as chairman of the Cartoonists' Committee in President [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]]'s People-to-People program in 1954 (although Capp had supported [[Adlai Stevenson II|Adlai Stevenson]] for president in 1952 and 1956),<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.reuben.org/ncs/members/memorium/capp.jpg|title=Al Capp's biography card from the National Cartoonists Society|access-date=October 29, 2020}}</ref> which was organized to promote [[Savings bond]]s for the [[United States Department of the Treasury|U.S. Treasury]]. Capp had earlier provided the Shmoo for a special Children's Savings Bond in 1949, accompanying President [[Harry S. Truman]] at the bond's unveiling ceremony.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://cartoonician.com/presarvin-freedom-al-capp-treasury-man/ |title=Freedom: Al Capp, Treasury Man," ''Hogan's Alley Online Magazine'', 9 May 2012 |access-date=January 16, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131014185427/http://cartoonician.com/presarvin-freedom-al-capp-treasury-man/ |archive-date=October 14, 2013 |url-status=dead }}</ref> During the [[Soviet Union]]'s blockade of [[West Berlin]] in 1948, the commanders of the Berlin airlift had cabled Capp, requesting inflatable shmoos as part of "Operation: Little Vittles". Candy-filled shmoos were air-dropped to hungry West Berliners by America's 17th Military Airport Squadron during the humanitarian effort. "When the candy-chocked shmoos were dropped, a near-riot resulted," (reported in ''[[Newsweek]]''—October 11, 1948).

In addition to his public service work for charitable organizations for disabled people, Capp also served on the National Reading Council, which was organized to combat illiteracy. He published a column ("Wrong Turn Onto Sesame Street") challenging federally funded [[public television]] endowments in favor of educational comics—which, according to Capp, "didn't cost a dime in taxes and never had. I pointed out that a kid could enjoy ''[[Sesame Street]]'' ''without'' learning how to read, but he couldn't enjoy comic strips ''unless'' he could read; and that a smaller investment in getting kids to read by supplying them with educational matter in such ''reading'' form might make better sense."

Capp's academic interests included being one of nineteen original "Trustees and Advisors" for "Endicott, Junior College for Young Woman", located in Pride's Crossing (Beverly), Massachusetts, which was founded in 1939. Al Capp is listed in the 1942 Mingotide Yearbook, representing the first graduating class from what is now the 4-year school known as [[Endicott College]]. The yearbook entry includes his credential as a "Cartoonist for United Feature Syndicate" and a resident of New York City.

"Comics", wrote Capp in 1970, "can be a combination of the highest quality of art and text, and many of them are." Capp produced many giveaway educational comic books and [[public services]] pamphlets, spanning several decades, for the [[American Red Cross|Red Cross]], the [[United States civil defense|Department of Civil Defense]], the [[United States Department of the Navy|Department of the Navy]], the [[U.S. Army]], the [[Anti-Defamation League]], the [[United States Department of Labor|Department of Labor]], [[Community Chest (organization)|Community Chest]] (a forerunner of [[United Way of America|United Way]]), and the [[Job Corps]]. Capp's studio provided special artwork for various civic groups and nonprofit organizations as well. Dogpatch characters were used in national campaigns for the Cancer Foundation, the [[March of Dimes]], the National Heart Fund, the [[Boy Scouts of America]], Minnesota Tuberculosis and Health Association, the National Amputation Foundation, and [[Disabled American Veterans]], among others.<ref name="news.google.com"/> They were also used to help sell [[Christmas Seals]].

In the early 1960s, Capp regularly wrote a column entitled ''Al Capp's Column'' for the newspaper ''The Schenectady Gazette'' (currently ''[[The Daily Gazette]]''). He was the ''[[Playboy]]'' interview subject in December 1965, in a conversation conducted by [[Alvin Toffler]]. In August 1967, Capp was the narrator and host of an ABC network special called ''Do Blondes Have More Fun?'' In 1970, he was the subject of a provocative NBC documentary called ''This Is Al Capp''.

