Alfred Gerald Caplin ( September 28, 1909 – November 5, 1979 ), better known as Al Capp, was an American cartoonist and humorist best known for the satirical comic strip Li ' l Abner.

Born in New Haven, Connecticut of Russian Jewish heritage, Capp was the eldest child of Otto Philip and Matilda ( Davidson ) Caplin.

This childhood tragedy likely helped shape Capp ’ s cynical worldview, which, funny as it was, was certainly darker and more sardonic than that of the average newspaper cartoonist.

" 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.

Attending three of them in rapid succession, the impoverished Capp was thrown out of each for nonpayment of tuition — the Boston Museum School of Fine Arts, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and Designers Art School in Boston — the latter before launching his amazing career.

" I heard that Bud Fisher ( creator of Mutt and Jeff ) got $ 3, 000 a week and was constantly marrying French countesses ," Capp said.

By March 1932, Capp was drawing Colonel Gilfeather, a single-panel, AP-owned property created in 1930 by Dick Dorgan.

Also during this period, Capp was working at night on samples for the strip that would eventually become Li ' l Abner.

" 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.

“ It ’ s phonetic 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 ," said Capp.

" Sinatra was the first great public figure I ever wrote about ," Capp once said.

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.

Capp was just as likely to parody himself ; his self-caricature made frequent, tongue-in-cheek appearances in Li ' l Abner.

Capp was also involved with the Sister Kenny Foundation, which pioneered new treatments for polio in the 1940s.

In 1948, Capp reached a creative peak with the introduction of the Shmoos, lovable and innocent fantasy creatures who reproduced at amazing speed and brought so many benefits that, ironically, the world economy was endangered.

( When the award name was changed in 1954, Capp also retroactively received a Reuben statuette.

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 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.

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.

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 ) inebriated cartoonist, ( Capp was a teetotaler ).

Later, it 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.

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.

Capp turned that world upside-down by routinely injecting politics and social commentary into Li ' l Abner.

Fisher retaliated clumsily, doctoring photostats of Li ' l Abner and falsely accusing Capp of sneaking obscenities into his comic strip.

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.

* Al Capp, an inductee into the National Cartoon Museum ( formerly the International Museum of Cartoon Art ), is one of only 31 artists honored by inclusion into their Hall of Fame.

* Al Capp was inducted into the Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame in 2004.

Capp turned that world upside-down by routinely injecting politics and social commentary into Li ' l Abner ," wrote comics historian Rick Marschall in America's Great Comic Strip Artists ( 1989 ).

" All kinds of people came to pay their respects, from comedian-singer Tommy Smothers to Li ' l Abner cartoonist Al Capp, who kind of betrayed the price of entry by getting into a shouting match with the Peaceful Pair.

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.

Making no secret of his own disability, Capp openly joked about his prosthetic leg his whole life.

In August 1919, at the age of nine, Capp lost his left leg in a trolley accident.

They carry names such as " The Sphinx ", " Tam o ' Shanter ", " Andy Capp " and " Madonna and Child ", a particularly fine example known as the " Lobsters Claw " partly collapsed several years ago due to natural erosion.

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 ).

In later years, Capp always claimed to have effectively created the miniskirt, when he first put one on Daisy Mae in 1934.

Serving in his capacity as honorary chairman, Capp made public appearances on its behalf for years, contributed free artwork for its annual fund-raising appeals, and entertained crippled and paraplegic children in children's hospitals with inspirational pep talks, humorous stories and sketches.

Capp followed this success with other allegorical fantasy critters, including the aboriginal and 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.

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.

No matter how much help he had, Capp insisted on drawing and inking the characters ' faces and hands — especially of Abner and Daisy Mae — himself, and his distinctive touch is often discernible.

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.

" 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.

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.

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 and television.

Capp appeared as a regular on The Author Meets the Critics ( 1948 –' 54 ) and made regular, weekly appearances on Today in 1953.

In addition to his public service work for charitable organizations for the handicapped, Capp also served on the National Reading Council, which was organized to combat illiteracy.

Capp became a popular public speaker on college campuses, where he reportedly relished hecklers.

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 of course, " student protest.

How do you do ?," Capp sardonically congratulated Lennon and Ono on their Two Virgins nude album cover: " I think that everybody owes it to the world to prove they have pubic hair.

According to an apocryphal tale from this era, in a televised face-off, either Capp ( on the Dick Cavett Show ) or ( more commonly ) conservative talk show host Joe Pyne ( on his own show ) is supposed to have taunted iconoclastic musician Frank Zappa about his long hair, asking Zappa if he thought he was a girl.

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.