Al Capp

by Denis Kitchen

  It was a legend that would lead to great bitterness and hostility, and would indirectly lead to one man’s death.

  Here is how Al Capp, then Al Caplin, would have you believe it happened.

  As the result of his and Ham Fisher’s discussions, new characters for “Joe Palooka” were developed. These characters were as backwoods as you could get, and they lived in the hills, far away from the city. They would appear in “Joe Palooka” from time to time, setting the stage for Caplin’s comic strip, “Li’l Abner.”

  Al Capp and his eldest daughter, Julie, ca. 1938.

  “One of the characters we created was a fat, flannel-mouthed orator and crook who Fisher named Congressman Weidebottom,” Capp would recall. “We gave him a home district in the Southern Hills.”

  Out of these same hills—and Caplin’s fertile imagination—rose a character who, in a different context, might have been the Missing Link: a hairy, dim-witted, incredibly powerful oaf and would-be boxer named Big Leviticus. Caplin discussed his idea with Fisher, but nothing ever came of it. After seeing the hillbilly vaudeville revue, Caplin began thinking about scenarios in which the character might be brought into “Joe Palooka.”

  Caplin believed that it might be interesting to have Joe Palooka and Big Leviticus cross paths, maybe in the ring. The possibilities were wide open. What would happen if a character, beloved by readers who believed in goodness, justice, and all that is decent about working your way to the top, met a primitive fighting machine with no noticeable ideologies? When and how would such a fight be staged?

  Caplin was too smart to press such a storyline on a boss who wouldn’t allow him to so much as ink the faces of the strip’s major characters.

  Then the unthinkable occurred: Ham Fisher went on vacation and Al Caplin took over as ghostwriter of the Sunday edition of the strip. It was the start of something new.

  Not surprisingly, both had different recollections of what happened. Fisher, like all other comic strip artists, typically submitted his work to the syndicate four weeks before it ran, and six to eight weeks for the color Sunday strips, which had to be prepared by specialty engravers and printed on off-site presses. This practice gave editors the opportunity to examine content well in advance of publication, and production departments plenty of leeway in seeing that the pages came out exactly as planned. It also allowed comic strip artists the opportunity to plan their vacations.

  Fisher liked his time off, and he was accustomed to planning ahead. According to his version of events, when he took his vacation early in the fall of 1933, he submitted plenty of material to last his entire vacation. But in Caplin’s version of the story, in his absence, there weren’t enough strips. Without consulting with Fisher, he began a new series of “Joe Palooka” Sunday strips—the new story featuring Big Leviticus. The first strip ran on October 22.

  The storyline was fairly straightforward—one Fisher himself might have invented. Knobby Walsh, Palooka’s manager, brings his fighter to the hills country of Kentucky, supposedly to fight Big Leviticus in an exhibition bout. The fight, of course, has been stacked heavily in Big Leviticus’s favor, with his gun-toting father acting as the referee. The champ, believing that he could use the exhibition to teach Leviticus a few of his tricks, is stunned when the behemoth, rather than pull punches, hits him with a series of haymakers that drops him to the canvas. Palooka gathers his wits and is prepared to fight for keeps, but Leviticus kicks him in the head, ending the fight. To even the score, Walsh convinces Leviticus and his family that, with proper training and management, he can mold him into a world champion boxer. The title would be worth millions. Leviticus agrees, but in their first sparring session, Joe Palooka gets his revenge, knocking the much bigger fighter senseless before he and his manager beat a hasty retreat from the hills. The story took five Sundays to tell.

  Ham Fisher was not amused by the story. As soon as he returned from his extended vacation, he angrily confronted Caplin, the two quarreled, and Caplin was sent packing.

  In interviews over the years, on those rare occasions when he agreed to address questions about Fisher and the terrible feud that festered between them, Al Capp was asked by “thousands of interviewers” about the origins of “Li’l Abner,” and, by his own account, he offered thousands of answers. Fisher, of course, once “Li’l Abner’ became a success, had protested that the hillbilly characters he had objected to in his own strip were nonetheless created while Al Caplin was his employee, and therefore they were his intellectual property. Capp, however, denied any connection between the “Abner” characters and those in the Big Leviticus episodes of “Joe Palooka”—aside from their residence in the hills country. But he disputed, too, the origin story of Big Leviticus. He was not the product of an ambitious renegade assistant, but the product of necessity, when a negligent comics artist abandoned his strip.

