Page "Al Capp" Paragraph 24
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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 like Walt Kelly and Garry Trudeau ," 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 misanthropic subtext:
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