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83-559: Canova was born in Starke, Florida , one of seven siblings, to Joseph Francis Canova, a businessman, and Henrietta E. Canova (née Perry), a singer. Canova claimed that her family originated in the Pyrenees mountains of Spain, but other sources indicate that the family may have been from the island of Menorca . She began her showbusiness career with a family vaudeville routine, joining her sister Annie and brother Zeke. Their performances as

166-497: A Cockney accent) and Sir Cecil Cesspool (whose speech is a clipped King's English ). Various Asian , Latin , Native American , and European characters speak in a wide range of caricatured dialects as well. 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. Comics historian Don Markstein has commented that Capp's "use of language

249-426: A comic book that parodied other comics in the same manner. By the time EC Comics published Mad #1 , Capp had been doing Fearless Fosdick for nearly a decade. Similarities between Li'l Abner and the early Mad include the incongruous use of mock- Yiddish slang terms, the disdain for pop culture icons, the black humor , the dearth of sentiment, and the broad visual styling. The trademark comic signs that clutter

332-496: A date for Sadie Hawkins Day . In the strip on November 5, 1977, Li'l Abner and Daisy Mae make a final visit to Capp, and Daisy insists that Capp settle on a date. Capp suggests November 26, and Daisy rewarded him with a kiss. Sadie Hawkins Day and Sadie Hawkins dance are two of several terms attributed to Capp that have entered the English lexicon. Others include double whammy , skunkworks , and Lower Slobbovia . The term shmoo

415-488: A dilapidated boarding house run by his mercenary landlord , Mrs. Flintnose. He never marries his fiancée Prudence Pimpleton (despite an engagement of 17 years). He became the star of his own NBC puppet show that same year. Fosdick was the long-running advertising spokesperson for Wildroot Cream-Oil , a popular men's hair product of the period. Although apparently set in the Kentucky mountains, situations often took

498-472: A double-page spread in Life proclaimed, "On Sadie Hawkins Day Girls Chase Boys in 201 Colleges". By 1952, the event was reportedly celebrated at 40,000 venues. It became a rite of women's empowerment at high schools and college campuses before second-wave feminism gained prominence. Outside of the comic strip, a Sadie Hawkins dance is a gender role reversal. Women and girls take the initiative in inviting

581-421: A four-year-old hillbilly boy (Washable Jones) who goes fishing and accidentally hooks a ghost. Capp ended the strip with Washable's mother waking him up, revealing that the story was a dream. After this, Capp expanded Li'l Abner by another row and filled the rest of the space with a page-wide title panel and a small panel called Advice fo' Chillun . Washable Jones appeared in the strip in 1949, and appeared with

664-414: A household in the city was $ 27,021, and the median income for a family was $ 35,093. Males had a median income of $ 27,176 versus $ 17,986 for females. The per capita income for the city was $ 13,507. About 19.2% of families and 23.9% of the population were below the poverty line , including 34.9% of those under age 18 and 23.2% of those age 65 or over. Starke has a Commission-Manager form of government, with

747-479: A love-starved Ozark bumpkin dividing her time between home and Southern California, Canova was accompanied by a cast that included voice master Mel Blanc (using voices that he later gave to cartoon characters Speedy Gonzales and Sylvester ), Ruth Perrott, Ruby Dandridge , Joseph Kearns and Sharon Douglas . Gale Gordon , Sheldon Leonard , Gerald Mohr and Hans Conried also appeared sporadically. Canova's radio and film careers ended in 1955. Although she made

830-423: A man or boy out on a date — almost unheard of before 1937 — to a dance. When Capp created the event, it wasn't his intention to have it occur annually on a specific date. However, due to its enormous popularity and the numerous fan letters he received, Capp made it a tradition in the strip every November, lasting four decades. In many localities, the tradition still continues. Al Capp ended his comic strip by setting

913-647: A mayor, vice mayor and three council members, all elected to single member districts. In addition, the City Clerk and Chief of Police are elected positions. Starke City Officials serve four-year terms. The current city commissioners are: The city clerk is James "Jimmy" Crosby, the city manager is Russell A. Mullins, and the Chief of Police is Jeff Johnson. Southside Elementary School officially closed its doors in November 2023, having been used temporarily in light of

