Sometimes, even in a house with thousands of books, I'm not sure what I'd like to read. So I pick up something old and familiar. When I was a kid, my favorite comic strip, hands down, was Li'l Abner, and the other night I decided to revisit the strip through a couple of paperbacks.The book on the far left is a collection of popular episodes, including the one in which Li'l Abner finally marries Daisy Mae. (I followed his narrow escapes for years, and when I was a teenager, I was even invited to a couple of Sadie Hawkins' Day dances.) The book itself is a look at how the sad future of comic strips as it crams six panels onto one page, making them about the size they are now in the daily papers. Capp's panels are so crammed with detail that the reduction pretty much ruins them.
The stories are still amusing, and of course very unPC. They're timely, too. "Jack Jawbreaker" is about two guys who create a strip by that name and about how they're cheated out of pretty much everything. It'll remind you of Men of Tomorrow and A Killing in Comics.
The timely bit in The Life and Times of the Shmoo comes in this dialog between two captains of industry: "Psst! These poor ignorant wretches will be grateful to work 16 hours a day, 7 days a week, for $7 a week. They've never heard of anything better -- And (chuckle) we'll never tell 'em!!" "Oh! You're a bright lad!! The Board may well give you a $500,000 bonus again this year!!"
The Shmoo book, by the way, is a nice example of how comics should be handled in paperback. Two panels per page, or one in the case of the bigger panels. The pages in this old Pocketbook are printed on acid-free paper, I guess. They're as clean and as bright as if they'd rolled off the presses yesterday.
The Shmoos were my favorite characters in Li'l Abner, among a gallery of wonderful characters: Moonbeam McSwine, Mysterious Yokum, Pappy and Mammy Yokum, Daisy Mae, Stupefyin' Jones, the Skraggs, Joe Btfsplk, and the list goes on and on. Great stuff, and if you don't believe me, well, read John Steinbeck's intro to the Li'l Abner book.
4 comments:
I haven't bothered to check, but suspect the Pocket SCHMOO might well be a rather valuable book...the Pawcett ABNER perhaps as well, given it's less durable production values. Fawcett limitations give and they take away...the shortness of most Gold Medal (and Ballantine) books was a function, apparently, of the kind of binding equiptment they favored, so the same production specs that fostered the kind of shorter novel that seems more correct for CF, at least, is also responsible for a cramped Capp collection...though I guess Fawcett decided "better" by the time they were offering PEANUTS collections, with their large panels often spread over two pages for one daily four-panel strip (and the Schulz style being spare and intentionally un-detailed). Your complaint reminds me of the limitations of the one mass-market paperback I've had of Walt Kelly, Pocket's version of the larger oritinally S&S qp IMPOLLUTABLE POGO.
Ha. Well. That's indicative of my eyes these days...and the foolishness of not blowing the image up first...the Ballantine ABNER, obviously (but, as noted, the same slim-book preference held at the Ballantine's place as at Fawcett).
The Shmoo book might be a pricey item. The Li'l Abner's a third printing, so probably not. I have some other Abner reprints in much larger format. I like those better.
Don't forget Fearless Fosdick, even if it was a strip within a strip.
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