AL CAPP - PRINTED ART SIGNED IN PENCIL 1975 - HFSID 253804

AL CAPP
Large 22x27 printed and numbered illustration of Li'l Abner's diminutive dynamo of decency Mammy Yokum learning kung fu, signed by creator Al Capp in 1975
Printed art signed "Al Capp '75" in pencil. Numbered near lower left corner in unknown hand: "26/250". Color, 22x27 overall, 18¼x22 image, one surface, heavy paper with irregular edges. ©1975 Alfred G. Capp (stamped on verso in black ink). Diminutive, corncob pipe-smoking Mammy Yokum probably had the most integrity of anyone in Li'l Abner's Dogpatch, USA, and she upheld the good and the right with a lethal uppercut, sometimes called the "good night Irene punch". Capp gave Mammy Yokum some of the most memorable lines from the strip, including the one that probably best sums up her worldview: "Good is better than evil because it's nicer." Capp (1909-1979, born Alfred Gerald Capin in New Haven, Connecticut) lost his right leg in a trolley accident at the age of nine and spent five years in high school without receiving a diploma, yet went on to create one of America's most-loved, and certainly longest-running, comic strip, Li'l Abner. He started out drawing Mister Gilfeather,a one-panel cartoon in New York City that he reportedly hated. He met Ham Fisher in 1933 and worked with him on Joe Palooka before beginning the cartoon that he'd become known for: Li'l Abner, which first appeared in The New York Mirror in 1934. Li'l Abner, which ran until Al Capp's retirement in 1977, detailed the exploits of the rustic inhabitants of Dogpatch, USA and spawned, among other things, a Broadway musical that ran 693 performances from 1956 to 1958, a 1959 film with an Oscar-nominated score, a theme park in Marble Falls, Arkansas called Dogpatch USA (now closed) and the Sadie Hawkins dance, after a fictional Dogpatch holiday called Sadie Hawkins Day. Lightly toned and creased, otherwise in fine condition.