Li'l Abner Comes to the Journal – June 1953

Cartoonist Al Capp's popular Li'l Abner comic strip has been the subject of numerous posts on my blog over the years. It was my favorite comic in the Lorain Journal, and for years I looked forward to reading it when the paper came late in the afternoon, especially when the continuity involved Li'l Abner's 'ideel,' Fearless Fosdick.

Since I spend a lot of time reading old Journals while prepping material for this blog, I've noticed that Li'l Abner wasn't in the paper all during the 1930s and 40s. So when did it finally show up?

The small ad above in the June 1, 1953 edition of the Journal provided the answer. It had been mixed in with a bunch of other ads on the movie page and I almost missed it.

Of course, I had to go back and review previous editions to see if there was a full-fledged teaser campaign. There wasn't (unlike what had been done for Dennis the Menace). I only found one front page ad from May 29, 1953, featuring Old Man Mose. He was the bearded, ill-tempered fortune teller who lived in a Dogpatch cave that Li'l Abner went to for advice. His predictions were always somewhat cryptic and told in rhyme, but they always came true.

The Journal did make one small mention of the addition of Li'l Abner (and Abbie an' Slats, another Capp creation) on May 26th.

Li'l Abner was still at the height of its popularity in 1953, so it was probably a pretty big deal that the Journal was going to run it. And it very likely wasn't cheap either. 

As for me, I became aware of Li'l Abner in the mid to late 1960s. Dad had an old 78 of Li'l Abner, Don't Marry that Girl in his record collection.

We had an old newspaper comic section from 1952 with Li'l Abner in it, down in our basement, lining a Christmas decoration box, I think. There was a one-shot TV show that appeared around 1967, and we were getting the Plain Dealer on Sundays, which included Li'l Abner, (but only on that day, not weekdays). So I was well aware of the strip.

I loved the humor of it, especially the hilariously violent "Fearless Fosdick" strip-within-a-strip. I eventually clipped it every day for several years, beginning with the adventure that started with this strip that ran on May 15, 1970.

In the story, a police informant wants to give Fosdick some evidence incriminating his gang. But the malnourished detective is more interested in the steak served up by his longtime fiancée, so he makes him wait.

 

May 25, 1970

As a result, the informer is gunned down by his old gang, who wants the evidence hidden in his suit. 

May 28, 1970

But Fosdick ends up with the suit because his old one is so worn out and he can't afford a new one. 

May 29, 1970

The rest of the story concerns the efforts of the gang to get the suit back from Fosdick.