  According to Capp, it all began when Fisher became obsessed with Marlene Dietrich. She was the rising star in the movie business, and Fisher, after a brief meeting, believed that he could woo her with bountiful flower arrangements, flashes of his wealth, and his charm. Unfortunately, she was set to sail to Europe the day after he met her in New York, and Fisher reasoned that he had no other way to reach her than to jump on board her ship. This came at a steep price. The ship was booked solid except for a $200-a-day suite, which Fisher snapped up just before the gangplanks were pulled and the ship set sail.

  It didn’t go well. Dietrich became seasick and stayed in her cabin. Fisher bided his time, going so far as to tell some passengers that he intended to marry her. Finally, after several days, she made an appearance, surrounded by publicity men, but she didn’t remember Fisher from their previous meeting. When one of her publicists recognized him as a cartoonist, he mistakenly introduced him as “Bud Fisher” to Dietrich, who was pleased to meet the creator of “Mutt and Jeff.” Fisher tried to explain that he was the artist behind “Joe Palooka,” not “Mutt and Jeff,” but Dietrich had no idea what “Joe Palooka” was about. Fisher, smoldering from the encounter, wound up retreating to his suite.

  Meanwhile, back in New York, Al Caplin faced two growing problems: he was running out of money, and the syndicate had exhausted its supply of “Joe Palooka” Sunday strips. Caplin could do nothing about his dwindling cash, but he was wise enough to know that something had to be done about the “Joe Palooka” material. Rather than tell the syndicate that his boss was chasing an internationally acclaimed film star to God only knew where, he started the Big Leviticus series on his own.

  One day, in the midst of all this, the Parc Vendome doorman knocked on Fisher’s door and told Caplin that Ham Fisher had a visitor who urgently needed to see the artist. Caplin tried to dismiss the doorman with the excuse he was using on everyone calling on Fisher—he was extremely busy and couldn’t be interrupted—but the visitor, a man named Phil Boyle, adamantly insisted that he meet with Fisher. Boyle, the doorman explained, was Fisher’s assistant. This was news to Caplin. He instructed the doorman to send him up.

  The two had a fascinating meeting. Boyle, it turned out, worked with Fisher on the “Joe Palooka” daily strip. He and Fisher had known each other back when Fisher was a salesman and Boyle an artist for the same newspaper in Youngstown, Ohio. Fisher had never forgotten Boyle, who had done some work on early prototype sketches for “Joe Palooka,” and after he’d sold his comic strip to the syndicate, he contacted Boyle about moving to New York and working as his assistant. Fisher offered him seventy-five dollars per week—half again what Boyle was earning at the newspaper in Ohio—and Boyle packed up and moved. He was in his forties, single, and supported his invalid mother.

  Boyle knew of Caplin’s existence, not because Ham Fisher had mentioned him, but because he knew somebody had to be drawing the women in “Joe Palooka.” Fisher sure as hell couldn’t do it. Boyle and Caplin hit it off and decided to team up on the daily and Sunday strips. They’d keep “Joe Palooka” running until Ham Fisher returned.

  “The story
wasn’t as sentimental as Fisher’s,” Al Capp would remark of his collaboration with Boyle, “but it was funny.”

  When Fisher returned, he gave Caplin his back pay but their conversation deteriorated when Caplin mentioned that he’d met Boyle and that the two of them had worked together on the strip. Caplin put an end to the conversation when Fisher berated his efforts.

  “If you can get anyone more loyal than us,” he shouted at Fisher, “get ’em!”

  The two were finished as employer and employee. Their feud, however, was just beginning.*

  Capp’s account is an interesting story, but the facts do not support it. A close examination of the Sunday “Joe Palooka” strips indicates that the first with Caplin’s distinctive style appeared on October 15, 1933, although Caplin’s contribution to that October 15 strip was minimal.

