Li'l Abner

[Jeff of Earth-J]

My memories of Li’l Abner go back to the days before I learned how to read, sitting on my mother’s lap as she read the Sunday funnies to me. “Which one would you like me to read next?” she would ask, and I would point. Sometimes I would point to Li’l Abner, but I must admit I didn’t often get the humor at that tender young age. For decades after that I was to hear about what a wonderful an influential strip it was, but al Capp had retired the strip in 1977. Then in 1988, Kitchen Sink Press began a comprehensive series reprinting the daily strips which was to last 27 volumes and cover the years 1934-1961. I was 24 years old and I still didn’t get it. I just simply didn’t find it all that funny, I’m sorry. But now I’m 47, and IDW is up to its third comprehensive hardcover collection of dailies and Sundays in its “The Library of American comics” series, and finally, at long last, I get it! I still don’t find the stories themselves all that funny, but the Capp’s drawing style is frikkin’ hilarious! An no one (no one who is familiar with it) can dispute Capp’s influence on American pop culture. The early strips were more humor/adventure but soon became outright farcical. Similarly, Capp’s political leanings, decidedly liberal early one, became decidedly more conservative throughout the ‘60s. I had been looking forward to observing that shift decades ago, but sadly KSP went bankrupt before their series reached that point. It looks as if IDW has a real shot at reprinting the strip in its entirety, though, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed. From my previous reading I recall that the strip didn’t begin to “click” with me until 1943 (volume nine), but I’ve been enjoying IDW’s series from the very beginning. I’ve read these strips only once before and, so far, I remember almost nothing about them, so for me it’s very much like reading them for the first time. The recently released third volume reprints strips from 1939-1940.