Swing (Feb-Dec 1951)

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390 wine, August, 1951 have called Capp s shmoos revolting creatures. Revolting or not, the shmoo's byproducts alone are a $25 million bonanza, with Capp's cut 5 to 1? per cent. There have been few crasCvS like the shmoo. But there sprang still another character — the kigmy — from the fertile mind of the cartoonist. The kigmy is similar in shape to the shmoo; it talks, swims like a fish, is part homing pigeon, part bloodhound, and likes to be kicked. So popular is Capp's strip that his ideas often overflow into real life. "Sadie Hawkin's Day," in which each eligible male of Dogpatch and vicinity is forced to marry the woman who catches him, is celebrated in schools, colleges and universities the first Sat' urday of November. The festivities include the race, a mock marriage, and usually ends in a dance with everyone dressed either as Li'l Abner, Daisy Mae, or one of the other fabu' lous characters of the comic strip. AL CAPP wa5 born Alfred Gerald Caplin on September 28, 1909, in New Haven, Connecticut, to Otto Philip and Matilda (Davidson) .Caplin. Capp shortened his name in 1934, when his comic strip made its first appearance. Shortly after his birth, the family moved to Bridgeport, Connecticut, where Al attended the town's public schools. Capp came by his cartooning ability partly through inheritance, but mostly through perseverance and study. Capp's talent was inherited from his father, an industrial-oil salesman, who was an accomplished, though amateur, cartoonist. Capp, the oldest of four children. began turning out comic strips at the age of 11, when his brothers and sisters would sell them to the kids in the block, for two and three cents a strip. It was while Al was visiting in New Haven, when he was 12, that he lost his right leg in a street car accident. As a kid, no member of Capp's family was allowed to mention that he had only one leg. Young Capp had all the fears and despair. He hated that wooden leg. He was afraid to drive a car, or dance, or go out with the girls, even meet his own friends. In his spare time he studied art. All through grammar school, at Hillhouse High School in New Haven, and at Central High in Bridgeport, Al kept at his drawing. At Central High, Al set what he calls, "The world's record in flunking geometry — nine straight times." One summer vacation, when Al was 15, he and a friend, Donald Munson, went hiking through the southern states. Like any other two fellows bumming around the country, "We were unshaven and ragged, but having the time of our lives," relates Capp. "We slept in hay lofts, lived in the country, and borrowed the farmers' food." It was a particularly hot day in southwest Kentucky and rides were