==The 1960s and 1970s==
Capp and his family lived in [[Cambridge, Massachusetts]], near [[Harvard University]], during the entire [[Vietnam War]] protest era. The turmoil that Americans were watching on their television sets was happening live—right in his own neighborhood. Campus [[Far left|radicals]] and "[[hippies]]" inevitably became one of Capp's favorite targets in the sixties. Alongside his long-established caricatures of right-wing, big business types such as General Bullmoose and J. Roaringham Fatback, Capp began spoofing [[counterculture]] icons such as [[Joan Baez]] (in the character of Joanie Phoanie, a wealthy folksinger who offers an impoverished orphanage ten thousand dollars' worth of "protest songs").<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,843312,00.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070930200736/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,843312,00.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=September 30, 2007 |title=Which One Is the Phoanie? – Time |access-date=October 29, 2020}}</ref> The sequence implicitly labeled Baez a [[limousine liberal]], a charge she took to heart, as detailed years later in her 1987 autobiography, ''And A Voice To Sing With: A Memoir''. Another target was Senator [[Ted Kennedy]], parodied as "Senator O. Noble McGesture", resident of "Hyideelsport". The town name is a play on [[Hyannisport, Massachusetts]], where a number of the Kennedy clan have lived.

Capp became a popular public speaker on college campuses, where he reportedly relished hecklers. He attacked militant antiwar demonstrators, both in his personal appearances and in his strip. He also satirized student political groups. The [[Youth International Party]] (YIP) and [[Students for a Democratic Society (1960 organization)|Students for a Democratic Society]] (SDS) emerged in ''Li'l Abner'' as "Students Wildly Indignant about Nearly Everything!" (SWINE). In an April 1969 letter to ''Time'', Capp insisted, "The students I blast are not the dissenters, but the destroyers—the less than 4% who lock up deans in washrooms, who burn manuscripts of unpublished books, who make combination pigpens and playpens of their universities. The remaining 96% detest them as heartily as I do."<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,844734-3,00.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090114074951/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,844734-3,00.html |url-status=dead|archive-date=January 14, 2009 |title=Letters page April 18, 1969 – TIME |access-date=October 29, 2020}}</ref>

Capp's increasingly controversial remarks at his campus speeches and during television appearances cost him his semi-regular spot on the ''Tonight Show''. His contentious public persona during this period was captured on a late sixties comedy LP called ''Al Capp On Campus''. The album features his interaction with students at Fresno State College (now [[California State University, Fresno]]) on such topics as "sensitivity training", "humanitarianism", "abstract art" (Capp hated it), and "student protest". The cover features a cartoon drawing by Capp of wildly dressed, angry hippies carrying protest signs with slogans like "End Capp Brutality", "Abner and Daisy Mae Smoke Pot", "Capp Is Over [30, 40, 50—all crossed out] the Hill!!", and "If You Like Crap, You'll Like Capp!"

Highlights of the strip's final decades include "Boomchik" (1961), in which America's international prestige is saved by Mammy Yokum, "Daisy Mae Steps Out" (1966), a female-empowering tale of Daisy's brazenly audacious "homewrecker gland", "The Lips of Marcia Perkins" (1967), a satirical, thinly-veiled commentary on [[venereal disease]] and public health warnings, "Ignoble Savages" (1968), in which [[Mafia|the Mob]] takes over Harvard, and "Corporal Crock" (1973), in which Bullmoose reveals his reactionary cartoon role model, in a tale of obsession and the fanatical world of comic book collecting.

The cartoonist visited [[John Lennon]] and [[Yoko Ono]] at their 1969 [[Bed-In for Peace]] in Montreal, and their testy exchange later appeared in the documentary film ''[[Imagine: John Lennon]]'' (1988). Introducing himself with the words "I'm a dreadful Neanderthal fascist. How do you do?", Capp sardonically congratulated Lennon and Ono on their ''[[Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins|Two Virgins]]'' nude album cover: "I think that everybody owes it to the world to prove they have pubic hair. You've done it, and I tell you that I applaud you for it." Following this exchange, Capp insulted Ono ("Good God, you've gotta live with that?"), and was asked to "get out" by Lennon publicist [[Derek Taylor]]. Lennon allowed him to stay, however, but the conversation had soured considerably. On Capp's exit, Lennon sang an impromptu version of his song "[[The Ballad of John and Yoko]]" with a slightly revised, but nonetheless prophetic lyric: "Christ, you know it ain't easy / You know how hard it can be / The way things are goin' / They're gonna crucify ''Capp!'' "<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/i/imagine-john-lennon-script-transcript.html |title=Imagine: John Lennon Script – transcript from the screenplay and/or documentary movie about John Lennon |website=www.script-o-rama.com |access-date=October 29, 2020}}</ref>

