Fans of the strip ranged from novelist John Steinbeck, who called Capp " possibly the best writer in the world today " in 1953, and even earnestly recommended him for the Nobel Prize in literature — to media critic and theorist Marshall McLuhan, who considered Capp " the only robust satirical force in American life.

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.

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.

" 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 ).

" 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.

According to one anecdote ( from Al Capp Remembered, 1994 ), Capp and his brother Elliot ducked out of a dull party at Capp's home — leaving Walt Kelly alone to fend for himself entertaining a group of Argentine envoys who didn't speak English.

According to Capp, who loved to relate the story, Kelly's two perfectly logical reasons for doing so were: a. to cement diplomatic relations between Argentina and the United States, and b. " Because you can't play the piano, anyway!

Capp, who by all accounts was contrary and contentious by nature, was a maverick politically.

Alongside his long-established caricatures of right-wing, big business types such as General Bullmoose and J. Roaringham Fatback, Capp began spoofing counterculture icons such as Joan Baez ( in the character of Joanie Phoanie, a wealthy folksinger who offers an impoverished orphanage ten thousand dollars ' worth of " protest songs ").

In an April 1969 letter to Time, Capp insisted, " The students I blast are not the dissenters, but the destroyers — the less than 4 % who lock up deans in washrooms, who burn manuscripts of unpublished books, who make combination pigpens and playpens of their universities.

Adams later said that writer Elliot Caplin, brother of Al Capp and Jerry Capp, offered Adams the job of drawing a comic strip based on author Robin Moore's The Green Berets, but that Adams, who opposed the war, suggested longtime DC Comics war-comics artist Joe Kubert, who landed that assignment.

The animation was created by Teesside born Chris Hunneysett, who drew from his own background to place Andy Capp in Middlesbrough.

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

Fans of the strip ranged from novelist John Steinbeck, who called Capp " very possibly the best writer in the world today " in 1953, and even earnestly recommended him for the Nobel Prize in literature — to media critic and theorist Marshall McLuhan, who considered Capp " the only robust satirical force in American life.

Capp and his family lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts near Harvard during the entire Vietnam War protest era.

Capp, who lived right outside Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts, weathered severe criticism from the Left for this continuity, but stood by his satire of the era's excesses by militant student protesters.

Vice President Spiro Agnew urged Capp to run in the Democratic Party Massachusetts primary in 1970 against Ted Kennedy, but Capp ultimately declined.

Capp is buried in Mount Prospect Cemetery in Amesbury, Massachusetts.

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

The President immediately turned to an aide and said, " Call Walter Reed ( Hospital ), or maybe Bethesda ," to which Capp replied, " Hell no, just call a good local mechanic!

At that first meeting there was Al Capp, Walt Kelly, Alex Raymond, Ernie Bushmiller, Milton Caniff, all of them just sitting there, big as life.

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

" 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.

!," a self-portrait by Al Capp, excerpted from theApril 16 – 17, 1951 Li ' l Abner strips.

In 1946 Capp created a special full-color comic book, Al Capp by Li ' l Abner, to be distributed by the Red Cross to encourage the thousands of amputee veterans returning from the war.

) 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.

Milton Caniff offered another anecdote ( from Phi Beta Pogo, 1989 ) involving Capp and Walt Kelly, " two boys from Bridgeport, Connecticut, nose to nose ," onstage at a meeting of the Newspaper Comics Council in the sixties.

During most of his tenure with Capp, Frazetta's primary responsibility — along with various specialty art, such as a series of Li ' l Abner greeting cards — was tight-penciling the Sunday pages from studio roughs.

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.

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

A lifelong chain smoker, Capp died in 1979 from emphysema at his home in South Hampton, New Hampshire.

* Goldstein, Kalman, " Al Capp and Walt Kelly: Pioneers of Political and Social Satire in the Comics " from Journal of Popular Culture ; Vol.

* All the Best from Andy Capp ( No. 14 ) ( 1965 )

In 1957, it introduced the Andy Capp cartoon, created by Reg Smythe from Hartlepool, in the northern editions.

Written and drawn by Al Capp ( 1909 – 1979 ), the strip ran for 43 years, from August 13, 1934 through November 13, 1977.

Bullmoose's bombastic motto ( see Dialogue and catchphrases ) was adapted by Capp from a statement made by Charles E. Wilson, the former head of General Motors when it was America's largest corporation.

" Very early in the continuity Capp once referred to Dogpatch being in Kentucky, but he was careful afterwards to keep its location generic, probably to avoid cancellations from offended subscribing Kentucky newspapers.

Campus radicals and “ hippies ” inevitably became one of Capp ’ s favorite targets in the sixties.

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.

Capp provided specialty artwork for civic groups, government agencies and charitable or non-profit organizations, spanning several decades.

" The cover features a cartoon drawing by Capp of wildly dressed, angry hippies carrying protest signs with slogans like " End Capp Brutality ," " Abner and Daisy Mae Smoke Pot ," " Capp Is Over 40, 50 — all crossed out the Hill!