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996-413: A media-fed "feud" commenced briefly between the rival strips. It turned out to be a collaborative hoax by Capp and his longtime friend Saunders as a publicity stunt . Li'l Abner' s success also sparked some comic strip imitators. Jasper Jooks by Jess "Baldy" Benton (1948–'49), Ozark Ike (1945–'53), and Cotton Woods (1955–'58), both by Ray Gotto, were inspired by Capp's strip. Boody Rogers ' Babe

1079-460: A singer and actress known for her television roles on Soap and I'm a Big Girl Now , but ended in 1964. Canova died in 1983 from cancer at age 69. Her ashes were interred in the secluded Columbarium of Everlasting Light section at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California . Features: Short subjects: Television: Starke, Florida Starke is a city in and

1162-639: A smooth transition to television, her radio show was not made into a television series. She made frequent guest appearances on television shows such as The Colgate Comedy Hour , The Steve Allen Show , Matinee Theatre , Alfred Hitchcock Presents , The Mickey Mouse Club , The Danny Thomas Show . She appeared as a mystery guest on the show What's My Line on July 18, 1954. Canova appeared in two failed television series pilots . In 1967, she portrayed Mammy Yokum in an NBC adaptation of Al Capp 's Li'l Abner . She also starred in The Murdocks and

1245-514: A substantial feature and The New York Times devoted nearly a full page to the event, according to publisher Denis Kitchen. Capp, a lifelong chain smoker, died from emphysema two years later at age 70, at his home in South Hampton, New Hampshire , on November 5, 1979. In 1988 and 1989, many newspapers ran old of Li'l Abner strips, mostly from the 1940s run, distributed by Newspaper Enterprise Association and Capp Enterprises. Following

1328-605: A team of assistants in later years who worked under his direct supervision. They included Andy Amato, Harvey Curtis, Walter Johnson, and Frank Frazetta , who penciled the Sunday continuity from studio roughs from 1954 to the end of 1961 before his fame as a fantasy artist. Due to his own experience working on Joe Palooka , Capp frequently drew attention to his assistants in interviews and publicity pieces. A 1950 cover story in Time included photos of two of his employees, whose roles in

1411-413: A teenager when bandleader Rudy Vallée offered her a guest spot on his radio show The Fleischmann Hour . The Canova family performed on the radio often in the 1930s, and they made their Broadway theater debut in the revue Calling All Stars . Canova signed with Warner Bros. and appeared in short subjects and minor features before signing with Paramount Pictures for one year. After she starred in

1494-574: A whole new crop of cartoonists, myself included. Capp was a genius . You wanna argue about it? I'll fight ya, and I'll win! Al Capp once told one of his assistants that he knew Li'l Abner had finally "arrived" when it was first pirated as a pornographic Tijuana bible parody in the mid-1930s. Li'l Abner was also parodied in 1954 (as "Li'l Melvin" by "Ol' Hatt") in the pages of EC Comics ' humor comic, Panic , edited by Al Feldstein . Kurtzman eventually did spoof Li'l Abner (as "Li'l Ab'r") in 1957, in his short-lived humor magazine, Trump . Both

1577-551: Is 100% responsible for inspiring Harvey Kurtzman to create Mad Magazine. Just look at Fearless Fosdick — a brilliant parody of Dick Tracy with all those bullet holes and stuff. Then look at Mad 's "Teddy and the Pirates", " Superduperman! " or even Little Annie Fanny . Forget about it — slam dunk! Not taking anything away from Kurtzman, who was brilliant himself, but Capp was the source for that whole sense of satire in comics. Kurtzman carried that forward and passed it down to

1660-512: Is perpetually pierced by so many bullets that he resembles Swiss cheese . Fosdick seems impervious and considers the holes "mere scratches", however, and always reports back to his corrupt superior "The Chief" for duty the next day. Besides being fearless, Fosdick is "pure, underpaid and purposeful," according to his creator. He has notoriously bad aim, often causing collateral damage to pedestrians. Fosdick sees his duty as destroying crime rather than maintaining safety. Fosdick lives in squalor at

1743-465: Is used in defining technical concepts in four fields of science. Capp has been credited with popularizing terms such as "natcherly", schmooze , druthers , nogoodnik, and neatnik. (In his book The American Language , H. L. Mencken credits the postwar trend of adding " -nik " to the ends of adjectives to create nouns as beginning in Li'l Abner .) In the late 1940s, newspaper syndicates typically owned

