Capp has been compared, at various times, to Mark Twain, Dostoevski, Jonathan Swift, Lawrence Sterne and Rabelais.

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.

Thematically, the strip draws upon nostalgic childhood experiences, and often has a static, almost limbo-like atmosphere, in a similar manner to its companion strip, Andy Capp.

He has an apparently unpronounceable name, but creator Al Capp " pronounced " Btfsplk by simply blowing a " raspberry ," or Bronx cheer.

Capp has credited his inspiration for vividly stylized language to early literary influences like Charles Dickens, Mark Twain and Damon Runyon, as well as Old-time radio and the Burlesque stage.

" Capp has been compared, at various times, to Fyodor Dostoevsky, Jonathan Swift, Lawrence Sterne, and Rabelais.

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 has appeared as himself on The Ed Sullivan Show, Sid Caesar's Your Show of Shows, The Today Show, The Red Skelton Show, The Merv Griffin Show, The Mike Douglas Show, and on This Is Your Life on February 12, 1961 with host Ralph Edwards and honoree Peter Palmer.

* 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.

* Frank Sinatra, who was frequently spoofed by Al Capp in Li ' l Abner, has a line in the MGM musical On the Town ( 1949 ) about cops " multiplyin ' like shmoos!

In British popular culture the flat cap has been associated with older working class men, especially those in northern England, and the west country, as personified by Fred Dibnah and comic strip anti-hero Andy Capp.

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 ).

* Christopher S. Capp voices Cotton's parrot: A blue and yellow macaw that Cotton has trained to speak for him.

He has appeared in various programmes, including The Beiderbecke Affair, Inspector Morse, The Brittas Empire, Andy Capp, Soldier Soldier, All Creatures Great and Small and even as a photographer who got physical with Mike Baldwin on Coronation Street.

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.

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.

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

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

" ( 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 ).

Capp also freelanced very successfully as a magazine writer and newspaper columnist, in a wide variety of publications including Life, Show, Pageant, The Atlantic, Esquire, Coronet, and The Saturday Evening Post.

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 was also inducted into the Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame in 2004.

Capp also had a knack for popularizing certain uncommon terms, such as druthers, schmooze and nogoodnik, neatnik, etc.

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.

In addition to Capp, Jerry Brondfield also wrote for the strip, with Adams stepping in occasionally.

The Mirror also runs a cartoon strip called Mandy, which started life as Mandy Capp.

Capp designed her in caricature of his wife Catherine ( minus the dirt ), who had also suggested Daisy Mae's name.

Capp also excelled at product endorsement, and Li ' l Abner characters were often featured in mid-century American advertising campaigns.

Capp is also the subject of an upcoming PBS American Masters documentary produced by his granddaughter, independent filmmaker Caitlin Manning.

" 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.

Declaring that satire was also protected free speech, he refused to order Capp to cease and desist.

There was also a separate line of comic books, Al Capp's Shmoo Comics ( featuring Washable Jones ), published by the Capp family-owned Toby Press. Comics historian and Li ' l Abner expert Denis Kitchen recently edited a complete collection of all five original Shmoo Comics, from 1949 and 1950.

Based on the comic strip Li ' l Abner by Al Capp, the show is, on the surface, a broad spoof of hillbillies, but it is also a pointed satire on broader topics, ranging from incompetence in the United States federal government to standards of masculinity.

He also made appearances in a number of other TV shows, including the first series of Starting Out, Boon, Minder, Dear John, Farrington of the F. O., Z-Cars, Andy Capp, Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, Blake's 7, and Casualty.

The Ice Capp can also be prepared as a Supreme, which includes a flavour shot, whipped topping, and either caramel or chocolate syrup.

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

) 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 ).

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.

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.

Since his death in 1979, Al Capp and his work have been the subject of more than 40 books, including three biographies.

By the time EC Comics published Mad # 1, Capp had been doing Fearless Fosdick for nearly a decade.

Li ' l Abner lasted until November 13, 1977, when 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 advancing illness.

Since his death in 1979, Al Capp and his work have been the subject of more than 40 books, including three biographies.