Page "Al Capp" Paragraph 5

Capp's father, a failed businessman and reportedly an amateur cartoonist, introduced him to drawing as a form of therapy.

He became quite proficient, learning mostly on his own.

Among his earliest influences were Punch cartoonist – illustrator Phil May, and American comic strip cartoonists Tad Dorgan, Cliff Sterrett, Rube Goldberg, Rudolph Dirks, 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 Dickens, Smollett, Mark Twain, Booth Tarkington, and later, Robert Benchley and S. J. Perelman.