" My mother and father had been brought to this country from Russia when they were infants ," wrote Capp in 1978.

Capp moved to Boston and married Catherine Wingate Cameron, whom he had met earlier in art class.

Capp had it changed legally in 1949.

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.

( 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.

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.

Capp had often parodied corporate greed — pork tycoon J. Roaringham Fatback had figured prominently in wiping out the Shmoos.

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.

) 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.

" 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 ).

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.

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.

" He had the touch ," Frazetta said of Capp in 2008.

He served as chairman of the Cartoonists ' Committee in President Dwight D. Eisenhower's People-to-People program in 1954 ( although Capp had actually supported Adlai Stevenson for president in 1952 and 1956 ), which was organized to promote Savings bonds for the 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.

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.

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.

" ( Both Capp and Pyne had wooden legs.

Anderson and his associate Brit Hume 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.

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.

The resulting publicity led to hundreds of papers dropping his comic strip, and Capp, already in failing health, withdrew from public speaking.

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

Since then he has gone on to become one of the highest-paid stars on British TV, mostly in comedies, appearing in shows such as Only When I Laugh ( as Roy Figgis ), The Beiderbecke Affair ( as Trevor Chaplin ), The Beiderbecke Tapes, Andy Capp ( in the title role ), The Beiderbecke Connection, Second Thoughts ( as Bill MacGregor ), Midsomer Murders, Pay and Display, Dalziel and Pascoe, Close and True, Born and Bred ( as Dr. Arthur Gilder ), and New Tricks ( as Jack Halford ).

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.

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.

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 " strips Washable Jones, Small Fry ( aka Small Change ), and Advice fo ' Chillun.

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 ).

" Capp was the best known, most influential and most controversial cartoonist of his era ," writes publisher ( and leading Shmoo collector ) Denis Kitchen.

* 1979 – Al Capp, American cartoonist ( b. 1909 )

* November 5 – Al Capp, American cartoonist ( b. 1909 )

Shortly after the war, Rockwell was contacted by writer Elliott Caplin, brother of cartoonist Al Capp, with the suggestion that the three of them should make a daily comic strip together, with Caplin and his brother writing and Rockwell drawing.

Andy Capp is a British comic strip created by cartoonist Reg Smythe ( 1917 – 1998 ), seen in The Daily Mirror and The Sunday Mirror newspapers since 5 August 1957.

" Capp was also caricatured as an ill-mannered, boozy cartoonist ( Capp was a teetotaler in real life ) named " Hal Rapp " in the comic strip Mary Worth by Allen Saunders and Ken Ernst.

Drawn by cartoonist Steve Stiles, the new Abner was approved by Capp's widow and brother, Elliott Caplin, but Al Capp's daughter, Julie Capp, objected at the last minute and permission was withdrawn.

* The 1989 film I Want to Go Home ( Je Veux Rentrer a la Maison, screenplay by Jules Feiffer ) has a scene where the main character, a retired cartoonist played by Adolph Green, makes an unexpectedly emotional appeal for Al Capp and his legacy.

Joe Btfsplk was a character in the satirical comic strip Li ' l Abner by cartoonist Al Capp ( 1909 – 1979 ).

Saunders 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 ).

In 1950, writer Elliot Caplin ( brother of cartoonist Al Capp ) suggested that Murphy illustrate a boxing comic strip he had in mind, Big Ben Bolt, and he agreed.

The idea for Broom-Hilda originally came from writer Elliott Caplin, brother of cartoonist Al Capp, who described the character to Myers.

It was opened in 1968, and was based on the comic strip Li ' l Abner, created by cartoonist Al Capp and set in a fictional village called Dogpatch.

" 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.

The Sadie Hawkins dance is named after the Li ' l Abner comic strip character Sadie Hawkins, created by cartoonist Al Capp.

The American cartoonist Al Capp frequently combined eye dialect with pronunciation spelling in his strip " Li ' l Abner ".

Salomey was the Yokums ' beloved pet pig in the classic comic strip Li ' l Abner, by cartoonist Al Capp ( 1909 – 1979 ).