Despite his political conservatism in the last decade of his life, Capp is reported to have been liberal in some particular causes; he supported [[gay rights]], and did not tolerate any attempts at homophobic jokes.<ref name="printmag.com"/> He is also said to have supported [[Martin Luther King Jr.]] and the fight for racial equality in American society, although he was very sceptical of the tactics of the [[Black Panthers]] and [[Malcolm X]].<ref>Kitchen, Denis, and Michael Schumacher, Al Capp: A Life to the Contrary (2013) Bloomsbury Publishing, p. 196</ref>

In 1968, a [[theme park]] called [[Dogpatch USA]] opened at Marble Falls, [[Arkansas]], based on Capp's work and with his support. The park was a popular attraction during the 1970s, but was abandoned in 1993 due to financial difficulties. By 2005, the area once devoted to a live-action facsimile of Dogpatch (including a lifesize statue in the town square of Dogpatch "founder" General Jubilation T. Cornpone) had been heavily stripped by vandals and souvenir hunters, and was slowly being reclaimed by the surrounding Arkansas wilderness.

On April 22, 1971, syndicated columnist Jack Anderson reported allegations that in February 1968 Capp had made indecent advances to four female students when he was invited to speak at the [[University of Alabama]]. Anderson and an associate confirmed that Capp was shown out of town by university police, but that the incident had been hushed up by the university to avoid negative publicity.<ref>[[Jack Anderson (columnist)|Anderson, Jack]], "Washington Merry-Go-Round," April 22, 1971</ref>

The following month, Capp was charged in [[Eau Claire, Wisconsin]], in connection with another alleged incident following his April 1 lecture at the [[University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire|University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire]].<ref>"Al Capp Accused on Moral Counts at Eau Claire U."; ''[[The Capital Times]]'', May 7, 1971</ref> Capp was accused of propositioning a married woman in his hotel room. Although no sexual act was alleged to have resulted, the original charge included [[Sodomy laws in the United States|"sodomy"]]. As part of a plea agreement, Capp pleaded guilty to the charge of "attempted adultery" (adultery was a felony in Wisconsin),<ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.vanwagnerwood.com/CM/Custom/Adultery.asp |title= Adultery is a crime in Wisconsin {{!}} Law Offices of criminal defense attorneys Christopher Van Wagner and Tracey Wood, Madison WI |access-date= June 30, 2008 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20080516092007/http://www.vanwagnerwood.com/CM/Custom/Adultery.asp |archive-date= May 16, 2008 |url-status= dead }}</ref> and the other charges were dropped. Capp was fined $500 and court costs.<ref>"Al Capp Admits One Morals Count; Pays $500 Fine"; ''[[The Capital Times]],'' February 12, 1972</ref> In a December 1992 article for ''[[The New Yorker]],'' [[Seymour Hersh]] reported that President [[Richard Nixon]] and [[Charles Colson]] had repeatedly discussed the Capp case in Oval Office recordings that had recently been made available by the [[National Archives and Records Administration|National Archives]]. Nixon and Capp were on friendly terms, Hersh wrote, and Nixon and Colson had worked to find a way for Capp to run against [[Ted Kennedy]] for the U.S. Senate. "Nixon was worried about the allegations, fearing that Capp's very close links to the White House would become embarrassingly public", Hersh wrote. "The White House tapes and documents show that he and Colson discussed the issue repeatedly, and that Colson eventually reassured the president by saying that he had, in essence, fixed the case. Specifically, the president was told that one of Colson's people had gone to Wisconsin and tried to talk to the prosecutors." Colson's efforts failed, however. The Eau Claire district attorney, a Republican, refused to dismiss the attempted adultery charge.<ref>[[Seymour Hersh|Hersh, Seymour]], "Nixon's Last Cover-Up: The Tapes He Wants the Archives to Suppress"; ''[[The New Yorker]]'', December 14, 1992, pp. 80–81</ref> In passing sentence in February 1972, the judge rejected the D.A.'s motion that Capp agree to undergo psychiatric treatment.