  The hillbillies turned up in “Joe Palooka” one week later, on October 22, and that was the very first strip drawn entirely by Caplin. Big Leviticus appeared one week after that, on October 29. All told, there would be five consecutive weeks of this continuity, beginning on October 15 and ending on November 19, 1933. That Fisher’s brand-new assistant immediately drew the Big Leviticus debut supports the theory that a script already existed for the episode. Fisher, then, was present for the first run of hillbilly strips, and not on vacation, as Capp had people believing in all of his retellings of the story after the birth of “Li’l Abner.”

  The next Leviticus continuity began on February 11, 1934, and ran for five weeks, through March 11. It could very well be that Fisher was chasing Marlene Dietrich at this time, and that Caplin was reviving and writing Big Leviticus on his own in Fisher’s absence. But it is almost unthinkable that Fisher fired Capp almost immediately after his return. The last “Joe Palooka” with Caplin as a contributor ran on July 8, nearly four months after the final Leviticus Sunday strip.

  Phil Boyle did, indeed, ghost Ham Fisher’s “Joe Palooka” dailies, and it is likely that Caplin met him at one point or another, and that the two shared the experiences with Fisher. It is even possible that the two worked together on some of the strips, as Capp said they did in his autobiography. There is, however, one untold story that bears noting: Al Capp always complained about how Ham Fisher stole one of his assistants, Moe Leff, in the early days of “Li’l Abner.” Before that occurred, Capp lured Phil Boyle away from Fisher for a very brief period of time, sending off another volley in their escalating feud.

  In light of all of these events, Ham Fisher seems justified in some of his claims against Capp, though there is no way of knowing who exactly created Big Leviticus. Fisher had no corner on the hillbilly market, of course, and much of his anger undoubtedly originated from professional jealousy—“Li’l Abner” eventually bypassed “Joe Palooka” in popularity—but Capp’s story about the vacation and his taking over the strip with his hills people is typical Capp: part truth, part fiction.

  With a wife and child to support, Caplin had to find another job in a hurry. It was time, he decided, to strike out on his own as a comic strip artist. At a recent cocktail party thrown by Ham Fisher, he’d been encouraged by the cartoonist, illustrator, and animator Milt Gross, who recognized his talent and urged him to draw his own strip. In considering a subject for this strip, Caplin kept returning to the hillbillies he had created for Fisher, and he decided there was great potential for a comic strip set in rural Kentucky and focusing on a family unlike anything on the market. The main character would be in his late teens, good-looking, and powerfully built, but far from the smartest young man on the planet—or even in the hills. His parents, with whom he lived, would be rather similar to Caplin’s own parents: the father a sort of bumbling, incapable, henpecked character who was more of a presence than a provider; the mother a tough, pipe-smoking, dominating woman who kept the family together and trouble at bay. The young man—Abner Yokum—would be chased around by a gorgeous, shapely, love-starved blonde who, despite her best efforts, never seemed to be able to turn Abner’s head. Caplin sketched the characters until he was satisfied with their appearances, and then he drew up a few weeks of sample strips to display to potential buyers.

  He set his sights high. His first visit was to William Randolph Hearst’s King Features Syndicate, the leading comic strip syndicate in the business, and rather than present himself to a lower-level editor, he marched up to the office of Joseph Connolly, the head of the syndicate. In the outer office, he jotted down a brief note telling Connolly that a well-known cartoonist said he, Al Caplin, was the best young cartoonist around. He bribed an office boy with a quarter, and the kid brought the note to Connolly. Caplin waited, confident that Connolly would be unable to resist such a brash introduction.

  Connolly eventually emerged from his office and invited him in. He looked over Caplin’s samples and listened to his plans for the strip. He liked much of what he saw and heard, and, according to Al Capp’s account, he was prepared to offer him a generous $250 a week for the strip—on the condition that he make a few changes.

  “ ‘Great strip, great art, yes sir,’ ” Al Capp remembered, quoting Connolly in a 1979 Comics Journal interview with Richard Marschall. “ ‘That Abner’s an idiot. Make him a nice kid, with some saddle-stripe shoes on him. And Daisy Mae’s pretty, but how about some pretty clothes? As a matter of fact, why not forget the mountain bit and move this all to New Jersey.’ “

  In Al Capp’s version of the story, he told Connolly that he’d have something ready for him in a week, then escaped Connolly’s office feeling that “it was my biggest triumph and I felt sick.” He left the King Features Syndicate building and took “Li’l Abner” to the United Feature Syndicate offices. After hanging around for a couple of days, politely but unsuccessfully awaiting an audience with Monte Bourjaily, the general manager, he elbowed his way into his office. Bourjaily loved the strip and vowed to publish it as Caplin presented it. He offered Caplin fifty dollars a week for it—a paltry figure compared to the earlier offer from King, but Caplin was satisfied and closed the deal.