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1826-563: The Trump and Panic parodies were drawn by Will Elder. In 1947, Will Eisner 's The Spirit satirized the comic strip business in general, as a denizen of Central City tries to murder cartoonist "Al Slapp", creator of "Li'l Adam". 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 . Supposedly done in retaliation for Capp's "Mary Worm" parody in Li'l Abner (1956),

1909-485: The United States Census Bureau , the city has a total area of 7.2 square miles (18.7 km ), all land. Starke is located approximately 8 miles (13 km) west of Florida's National Guard base, Camp Blanding , and is approximately 10 miles (16 km) southeast of Florida State Prison , Union Correctional Institution , and New River East Correctional Institution. The exact location for

1992-725: The Voltairean ." Capp has been compared to Fyodor Dostoevsky , Jonathan Swift , Laurence Sterne , and François Rabelais . Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly and Time called him "the Mark Twain of cartoonists". Charlie Chaplin , William F. Buckley , Al Hirschfeld , Harpo Marx , Russ Meyer , John Kenneth Galbraith , Ralph Bakshi , Shel Silverstein , Hugh Downs , Gene Shalit , Frank Cho , Daniel Clowes , and Queen Elizabeth are all reportedly fans of Li'l Abner . In book Understanding Media , Marshall McLuhan called Li'l Abner's Dogpatch "a paradigm of

2075-427: The copyrights , trademarks , and licensing rights to comic strips. According to publisher Denis Kitchen , "Nearly all comic strips, even today, are owned and controlled by syndicates, not the strips' creators. And virtually all cartoonists remain content with their diluted share of any merchandising revenue their syndicates arrange. When the starving and broke Capp first sold Li'l Abner in 1934, he gladly accepted

2158-404: The county seat of Bradford County , Florida , United States. The population was 5,796 at the 2020 census . The origin of the city's name is disputed. Starke may have been named in honor of local landowner George W. Cole's fiancée's family or in honor of Madison Starke Perry , fourth governor of Florida . Prior to 1857, the area that is today Starke was sparsely settled. The announcement of

2241-596: The "Skonk Works", a dilapidated factory located on the remote outskirts of Dogpatch; and the General Jubilation T. Cornpone memorial statue. In one storyline, Dogpatch's Cannonball Express train, after 1,563 tries, finally delivers its cargo to Dogpatch citizens on October 12, 1946. Receiving a 13-year stack of newspapers, Li'l Abner's family realizes that the Great Depression is happening and that banks will close; they race to take their money out of

2324-557: The 1939 Broadway musical comedy Yokel Boy with Buddy Ebsen , executives at Republic Pictures , with a customer base largely in rural areas, signed Canova in 1940 shortly after the show ended its run. Canova quickly became Republic's leading female star, playing country women who typically blundered into trouble in such titles as Scatterbrain (1940), Sis Hopkins (1941) and Joan of Ozark (1942). However, Canova did not appear in Republic's film adaptation of Yokel Boy ; her role

2407-497: The City of Starke is at the coordinates 29°56′39″N 82°06′35″W  /  29.94417°N 82.10972°W  / 29.94417; -82.10972 . Starke has a humid subtropical climate (Cfa). As of the 2020 United States census , there were 5,796 people, 2,160 households, and 1,215 families residing in the city. As of the 2010 United States census , there were 5,449 people, 2,062 households, and 1,329 families residing in

2490-579: The Fernandina to Cedar Key railroad, which would connect the Atlantic Ocean with the Gulf of Mexico, brought the first known settlement to the community. In November 1857, the first post office in the area was established by George W. Cole. In 1859, Cole obtained 40 acres (16 ha) of land around the post office, which were described in his documents as the "Original Town of Starke." In 1858,

2573-653: The Last), the Slobbovian politicians are even more corrupt than their Dogpatch counterparts. Their monetary unit is the "rasbucknik",: one was worth nothing and a large quantity is worth even less, due to the trouble of carrying them around. The local children are read tales from "Ice-sop's Fables", parodies of Aesop's Fables with a dark sardonic bent (and titles like "Coldilocks and the Three Bares"). Other fictional locales included Skonk Hollow, El Passionato, Kigmyland,