The resulting publicity led to hundreds of papers dropping his comic strip,<ref name="salon">[http://dir.salon.com/story/books/feature/2002/09/30/capp/index.html?pn= Dogpatch confidential – Salon.com] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080304230031/http://dir.salon.com/story/books/feature/2002/09/30/capp/index.html?pn= |date=March 4, 2008}}</ref> and Capp, already in failing health, withdrew from public speaking. [[Celebrity biographer]] James Spada has claimed that similar allegations were made by actress [[Grace Kelly]]. However, no firsthand allegation has ever surfaced.<ref>Spada, James, ''Grace: The Secret Lives of a Princess''. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1987, p.37</ref>

"From beginning to end, Capp was acid-tongued toward the targets of his wit, intolerant of hypocrisy, and always wickedly funny. After about 40 years, however, Capp's interest in ''Abner'' waned, and this showed in the strip itself," according to [[Don Markstein]]'s ''[[Toonopedia]]''. On November 13, 1977, Capp retired with an apology to his fans for the recently declining quality of the strip, which he said had been the best he could manage due to declining health. "If you have any sense of humor about your strip—and I had a sense of humor about mine—you knew that for three or four years ''Abner'' was wrong. Oh hell, it's like a fighter retiring. I stayed on longer than I should have," he admitted,<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,948819,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090809053521/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,948819,00.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=August 9, 2009|title=Mr. Dogpatch – 1979 TIME obituary|access-date=October 29, 2020}}</ref> adding that he couldn't breathe anymore. "When he retired ''Li'l Abner'', newspapers ran expansive articles and television commentators talked about the passing of an era. ''[[People magazine]]'' ran a substantial feature, and even the comics-free ''[[The New York Times|New York Times]]'' devoted nearly a full page to the event", wrote publisher [[Denis Kitchen]].

Capp's final years were marked by advancing illness and by family tragedy. In October 1977, one of his two daughters died; a few weeks later, a beloved granddaughter was killed in a car accident. A lifelong [[Smoking|chain smoker]], Capp died in 1979 from [[Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease|emphysema]] at his home in [[South Hampton, New Hampshire]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.newburyportnews.com/news/local_news/al-capp-was-here/article_cc584e07-2488-5600-ad8c-2ae89a39255d.html |title=Al Capp was here |first=Lynne |last=Hendricks |website=The Daily News of Newburyport |date=September 27, 2009 |access-date=October 29, 2020}}</ref> Capp is buried in Mount Prospect Cemetery in Amesbury, Massachusetts. Engraved on his headstone is a stanza from [[Thomas Gray]]: ''The plowman homeward plods his weary way / And leaves the world to darkness and to me'' (from ''[[Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard]]'', 1751).

==Legacy==
"Neither the strip's shifting political leanings nor the slide of its final few years had any bearing on its status as a classic; and in 1995, it was recognized as such by the [[United States Postal Service|U.S. Postal Service]]", according to ''Toonopedia''. ''Li'l Abner'' was one of 20 American comic strips included in the [[Comic Strip Classics]] series of USPS [[commemorative stamp]]s. Al Capp, an inductee into the [[National Cartoon Museum]] (formerly the International Museum of Cartoon Art), is one of only 31 artists selected to their [[Hall of Fame]]. Capp was also inducted into the [[Will Eisner Award]] Hall of Fame in 2004.

[[Sadie Hawkins Day]] and [[:wikt:double whammy|double whammy]] are two terms attributed to Al Capp that have entered the English language. Other, less ubiquitous Cappisms include [[skunk works]] and [[Lower Slobbovia]]. The term [[shmoo]] also has entered the [[lexicon]], defining highly technical concepts in no fewer than ''four'' separate fields of science, including the variations [[Mating of yeast|shmooing]] (a [[microbiological]] term for the "budding" process in yeast reproduction), and [[shmoo plot]] (a technical term in the field of [[electrical engineering]]). In [[socioeconomics]], a "shmoo" refers to any generic kind of good that reproduces itself, (as opposed to "[[widget (economics)|widget]]s" which require resources and active production). In the field of [[particle physics]], "shmoo" refers to a high energy survey instrument, as used at the [[Los Alamos National Laboratory]] to capture subatomic [[cosmic ray]] particles emitted from the [[Cygnus X-3]] [[constellation]]. Capp also had a knack for popularizing certain uncommon terms, such as [[List of American words not widely used in the United Kingdom|druthers]], [[schmooze]], and [[-nik|nogoodnik, neatnik, etc.]] In his book ''[[The American Language]]'', [[H.L. Mencken]] credits the postwar mania for adding "-nik" to the ends of adjectives to create nouns as beginning—not with [[beatnik]] or [[Sputnik]]—but earlier, in the pages of ''Li'l Abner''.

