Biography
Al Capp, born Alfred Gerald Caplin, was an American cartoonist and humorist from New Haven, Connecticut. He is best known for creating the comic strip "Li'l Abner" (1934–1977), which portrayed the lives of a fictional hillbilly family in a poor mountain village. At its peak, the strip reached 60 million readers in over 900 American newspapers and was reprinted in 28 countries abroad. Capp received the National Cartoonists Society's Reuben Award for Cartoonist of the Year in 1947 and posthumously won their 1979 Elzie Segar Award for his unique and outstanding contributions to cartooning.
Born in 1909 in New Haven, Connecticut, Capp came from a Latvian Jewish family. His parents, Otto Philip Caplin (1885–1964) and Matilda Davidson (1884–1948), had immigrated from Latvia in the 1880s to escape pogroms in the Russian Empire. Growing up in poverty with several younger siblings, his brothers Elliot and Jerome pursued careers as cartoonists, while his sister Madeline became a publicist.
In August 1919, Capp was struck by a trolley car, resulting in the amputation of his left leg above the knee. After awakening from a coma, he adapted to a prosthetic leg and a slow gait. This childhood trauma influenced his darker worldview and sardonic humor. His father, an amateur cartoonist, introduced him to drawing as therapy. Capp studied the styles of illustrator Phil May and popular comic strip artists such as Billy DeBeck, Rudolph Dirks, Tad Dorgan, Rube Goldberg, Milt Gross, George McManus, Fred Opper, and Cliff Sterrett.
Capp attended Bridgeport High School in Connecticut but did not graduate, citing repeated failures in geometry. Aspiring to be a professional cartoonist, he enrolled in the Boston Museum School of Fine Arts, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and Boston's Designers Art School but was expelled from all three for nonpayment of tuition due to financial hardship.
In early 1932, Capp hitchhiked to New York City, settling in Greenwich Village and earning a living by drawing advertising strips for minimal pay. By March 1932, he was employed by the Associated Press, where he was tasked with taking over "Colonel Gilfeather," a strip created by Dick Dorgan. Dissatisfied with this role, Capp left the Associated Press and New York in September 1932, moving temporarily back to Boston to marry Catherine Wingate Cameron, a fellow art student.
Returning to New York in 1933 with only five dollars, Capp worked as a ghostwriter and artist for the boxing-themed strip "Joe Palooka," with Ham Fisher as the credited writer. In this strip, Capp introduced Big Leviticus, a clumsy mountaineer who served as a rough prototype for Li'l Abner.
While ghostwriting, Capp began developing a comic strip centered on mountain dwellers, inspired by his teenage hitchhiking experiences in rural West Virginia and the Cumberland Valley. He sold "Li'l Abner" to the United Feature Syndicate and became its main artist. The strip debuted on August 13, 1934, initially appearing in eight newspapers. It quickly gained popularity due to Capp's talent for creating eccentric characters and bizarre storylines, incorporating black humor and social commentary.
Until 1934, Capp signed strips under his real name. His syndicate requested a shorter name suitable for cartoon frames, leading him to adopt the professional name Al Capp, which he legally changed in 1949. He also created comic strip parodies within "Li'l Abner," the most successful being "Fearless Fosdick" (1942–1977), a spoof of "Dick Tracy."
Beyond "Li'l Abner," Capp co-created two other strips. "Abbie an' Slats" (1937–1971) featured spinster Abigail "Abbie" Scrapple and her orphaned cousin Aubrey Eustace "Slats" Scrapple living together. Capp was the main writer until 1945 before his brother Elliot Caplin took over. Though syndicated to about 400 newspapers, it never achieved major success. Capp also co-created "Long Sam" (1954–1962), about a tall, attractive mountain girl, exemplifying "good girl art" focused on depicting attractive women in revealing clothing. Despite brief popularity, frequent changes in writers led to its early cancellation.
In the 1950s, Capp expressed liberal views and satirized Senator Joseph McCarthy for intimidating the vulnerable. During the 1960s, his satire targeted campus radicals, hippies, and counterculture figures. He criticized militant antiwar protesters and student political groups, which led to public perception of him as reactionary, although he openly supported racial equality and gay rights.
In 1972, Capp was arrested in Wisconsin for "attempted adultery," a felony there, after allegedly propositioning a married woman. The scandal caused numerous newspapers to drop his strip. "Li'l Abner" declined in popularity, partly due to Capp's declining humor and poor health. He retired on November 13, 1977, acknowledging he had stayed in the business too long.
Capp died of emphysema in November 1979 at his home in South Hampton, New Hampshire, at age 70. His illness was attributed to lifelong chain-smoking. He was buried in Mount Prospect Cemetery in Amesbury, Massachusetts. In 2004, Capp was posthumously inducted into the Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame. Since his passing, over 40 books, including three biographies, have been published about Al Capp and his work.