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2656-515: The Loom , Orange Crush , Nestlé cocoa , Cheney neckties, Pedigree pencils, Strunk chainsaws, U.S. Royal tires, Head & Shoulders shampoo , and General Electric light bulbs. There were Dogpatch-themed family restaurants called "Li'l Abner's" in Louisville, Kentucky , Morton Grove, Illinois , and Seattle, Washington . Capp himself appeared in numerous print ads: Chesterfield cigarettes (he

2739-532: The Los Angeles–based company Camera Vision Productions, Inc, which developed an automated camera that was reported to reduce television and film production costs by as much as 50%. Conova is honored with two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame : one for her contributions to the film industry at 6821 Hollywood Boulevard and one for her radio career at 6777 Hollywood Boulevard. Canova's first husband

2822-724: The McClays , a retelling of Romeo and Juliet set in the Virginia hills, which aired on ABC in August 1970 as the final installment in a three-part showcase of pilots titled Comedy Preview . Canova recorded for the RCA Victor label. She also worked on Broadway and in Las Vegas nightclubs through the early 1970s, touring with the revival of No, No Nanette in 1971. In 1954, Canova and her husband obtained controlling interest in

2905-750: The Republic of Crumbumbo, Lo Kunning, Faminostan, Planets Pincus Number 2 and 7, Pineapple Junction and the Valley of the Shmoon. Li'l Abner features many allegorical animals, designed to satirize a disturbing aspect of human nature . They include: Capp, a northeasterner , wrote all the dialogue in Li'l Abner using his approximation of a mock- southern dialect (including phonetic sounds, eye dialect , incorrect spelling, and malapropisms ). He interspersed boldface type and included prompt words in parentheses ( chuckle!, sob!, gasp!, shudder!, smack!, drool!, cackle!, snort!, gulp!, blush!, ugh!, etc.) to bolster

2988-714: The Shmoos in two one-shot comics – Al Capp's Shmoo in Washable Jones' Travels (1950, a premium for Oxydol laundry detergent) and Washable Jones and the Shmoo #1 (1953, published by the Capp-owned publisher Toby Press). Al Capp also wrote two other daily comic strips: Capp devised several publicity campaigns to boost circulation and increase public visibility of Li'l Abner , often coordinating with national magazines, radio and television. In 1946, Capp persuaded six of

3071-716: The Three Georgia Crackers took them from Florida theaters to the Village Barn , a Manhattan club. Canova sang, yodeled and played guitar, and she was typed as a wide-eyed likable country bumpkin , often barefoot and wearing her hair in braids, sometimes topped with a straw hat. She was sometimes introduced as the Ozark Nightingale or the Jenny Lind of the Ozarks. Canova's fame began when as

3154-477: The area. The construction of nearby Camp Blanding as a military training facility during World War II added to the local building boom, and by 1950, the city's population had doubled. Post- World War II , the boom continued and the area continued to see an influx of residents working in the service industry and in its strawberry fields. Bradford County's famous Strawberry Festival was born during this time, and it continues to attract thousands of visitors today. In

3237-463: The backgrounds of Will Elder 's panels had a precedent in Li'l Abner , in the residence of Dogpatch entrepreneur Available Jones, though they're also reminiscent of Bill Holman's Smokey Stover . Kurtzman resisted doing feature parodies of either Li'l Abner or Dick Tracy in Mad , despite their prominence. Capp is one of the great unsung heroes of comics. I've never heard anyone mention this, but Capp

3320-590: The bank before realizing they have no money to begin with. Other news from the stack includes the inauguration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt as president on March 4, 1933 (although Mammy Yokum thinks the President is Teddy Roosevelt ), and a picture of Germany's new leader Adolf Hitler (April 21, 1933). Capp intended for suffering Americans in the midst of the Great Depression, to laugh at

3403-455: The billions every year to devour Dogpatch's only crop (along with their homes, their livestock, and all their clothing). The local geography is fluid and complex; Capp continually changes it to suit the current storyline. Natural landmarks include (at various times) Teeterin' Rock, Onneccessary Mountain, Bottomless Canyon, and Kissin' Rock. Local attractions include the West Po'k Chop Railroad;

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3486-715: The characters to different destinations — including New York City , Washington, D.C. , Hollywood , the South American Amazon , tropical islands, the Moon , and Mars — as well as some purely fictional locations: Including every stereotype of Appalachia , the impoverished Dogpatch consists mostly of ramshackle log cabins, turnip fields, pine trees, and hogwallows. Most Dogpatchers are shiftless, ignorant scoundrels and thieves. The men are too lazy to work, and Dogpatch girls are desperate enough to chase them. Those who farm their turnip fields watch turnip termites swarm by