Al Capp's life and career are the subjects of a new life-sized [[mural]] commemorating the 100th anniversary of his birth. Created by resident artist [[Jon P. Mooers]], the mural was unveiled in downtown [[Amesbury, Massachusetts|Amesbury]] on May 15, 2010.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.newburyportnews.com/news/local_news/town-to-honor-famous-cartoonist-who-lived-worked-in-amesbury/article_57103373-3bee-5328-8770-434d1d9b115d.html|title=Town to honor famous cartoonist who lived, worked in Amesbury|first=Lynne|last=Hendricks|website=The Daily News of Newburyport|date=April 20, 2010 |access-date=October 29, 2020}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=http://archive.boston.com/ae/theater_arts/articles/2010/05/15/amesbury_gives_lil_abner_his_due/?page=full|title=Amesbury gives 'Li'l Abner' his due|first=James|last=Sullivan|newspaper=Boston.com|date=May 15, 2010|access-date=October 29, 2020|via=The Boston Globe}}</ref> According to the ''[[Boston Globe]]'' (as reported on May 18, 2010), the town has renamed its amphitheater in the artist's honor, and is looking to develop an Al Capp Museum. Capp is also the subject of an upcoming [[WNET-TV]] ''[[American Masters]]'' documentary, ''The Life and Times of Al Capp'', produced by his granddaughter, independent filmmaker Caitlin Manning.

Since his death in 1979, Al Capp and his work have been the subject of more than 40 books, including three biographies. [[Underground comix|Underground cartoonist]] and ''Li'l Abner'' expert [[Denis Kitchen]] has published, co-published, edited, or otherwise served as consultant on nearly all of them. Kitchen is currently compiling a biographical [[monograph]] on Al Capp.

At [[San Diego Comic-Con]] in July 2009, [[IDW Publishing|IDW]] announced the upcoming publication of ''Al Capp's Li'l Abner: The Complete Dailies and Color Sundays'' as part of their ongoing [[The Library of American Comics]] series. The comprehensive series, a reprinting of the entire 43-year history of ''Li'l Abner'', spanning a projected 20 volumes, began on April 7, 2010.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.libraryofamericancomics.com/catalog/series/1101/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100511032402/http://www.libraryofamericancomics.com/catalog/series/1101/|url-status=dead|title=IDW Library of American Comics|archive-date=May 11, 2010|access-date=October 29, 2020}}</ref>

