U.S. #3000q
32¢ Li’l Abner
Comic Strip Classics
Issue Date: October 1, 1995
City: Boca Rotan, FL
Quantity: 300,000,000
Printed By: Stamp Venturers
Printing Method: Photogravure
Perforations: 10.1
Color: Multicolored
Li’l Abner, the classic hillbilly saga, began with almost instant success in August 1934. Whether he was aware of it or not, cartoonist Al Capp was offering his own version of the classic American story of the country bumpkin (or, in this case, Yokum) who exposes the corruptions of the big city slickers simply by maintaining his own naiveté. Among his creations were the Shmoo, the Bald Iggle, Fearless Fosdick, and Sadie Hawkins’ Day.
Born in New Haven, Connecticut, to a father who wrote and drew cartoons for his family’s amusement, Alfred Caplin began his career creating hillbilly characters for the strip Joe Palooka. (Al’s brother Eliot also scripted more than a dozen well-known strips). Believing that to be a successful cartoonist it was necessary to study serious art, Al followed his own advice, and when Li’l Abner debuted, it was drawn in a semi-cartoon style that owed nothing to any of its predecessors.
One of the few hillbilly strips ever written, Li’l Abner gave new meaning to the word “satire.” So successful was Capp’s work that he was once proposed for the Nobel Prize for Literature by novelist John Steinbeck. After 43 years, the strip came to an end when Capp retired in 1977.