3569-559: The city. As of the census of 2000, there were 5,593 people, 2,003 households, and 1,350 families residing in the city. The population density was 839.3 inhabitants per square mile (324.1/km ). There were 2,273 housing units at an average density of 341.1 units per square mile (131.7 units/km ). The racial makeup of the city was 67.05% White , 29.54% African American , 0.21% Native American , 1.25% Asian , 0.16% Pacific Islander , 0.64% from other races , and 1.14% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 2.23% of

3652-580: The comic strip Teena , Capp temporarily resigned in protest. "Capp had always advocated a more activist agenda for the Society, and he had begun in December 1949 to make his case in the Newsletter as well as at the meetings," wrote comics historian R. C. Harvey . According to Tom Roberts, author of Alex Raymond : His Life and Art (2007), Capp authored a monologue that was instrumental in changing

3735-478: The concept that humor strips were solely the domain of adolescents and children. Li'l Abner provided a new template for contemporary satire and personal expression in comics, paving the way for Pogo , Feiffer , Doonesbury , and MAD . Fearless Fosdick and other Li'l Abner comic strip parodies, such as "Jack Jawbreaker!" (1947) and "Little Fanny Gooney" (1952), were likely an inspiration to Harvey Kurtzman when he created Mad , which began in 1952 as

3818-410: The cross located on the city's water tower, as national atheist groups condemned the community. In the early 2000s, a court motion was filed by American Atheists against the city to remove the cross, bringing Starke back into the national spotlight. The battle in court would prove contentious, with most city residents staunchly opposed to its removal. In 2007, a district judge ruled against the city, and

3901-653: The cross would later be moved to a location on private property. In later years, American Atheists attempted to have a Ten Commandments monument removed from the courtyard of the Bradford County Courthouse. A compromise was eventually reached however in this case. Starke is located in east-central Bradford County. U.S. Route 301 passes through the center of the city, leading north 26 miles (42 km) to Baldwin and Interstate 10 (with Jacksonville through it) and southwest (via State Road 24 ) 25 miles (40 km) to Gainesville . According to

3984-628: The daily. It was originally distributed by United Feature Syndicate and later by the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate . Before Capp introduced Li'l Abner, his comic strips typically dealt with northern urban American experiences. However, Li'l Abner was his first strip based in the Southern United States . The comic strip had 60 million readers in over 900 American newspapers and 100 foreign papers across 28 countries. Fearless Fosdick

4067-400: The declining quality of the strip, which he said had been the best he could manage due to advancing illness. "If you have any sense of humor about your strip — and I had a sense of humor about mine — you knew that for three- or four-years Abner was wrong. Oh hell, it's like a fighter retiring. I stayed on longer than I should have," he admitted." When the strip retired, People magazine ran

4150-419: The effect of the speech balloons . Almost every line was followed by two exclamation marks for added emphasis. Outside Dogpatch, characters use a variety of stock Vaudevillian dialects. Mobsters and criminals speak slangy Brooklynese , and residents of Lower Slobbovia speak pidgin-Russian, some Yinglish . British characters also have comical dialects — like H'Inspector Blugstone of Scotland Yard (who has

4233-581: The fourth type, according to MacLean, there were only two: Pogo and Li'l Abner . In 2002, the Chicago Tribune , in a review of The Short Life and Happy Times of the Shmoo , noted: "The wry, ornery, brilliantly perceptive satirist will go down as one of the Great American Humorists." In America's Great Comic Strip Artists (1997), comics historian Richard Marschall analyzed the misanthropic subtext of Li'l Abner: Capp

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4316-507: The human situation". Comparing Capp to other contemporary humorists , McLuhan wrote: " Arno , Nash , and Thurber are brittle, wistful little précieux beside Capp!" In his essay "The Decline of the Comics", ( Canadian Forum , January 1954) literary critic Hugh MacLean classified American comic strips into four types: daily gag, adventure, soap opera, and "an almost lost comic ideal: the disinterested comment on life's pattern and meaning." In