==Notes==
{{Reflist|30em}}

==Further reading==
{{Refbegin|2}}
*Capp, Al, ''Li'l Abner in New York'' (1936) [[Whitman Publishing]]
*Capp, Al, ''Li'l Abner Among the Millionaires'' (1939) Whitman Publishing
*Capp, Al, ''Li'l Abner and Sadie Hawkins Day'' (1940) [[Saalfield Publishing]]
*Capp, Al, ''Li'l Abner and the Ratfields'' (1940) Saalfield Publishing
*Sheridan, Martin, ''Comics and Their Creators'' (1942) R.T. Hale & Co, (1977) [[Hyperion Press]]
*Waugh, Coulton, ''The Comics'' (1947) [[Macmillan Publishers]]
*Capp, Al, ''Newsweek Magazine'' (November 24, 1947) "Li'l Abner's Mad Capp"
*Capp, Al, ''[[Saturday Review of Literature]]'' (March 20, 1948) "The Case for the Comics"
*Capp, Al, ''The Life and Times of the Shmoo'' (1948) [[Simon & Schuster]]
*Capp, Al, ''The Nation'' (March 21, 1949) "There Is a Real Shmoo"
*Capp, Al, ''Cosmopolitan Magazine'' (June 1949) "I Don't Like Shmoos"
*Capp, Al, ''Atlantic Monthly'' (April 1950) "I Remember Monster"
*Capp, Al, ''Time Magazine'' (November 6, 1950) "Die Monstersinger"
*Capp, Al, ''Life Magazine'' (March 31, 1952) "It's Hideously True!!{{nbsp}}..."
*Capp, Al, ''Real Magazine'' (December 1952) "The REAL Powers in America"
*Capp, Al, ''The World of Li'l Abner'' (1953) [[Farrar, Straus and Giroux|Farrar, Straus & Young]]
*Leifer, Fred, ''The Li'l Abner Official Square Dance Handbook'' (1953) A.S. Barnes
*Mikes, George, ''Eight Humorists'' (1954) Allen Wingate, (1977) Arden Library
*Lehrer, Tom, ''The Tom Lehrer Song Book'', introduction by Al Capp (1954) [[Crown Publishers]]
*Capp, Al, ''Al Capp's Fearless Fosdick: His Life and Deaths'' (1956) Simon & Schuster
*Capp, Al, ''Al Capp's Bald Iggle: The Life it Ruins May Be Your Own'' (1956) Simon & Schuster
*Capp, Al, et al. ''Famous Artists Cartoon Course''&nbsp;– 3 volumes (1956) [[Famous Artists School]]
*Capp, Al, ''Life Magazine'' (January 14, 1957) "The Dogpatch Saga: Al Capp's Own Story"
*Brodbeck, Arthur J, et al. "How to Read Li'l Abner Intelligently" from ''Mass Culture: Popular Arts in America,'' pp.&nbsp;218–224 (1957) [[Free Press (publisher)|Free Press]]
*Capp, Al, ''The Return of the Shmoo'' (1959) Simon & Schuster
*Hart, Johnny, ''Back to B.C.'', introduction by Al Capp (1961) [[Fawcett Publications]]
*Lazarus, Mell, ''Miss Peach'', introduction by Al Capp (1962) [[Pyramid Books]]
*Gross, Milt, ''He Done Her Wrong'', introduction by Al Capp (1963 Ed.) [[Dell Books]]
*White, David Manning, and Robert H. Abel, eds. ''The Funnies: An American Idiom'' (1963) Free Press
*White, David Manning, ed. ''From Dogpatch to Slobbovia: The (Gasp!) World of Li'l Abner'' (1964) [[Beacon Press]]
*Capp, Al, ''Life International Magazine'' (June 14, 1965) "My Life as an Immortal Myth"
*Toffler, Alvin, ''Playboy Magazine'' (December 1965) interview with Al Capp, pp.&nbsp;89–100
*Moger, Art, et al. ''Chutzpah Is'', introduction by Al Capp (1966) Colony Publishers
*Berger, Arthur Asa, ''Li'l Abner: A Study in American Satire'' (1969) Twayne Publishers, (1994) [[Univ. Press of Mississippi]] {{ISBN|0-87805-713-7}}
*Sugar, Andy, ''Saga Magazine'' (December 1969) "On the Campus Firing Line with Al Capp"
*Gray, Harold, ''Arf! The Life and Hard Times of Little Orphan Annie'', introduction by Al Capp (1970) Arlington House
*Moger, Art, ''Some of My Best Friends are People'', introduction by Al Capp (1970) Directors Press
*Capp, Al, ''The Hardhat's Bedtime Story Book'' (1971) [[Harper & Row]] {{ISBN|0-06-061311-4}}
*Robinson, Jerry, ''The Comics: An Illustrated History of Comic Strip Art'' (1974) [[G.P. Putnam's Sons]]
*[[Maurice Horn|Horn, Maurice]], ''The World Encyclopedia of Comics'' (1976) [[Chelsea House]], (1982) [[Avon (publishers)|Avon]]
*Blackbeard, Bill, ed. ''The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics'' (1977) [[Smithsonian Institution|Smithsonian Inst. Press]]/[[Harry Abrams]]
*Marschall, Rick, ''Cartoonist PROfiles'' No. 37 (March 1978) interview with Al Capp
*Capp, Al, ''The Best of Li'l Abner'' (1978) [[Holt, Rinehart & Winston]] {{ISBN|0-03-045516-2}}
*Lardner, Ring, ''You Know Me Al: The Comic Strip Adventures of Jack Keefe'', introduction by Al Capp (1979) [[Harcourt Brace Jovanovich]]
*Van Buren, Raeburn, ''Abbie an' Slats''&nbsp;– 2 volumes (1983) Ken Pierce Books
*Capp, Al, ''Li'l Abner: Reuben Award Winner Series Book 1'' (1985) Blackthorne
*Marschall, Rick, ''[[Nemo, the Classic Comics Library]]'' No. 18, pp.&nbsp;3–32 (April 1986)
*Capp, Al, ''Li'l Abner Dailies''&nbsp;– 27 volumes (1988–1999) [[Kitchen Sink Press]]
*Marschall, Rick, ''America's Great Comic Strip Artists'' (1989) [[Abbeville Press]]
*Capp, Al, ''Fearless Fosdick'' (1990) Kitchen Sink {{ISBN|0-87816-108-2}}
*Capp, Al, ''My Well-Balanced Life on a Wooden Leg'' (1991) John Daniel & Co. {{ISBN|0-936784-93-8}}
*Capp, Al, ''Fearless Fosdick: The Hole Story'' (1992) Kitchen Sink {{ISBN|0-87816-164-3}}
*Goldstein, Kalman, "Al Capp and Walt Kelly: Pioneers of Political and Social Satire in the Comics" from ''[[Journal of Popular Culture]];'' Vol. 25, Issue 4 (Spring 1992)
*Caplin, Elliot, ''Al Capp Remembered'' (1994) [[Bowling Green State University]] {{ISBN|0-87972-630-X}}
*Theroux, Alexander, ''The Enigma of Al Capp'' (1999) [[Fantagraphics Books]] {{ISBN|1-56097-340-4}}
*Lubbers, Bob, ''Glamour International #26: The Good Girl Art of Bob Lubbers'' (May 2001)
*Capp, Al, ''The Short Life and Happy Times of the Shmoo'' (2002) [[Overlook Press]] {{ISBN|1-58567-462-1}}
*Capp, Al, ''Al Capp's Li'l Abner: The Frazetta Years''&nbsp;– 4 volumes (2003–2004) [[Dark Horse Comics]]
*Al Capp Studios, ''Al Capp's Complete Shmoo: The Comic Books'' (2008) Dark Horse {{ISBN|1-59307-901-X}}
*Capp, Al, ''Li'l Abner: The Complete Dailies and Color Sundays Vol. 1 – Vol. x(ongoing)'' (2010–present) [[The Library of American Comics]]
*Capp, Al, ''Al Capp's Complete Shmoo Vol. 2: The Newspaper Strips'' (2011) Dark Horse {{ISBN|1-59582-720-X}}
*Inge, M. Thomas, "Li'l Abner, Snuffy and Friends" from ''Comics and the U.S. South'', pp.&nbsp;3–27 (2012) Univ. Press of Mississippi {{ISBN|1-617030-18-X}}
*Kitchen, Denis, and Michael Schumacher, ''Al Capp: A Life to the Contrary'' (2013) [[Bloomsbury Publishing]] {{ISBN|1-60819-623-2}}
{{Refend}}