  Capp’s story was one of artistic integrity winning a rare victory over the unholy dollar, and Capp would stick to the story throughout his life. But others disputed the account, including his uncle Harry Resnick, Capp’s earliest business advisor, who claimed that Caplin took the United Feature offer because Joseph Connolly, rather than make the generous offer that Caplin claimed, had vacillated on his decision and taken too long to say anything. Caplin had simply accepted the first decent offer coming his way.

  There was, however, one major issue to contend with: immediate money. Before leaving the United Feature offices, Caplin inquired about when he might expect his first paycheck. In four weeks, he was told. Caplin didn’t have four weeks. He was almost out of money. He needed to find some way to fill the four-week gap—some kind of temporary job, preferably in cartooning. He’d met a few comic strip artists while working for Ham Fisher; maybe one of them could use a temporary assistant.

  Caplin saw Frank Godwin first. The creator of the popular “Connie” cartoon strip greeted Caplin warmly and appeared to be receptive to hiring him as an assistant, but he was buried in work and unable to talk at length. Instead, he asked Caplin to return the next day. Encouraged by Godwin’s response, Caplin went home and told Catherine he was fairly certain their money problems had been addressed. He went as far as to invite her to accompany him to the next day’s meeting, wanting, as he later recalled, to show her that all comic strip artists weren’t as horrible as Ham Fisher. To his great surprise, his reception the next day was disappointing and shocking. Godwin not only changed his mind about hiring Caplin; he refused to even look at his two visitors. “I don’t think we have anything to discuss,” he said.

  Bud Fisher came next. The cartoonist was famously reclusive, but Caplin showed up at his apartment unannounced and pushed his way past a valet to get inside. Once he did, unbelievably, he found Fisher willing to look at his portfolio. Fisher was impressed enough to give Caplin an unfinished
“Mutt and Jeff” strip to complete and bring back the following day. However, when Caplin arrived at Fisher’s apartment at the appointed time, freshly completed “Mutt and Jeff” in hand, the doorman at the apartment turned him away. “Mr. Fisher is not interested in your drawings,” he informed Caplin.

  This second rejection raised more than a little suspicion. Something was wrong. Two well-known cartoonists had received him warmly, examined his work, and all but guaranteed him a job, only to back away without explanation.

  Capp finally learned the reason for this when he visited Rube Goldberg. The comics icon had hit a downturn in his career. The strip that established his reputation, “Mike and Ike,” had ended in 1929, and “Boob McNutt,” another strip that he’d created during the “Mike and Ike” salad days, was on the way out. Younger readers weren’t amused by the material that had brought big laughs in the pre-Depression 1920s. Goldberg, whose comic inventions of complicated machines designed to accomplish simple tasks had made his name part of the American idiom, had been reduced to following trends rather than setting them.

  Caplin’s arrival at his door came at an opportune time. Maybe a fresh perspective might infuse some life into the strips. Caplin outlined his background, took out his samples, talked about some of his ideas for Goldberg, and, as before, left with work that he was to complete and bring back the next day. This time, however, there was an unexpected wrinkle. Caplin was walking down the stairs to leave the building when he realized that he’d left his drawings behind. When he arrived back at Goldberg’s door, he could hear the cartoonist talking loudly on the phone.

  “He stole money from you, Ham?” Goldberg asked. “Why didn’t you have the little bastard arrested?” He had called Ham Fisher for verification of Caplin’s story about working for Fisher.

  Caplin listened with mounting anger as Fisher apparently waved off any thought of prosecuting the thief, presenting himself as a magnanimous human being in the process. When the call ended, Caplin knocked on the door and handed back the strips he was to work on. They were too hopeless to improve, he explained to Goldberg as he picked up his own samples and left.