4399-594: The late 1980s, the city received national media attention during the proceedings of the Ted Bundy case and his eventual execution at Florida State Prison in nearby Raiford, Florida . It also received attention when Lawton Chiles was Florida governor as a notorious speed trap town, even having warning billboards placed on Interstate 10 's exit onto south US 301 . Other speed traps on this stretch of US 301 between I-10 and I-75 were Waldo , Lawtey , and Hampton . During this time, controversy would also arise over

4482-588: The location of the following television series: Li%27l Abner Li'l Abner was a satirical American comic strip that appeared in multiple newspapers in the United States , Canada , and Europe . It featured a fictional clan of hillbillies living in the impoverished fictional mountain village of Dogpatch , USA. Written and illustrated by Al Capp (1909–1979), the strip ran for 43 years, from August 13, 1934, through November 13, 1977. The Sunday page debuted on February 24, 1935, six months after

4565-999: The most popular radio personalities (Frank Sinatra, Kate Smith , Danny Kaye , Bob Hope , Fred Waring , and Smilin' Jack Smith ) to broadcast a song he'd written for Daisy Mae: (Li'l Abner) Don't Marry That Girl!! Other promotional tie-ins included the Lena the Hyena Contest (1946), the Name the Shmoo Contest (1949), the Nancy O. Contest (1951), and the Roger the Lodger Contest (1964). Li'l Abner characters were often featured in mid-century American advertising campaigns including Grape-Nuts cereal , Kraft caramels , Ivory soap , Oxydol , Duz and Dreft detergents, Fruit of

4648-403: The new U.S. Highway 301 in the early 1900s, and the construction of Camp Blanding during World War II. For travelers coming from the northeastern United States, Highway 301 was the quickest route between Jacksonville and Tampa (a title it still holds to this day). Starke's status as one of the largest cities on the route, as well its location on State Road 100 , brought numerous hotels to

4731-750: The new school site being built for the current staff and students. The school building itself will be utilized as the new School District office. Schools within Starke are operated by the Bradford County School District . In addition, the Bradford County Public Library is in Starke. It is a part of the New River Public Library Cooperative . Starke has been the location of several Hollywood films, including: Starke has been

4814-476: The oldest weekly newspaper in Florida today). The city experienced tremendous growth in the 1880s and 1890s from Florida's citrus industry. Northerners moved to the area in droves to take a stake in the industry, but the state's Great Freeze that, came in the winter of 1894-1895 devastated the area's orange groves, moving the citrus industry further south. Starke oversaw a period of rapid expansion brought on by

4897-505: The other, his mean-spiritedness came to the fore — but which was which seems to depend on the commentator's own point of view. From beginning to end, Capp was acid-tongued toward the targets of his wit, intolerant of hypocrisy, and always wickedly funny. After about 40 years, however, Capp's interest in Abner waned, and this showed in the strip itself... Li'l Abner ran until November 13, 1977, when Capp retired with an apology to his fans for

4980-405: The population. In 2000, there were 2,003 households, out of which 32.7% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 43.3% were married couples living together, 20.0% had a female householder with no husband present, and 32.6% were non-families. 28.0% of all households were made up of individuals, and 13.6% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size

5063-606: The preliminary staging and action of each panel, oversaw the finished pencils, and drew and inked the faces and hands of the characters. "He had the touch, " Frazetta said of Capp in 2008. "He knew how to take an otherwise ordinary drawing and really make it pop . I'll never knock his talent." Many have commented on the shift in Capp's political viewpoint, from as liberal as Pogo in his early years to as conservative as Little Orphan Annie when he reached middle age. At one extreme, he displayed consistently devastating humor, while at

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5146-405: The production were detailed by Capp. This irregular policy has led to the misconception that his strip was ghostwritten by others. However, the production of Li'l Abner has been well documented, and Capp maintained creative control over every stage of production for virtually the entire run of the strip. Capp originated the stories, wrote the dialogue, designed the major characters, rough penciled

5229-616: The railroad reached Starke, bringing new residents to the community. The city was incorporated on April 4, 1870. In 1875, Bradford County residents narrowly voted to move the county seat from Lake Butler to Starke. Three additional votes would be taken in later years on the location of the county seat, before the Florida Legislature resolved the issue in 1921, with the creation of Union County . Starke's weekly newspaper, The Bradford County Telegraph , began publication in 1879 as The Florida Weekly Telegraph (it continues to be

