Al Capp: A Life to the Contrary - Hardcover

Schumacher, Michael; Kitchen Lind & Associates LLC

 
9781608196234: Al Capp: A Life to the Contrary
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 1608196232 ISBN 13: 9781608196234
Verlag: BLOOMSBURY, 2013

Inhaltsangabe

More than thirty years have passed since Al Capp's death, and he may no longer be a household name. But at the height of his career, his groundbreaking comic strip, Li'l Abner, reached ninety million readers. The strip ran for forty-three years, spawned two movies and a Broadway musical, and originated such expressions as "hogwash" and "double-whammy." Capp himself was a familiar personality on TV and radio; as a satirist, he was frequently compared to Mark Twain.

Though Li'l Abner brought millions joy, the man behind the strip was a complicated and often unpleasant person. A childhood accident cost him a leg-leading him to art as a means of distinguishing himself. His apprenticeship with Ham Fisher, creator of Joe Palooka, started a twenty-year feud that ended in Fisher's suicide. Capp enjoyed outsized publicity for a cartoonist, but his status abetted sexual misconduct and protected him from the severest repercussions. Late in life, his politics became extremely conservative; he counted Richard Nixon as a friend, and his gift for satire was redirected at targets like John Lennon, Joan Baez, and anti-war protesters on campuses across the country.

With unprecedented access to Capp's archives and a wealth of new material, Michael Schumacher and Denis Kitchen have written a probing biography. Capp's story is one of incredible highs and lows, of popularity and villainy, of success and failure-told here with authority and heart.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Denis Kitchen created Mom's Homemade Comics in 1968 as a self-published underground cartoonist in Milwaukee. A year later, he formed Krupp Comic Works, Inc., a hippie comix empire. Kitchen is also the founder of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. Since the '70s, he has been both an agent for and publisher of comics and books. He lives in Shutesbury, Massachusetts.

Michael Schumacher has written biographies of Allen Ginsberg, Eric Clapton, Phil Ochs, Francis Ford Coppola, George Mikan, and, most recently, comics pioneer Will Eisner. His other recent books include Wreck of the Carl D. and Mighty Fitz. He lives in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

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AL CAPP

A LIFE TO THE CONTRARY

By MICHAEL SCHUMACHER, DENIS KITCHEN

BLOOMSBURY

Copyright ©2013 Michael Schumacher and Denis Kitchen
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-60819-623-4

Contents

Preface....................................................................vii
1 Flashpoint...............................................................1
2 Young Dreams and Schemes.................................................12
3 The Hills................................................................25
4 Uncle Bob's Generosity...................................................36
5 Breaking into the Business...............................................46
6 Hatfield and McCoy.......................................................58
7 Li'l Abner...............................................................75
8 Nina.....................................................................92
9 Merry-Go-Round...........................................................103
10 Greetings from Lower Slobbovia..........................................119
11 The Shmoo, the Kigmy, and All One Cartoonist Could Ever Want............128
12 Demise of the Monster...................................................151
13 Bright Lights...........................................................181
14 In the Halls of the Enemy...............................................201
15 Scandals................................................................225
16 Descent.................................................................240
Notes......................................................................265
Bibliography...............................................................283
Acknowledgments............................................................291
Index......................................................................295

Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

FLASHPOINT


No one will ever know the precise, unvarnished details surrounding AlCapp's losing his left leg at the age of nine. He'd claim that it was the turningpoint of his life, and there is no reason to doubt it, any more than there isgood reason to question his assertion that he never enjoyed a pain-free dayover the next six de cades.

Capp, a first-rate storyteller, comic strip artist, humorist, inventor oftall tales, occasional liar, entertainer supreme, and hair-trigger wit, offeredmany versions of the accident that cost him a leg, each account slightly differentfrom the others—each, one suspects, tailored for a specific audienceor readership.

"Al Capp may have been his own greatest creation," Dave Schreiner, acomics historian and editor, once wrote. "He built around himself out of hispersonal history a pyramid of truth, near-truth, and myth which helpedtransform the already colorful and interesting Alfred Gerald Caplin into thecontroversial and legendary Al Capp, world's best-known newspaper cartoonist."

