As a kid, I never missed reading the comic strip "Li'l Abner." The endless parade of outrageous characters and the satirical parodies of other strips was always hilarious. How could you not adore Daisy Mae, the voluptuous blond beauty who was always chasing after Li'l Abner? Then there was the strip-within-the-strip: Fearless Fosdick, the send-up of Chester Gould's "Dick Tracy." Fosdick shot people for their own good and himself was often full of bullet holes of various sizes.

The creator of all this madness was a genius cartoonist named AL CAPP, whose biography I just completed [Al Capp: A Life to the Contrary, by Schumacher & Kitchen]. In his long-running (43 years!) comic strip he invented such things as Sadie Hawkins Day and expressions like "going bananas," "hogwash," & "double-whammy."

Some of the strip's Dogpatch characters included Mammy & Pappy Yokum, Joe Bfstplk, Available Jones, Moonbeam McSwine, & Lonesome Polecat. Oh, and of course: the schmoos.

Capp himself was a complicated fellow who tirelessly practiced the art of self-promotion. He had lost a leg at the age of nine but compensated for it by hard work and cartooning talent. Later in life, he over-compensated and ended up suffering the disgrace of being exposed as a sexual predator.

But Capp's imaginative sense of humor prevailed throughout his life and "Li'l Abner" was his crowning achievement for the lasting benefit of all who followed the Dogpatch shenanigans.