5312-508: The residents of Dogpatch even worse off than themselves. In his words, Dogpatch was "an average stone-age community nestled in a bleak valley, between two cheap and uninteresting hills somewhere." Early in the continuity, Capp referred to Dogpatch being in Kentucky , but he was careful afterward to keep its location generic, probably to avoid cancellations from Kentucky newspapers. He then referred to it as Dogpatch, USA, and did not give any specific location. Many states tried to claim ownership of

5395-854: The rules the following year. Hilda Terry was the first woman cartoonist admitted in 1950. Through Li'l Abner , the American comic strip achieved unprecedented relevance in the postwar years, attracting new readers who were more intellectual and informed on current events (according to Coulton Waugh , author of The Comics , 1947). "When Li'l Abner made its debut in 1934, the vast majority of comic strips were designed chiefly to amuse or thrill their readers. 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). With adult readers far outnumbering young ones, Li'l Abner cleared away

5478-654: The similarities in a 1965 Playboy interview. Li'l Abner made its debut on August 13, 1934, in eight North American newspapers, including the New-York Mirror . Initially owned and syndicated through United Feature Syndicate , a division of the E. W. Scripps Company , it was an immediate success. According to publisher Denis Kitchen, Capp's "hapless Dogpatchers hit a nerve in Depression -era America. Within three years Abner's circulation climbed to 253 newspapers, reaching over 15,000,000 readers. Before long he

5561-587: The starving natives is raw polar bear . Lower Slobbovians speak with pidgin Russian accents. Slobbovia is an iceberg , which continually capsizes as its lower portions melt. This dunks Upper Slobbovia into Lower Slobbovia, and raises the latter into the former. Conceptually based on Siberia , or perhaps specifically on Birobidzhan , the region made its first appearance in Li'l Abner in April 1946. Ruled by Good King Nogoodnik (sometimes known as King Stubbornovsky

5644-500: The strip include novelist John Steinbeck , who called Capp "very possibly the best writer in the world today" in 1953 and recommended him for the Nobel Prize in literature , and media critic and theorist Marshall McLuhan , who considered Capp "the only robust satirical force in American life." John Updike , calling Li'l Abner a "hillbilly Candide ", said that the strip's "richness of social and philosophical commentary approached

5727-509: The strip's overall place in American satire, and the significance of social criticism and the graphic image. "One of the few strips ever taken seriously by students of American culture," wrote Berger, " Li'l Abner is worth studying...because of Capp's imagination and artistry, and because of the strip's very obvious social relevance." The book was reprinted by the University Press of Mississippi in 1994. Al Capp's life and career are

5810-419: The subjects of a life-sized mural commemorating his 100th birthday, displayed in downtown Amesbury, Massachusetts . According to The Boston Globe , the town renamed its amphitheatre in his honor. Sadie Hawkins Day is a pseudo-holiday created in the strip. It first appeared in Li'l Abner on November 15, 1937. Capp originally created it as a comedic plot device, but in 1939, two years after its debut,

5893-522: The syndicate's standard onerous contract. But in 1947 Capp sued United Feature Syndicate for $ 14 million, publicly embarrassed UFS in Li'l Abner , and wrested ownership and control of his creation the following year." In an October 1947 strip, Li'l Abner met Rockwell P. Squeezeblood, head of the corrupt Squeezeblood Syndicate, a thinly veiled dig at the United Feature Syndicate . The resulting sequence, "Jack Jawbreaker Fights Crime!!",

5976-572: The town (like Georgia, Tennessee, and Alabama), yet Capp did not confirm any of these. Dogpatch's distinctive cartoon landscape became as identified with the strip as any of its characters. Later, Capp licensed and was co-owner of an 800-acre (3.2 km ), $ 35 million theme park called Dogpatch USA near Harrison, Arkansas . Frigid, faraway Lower Slobbovia was a political satire of communist nations and foreign diplomacy. Its residents are perpetually waist-deep in several feet of snow, and icicles hang from their frostbitten noses. The favorite dish of

6059-593: The urban setting, outrageous villains, high mortality rate, hatched shadows, and lettering style — Gould's signature was also parodied. Fosdick battles several archenemies with absurd names like Rattop, Anyface, Bombface, Boldfinger, the Atom Bum, the Chippendale Chair, and Sidney the Crooked Parrot, as well as his own criminal mastermind father, "Fearful" Fosdick (aka "The Original"). Fosdick

