Book Review Al Capp, A Life to the Contrary Biographies are not high on my radar screen, but I’m glad I made an exception for this book. The Cartoon Page of the daily paper is still captivates most readers, and I normally glance at least two strips when I pickup a copy of The Tennessean. Al Capp drew not only had one of the iconic strips of the day, he has also contributed to the Language of America. Even if you didn’t read Littl’ Abner, you knew: Sadie Hawkins Day, The Schmo (not to be confused with Schook), Fearless Fosdick! Producing a daily strip is a grind, and Capps’ great expertise, was not just as an artist, he considered himself a “writer”. At the time Capp started, no cartoonist, was powerful enough to represent his strip, to newspapers across the country, instead, there were syndicates, who “sold” features to individual papers. There were some small “chains” of papers, who operated their own feature syndicates, but these were in the minority. Not until Charles Schultz came alone with Peanuts, were there cracks, in the syndicate control. Al Capp at one time worked for Ham Fisher, another cartoonist, creator of Joe Palooka, the most popular strip in America, alongside of Dick Tracy. Popular cartoonists, hired “draftsmen”, who created the Sunday “continuity” and/or the daily strip. One thing with Capp was able to do, was to make sure his Sunday, continuity and daily strips were in “alignment” or told the same story. You can imagine how difficult this would be, when I tell you newspapers demanded “continuities” three weeks in advance. If you remember Sunday strips, they were special, usually they were a “complete” story, produced in color, and the supplement, ran eight or ten pages. Littl’ Abner started out on the Front Page below the fold.
Posted on: Wed, 12 Jun 2013 14:10:29 +0000