Li'l Abner

Description from the back cover: On Monday, August 13, 1934, eight newspapers commenced printing an obscure comic strip by an equally obscure cartoonist about a family of poor hillbillies living in Kentucky. Before the cartoonist retired with his creation 43 later, Al Capp's Li'l Abner had become internationally famous, syndicated in over 900 newspapers worldwide and avidly followed by millions. Over the years, Capp and Li'L Abner were twin centers of both outrage and delight. Capp's trenchant outlook and sharp wit found voice in his comic strip and he seldom lacked an opinion about any facet of the national scene. John Steinbeck called him the greatest satirist since Laurence Sterne and recommended that he be considered for a Nobel Prize in literature. Others recommended that Capp be boiled in oil. Through all of it, Capp remained true to his personal vision of what Li'l Abner should be, and in the process, made it the greatest comic strip of all time. In 1937, Al Capp introduced Sadie Hawkins Day in his Li'l Abner daily strip. It didn't take long for America to take it to heart. By 1939 the tradition of an annual day in which women pursued men had become a staple of undergraduate life, and Capp was forced to include it in the strip every year, with the understanding that he alone named the precise day. In this volume, you can read the origin of Sadie Hawkins Day and enjoy a year's worth of other great adventures with Abner, Daisy Mae, Mammy, Pappy, and the other citizens of Dogpatch, U.S.A.