Schreiner, whose significant work in comics included editing all buttwo of comics giant Will Eisner's graphic novels, believed that Capp had theability to make any story believable, including his account of losing his leg.

"Capp was one of the very best storytellers," Schreiner observed, "andhe did not confine his enormous talent to the funny pages. He mixed plausibilityand outrageousness in his work, and when he related anecdotes andincidents from his life, the same rules applied."

What is known about the accident that claimed Capp's leg is thatCapp, then answering to his given name of Alfred Caplin, was in need of ahaircut. The eldest son of Otto and Matilda "Tillie" Caplin, of New Haven,Connecticut, Alfred was five weeks shy of his tenth birthday and had a fullhead of thick black hair that, more often than not, looked as if it had beengroomed with a mixing spoon. Alfred's parents would let it go until it hadgrown too long for the day's standards, at which point one or the otherwould hand him enough money for a haircut.

On this day—Friday, August 21, 1919—father and son were on theirown. Tillie was upstate with the other children: younger sons Bence andElliott and daughter Madeline, all afflicted with the mumps. She had rentedrooms in a farm house, hoping the clean country air would do them good. Thatafternoon, Otto Caplin pressed a fifty-cent piece into the palm of Alfred'shand: thirty-five cents for the haircut, with five cents as a tip and ten centsto cover trolley fare.

But Alfred had other ideas. He knew something about money, even atthat young age, and after some quick calculations, he figured that he couldget more bang for his half-buck if he made a few adjustments to the plan.He knew of a Prof. Amoroso's Barber Academy, where, he later remembered,"you could get a haircut for fifteen cents and they'd bind your wounds," aplace of wonder where tips were rejected—the perfect transaction.

There was one hitch to the plan. The academy was across town, a fairdistance from the Caplins' Stevens Street house. Rather than catch a trolleyand cut into his potential savings, Alfred decided to hitch a ride on the backof an ice wagon. The free ride, not to mention a sliver of ice on a hot day,seemed to be the ideal solution. "I hopped on that wagon, in a state of bliss,"he'd write many years later.

Somewhere, somehow, Alfred tumbled off the wagon. It might haveoccurred as he was dismounting near the academy, as Alfred would claimin his accounts, or he might have simply walked in front of the trolley withoutlooking, as Otto Caplin later suggested. What ever happened, the resultwas horrific: Alfred wound up sprawled out on the tracks, directly in thepath of an oncoming trolley. Unable to stop, it rolled over Alfred's left leg,crushing his thigh well above the knee. Mercifully, the boy blacked out.

When he regained consciousness, he was in a hospital emergencyroom, surrounded by people in white, all trying to bring him around longenough to determine his identity. Alfred stole a peek at the damage. Thesickening mess reminded him of scrambled eggs. "There was just nothingthat you could call a 'leg' left of it," he'd remember later.

Indecision was the rule of the hour. Hospital personnel didn't want totake action until they had talked to the boy's father. Otto Caplin didn't wantto make a decision until he'd talked to his wife. Tillie Caplin, stuck in themiddle of nowhere with three kids under the age of nine, didn't know whatto think.

Elliott Caplin would never forget the call from home. His mother, inthe kitchen of the farm house, was handed the phone, and she struggled toget details while a group of people stood around the kitchen, listening to Tillieand trying to piece together what had happened. Something was wrong,and it had to be bad. No one called long distance in those days unless it wasserious.

"Her expression never altered," Elliott recalled. "Her face had lost allcolor, but her hand remained steady throughout what must have been anightmare."

Otto told her someone would be picking them up as soon as he couldarrange the ride. Then he rushed to the...

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Verlag
BLOOMSBURY
Erscheinungsdatum
2013
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1608196232
ISBN 13 
9781608196234
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Auflage
1
Anzahl der Seiten
305
Kontakt zum Hersteller
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WordUnited GmbH
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