==External links==
{{Commons}}
* [http://www.lil-abner.com/ ''Li'l Abner'' official site]
* {{IBDB name}}
* {{IMDb name|0135439}}
* [http://deniskitchen.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=bios.capp Denis Kitchen biography: Al Capp]
* [http://animationresources.org/?p=558 Animation Resources: Al Capp part I]
* [http://animationresources.org/?p=571 Animation Resources: Al Capp part II]
* [http://animationresources.org/?p=592 Animation Resources: Al Capp part III]
* [http://animationresources.org/?p=616 Animation Resources: Al Capp part IV]
* [http://animationresources.org/?p=685 Animation Resources: Al Capp part V]
* [http://www.newburyportnews.com/opinion/x546276244/Al-Capp-deserves-a-tribute?keyword=topstory Al Capp Deserves a Tribute (''Newburyport News'', 28 Sept. 2009)]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20050703074739/http://users.aristotle.net/~russjohn/attractions/dogpatch.html Dogpatch USA amusement park.]
* [http://www.jitterbuzz.com/indtoy.html#abner The Dogpatch Family Band Mechanical Toy]
* [https://books.google.com/books?id=P1QEAAAAMBAJ&q=magazine_serial:R1cEAAAAMBAJ Dogpatch and ''Li'l Abner'' on Broadway in ''Life'', January 14, 1957, pp. 71–83]
*[https://osucartoons.pastperfectonline.com/vocabulary?keyword=Capp%2C+Al%2C+1909-1979&letter=C&searchtype=creator&showsearch=true Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum Art Database]
{{Li'l Abner}}
{{Inkpot Award 1970s}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Capp, Al}}
[[Category:Al Capp| ]]
[[Category:1909 births]]
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[[Category:20th-century American Jews]]
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[[Category:School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts alumni]]
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