6142-410: Was 2.57 and the average family size was 3.14. In 2000, in the city, the population was spread out, with 26.7% under the age of 18, 9.7% from 18 to 24, 25.1% from 25 to 44, 20.3% from 45 to 64, and 18.1% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 36 years. For every 100 females, there were 86.2 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 81.1 males. In 2000, the median income for

6225-418: Was New York insurance man Robert Burns, whom she married in 1936. While still married, she became romantically involved with Edgar Bergen in 1937 but divorced Burns in 1939. Canova was briefly married to James Ripley in 1941. Her third marriage, to Chester B. England in 1943, ended in divorce by 1950. She married her final husband, musician Filberto Rivero, in 1950. The marriage produced daughter Diana Canova ,

6308-463: Was a comic strip-within-the-strip parody of Chester Gould 's plainclothes detective, Dick Tracy . It first appeared in 1942 and ran intermittently in Li'l Abner over the next 35 years. Gould was also personally parodied in the series as cartoonist Lester Gooch — the small and occasionally deranged creator of Fearless Fosdick . The style of the Fosdick sequences closely mimicked Tracy , including

6391-474: Was a lifelong chainsmoker); Schaeffer fountain pen with his friends Milton Caniff and Walt Kelly ; the Famous Artists School (in which he had a financial interest) along with Caniff, Rube Goldberg , Virgil Partch , Willard Mullin , and Whitney Darrow Jr. ; and, though a teetotaler , Rheingold Beer . Li'l Abner was a comic strip with fire in its belly and a brain in its head. Fans of

6474-660: Was a satire of DC Comics 's notorious exploitation of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster over Superman . It was later reprinted in The World of Li'l Abner (1953). In 1964, Capp left United Features and took Li'l Abner to the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate . Capp was outspoken in favor of diversifying the National Cartoonists Society by admitting women cartoonists. The NCS had originally disallowed female members into its ranks. In 1949, when they refused membership to Hilda Terry , creator of

6557-865: Was a series of comic books about a beautiful hillbilly girl who lives with her kin in the Ozarks , with many similarities to Li'l Abner . Looie Lazybones , an overt imitation (drawn by Frank Frazetta ) ran in several issues of Standard's Thrilling Comics in the late 1940s. Charlton Comics published the short-lived Hillbilly Comics by Art Gates in 1955, featuring "Gumbo Galahad", who looked identical to Li'l Abner, similar to Pokey Oakey by Don Dean, which ran in MLJ 's Top-Notch Laugh and Pep Comics . Later, many fans and critics saw Paul Henning 's popular TV sitcom, The Beverly Hillbillies (1962–'71) as inspired by Li'l Abner , prompting Alvin Toffler to ask Capp about

6640-423: Was both unique and universally appealing; and his clean, bold cartooning style provided a perfect vehicle for his creations." The following is a partial list of characteristic expressions that appear often in Li'l Abner: Li'l Abner had several toppers on the Sunday page, including The Sunday page debuted six months into the run of the strip. The first topper was Washable Jones , a weekly continuity about

6723-671: Was calling society absurd, not just silly; human nature not simply misguided, but irredeemably and irreducibly corrupt. Unlike any other strip, and indeed unlike many other pieces of literature, Li'l Abner was more than a satire of the human condition. It was a commentary on human nature itself. Li'l Abner was also the subject of the first book-length, scholarly assessment of a comic strip ever published ; Li'l Abner: A Study in American Satire by Arthur Asa Berger ( Twayne , 1969) contained serious analyses of Capp's narrative technique, use of dialogue, self-caricature and grotesquerie,

6806-511: Was in hundreds more, with a total readership exceeding 60,000,000." At its peak, the strip was read daily by 70 million Americans with a circulation of more than 900 newspapers in North America and Europe. During the peak of the strip, Capp's workload grew to include advertising, merchandising, promotional work, comic book adaptations, and public service material in addition to the regular six dailies and one Sunday strip per week. Capp had

6889-639: Was played by Joan Davis . Canova left Republic in 1943 over a salary dispute and signed with Columbia Pictures for three feature films: Louisiana Hayride (1944), Hit the Hay (1945) and Singin' in the Corn (1946). She returned to Republic in 1951 to star in color comedy features, beginning with Honeychile , until 1955. In 1943, Canova starred in The Judy Canova Show , which ran for 12 years, first on CBS and then on NBC. Playing herself as

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