Editing Al Capp (section)

==Early life and education==
Capp was born in [[New Haven, Connecticut]], of [[Eastern European Jewry|East European Jewish]] heritage.  He was the eldest child of Otto Philip Caplin (1885–1964)<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.geni.com/people/Otto-Caplin/6000000003443607986 |title= Otto Philip Caplin| website= geni.com | publisher= |year= |quote= 1885 |access-date=October 29, 2020}}</ref> and Matilda (Davidson) Caplin (1884–1948).<ref>{{Cite web| url= https://www.geni.com/people/Matilda-Davidson/6000000003443619277|title=Matilda Davidson|website= geni.com |date= | quote=December 17, 1884 |access-date= October 29, 2020}}</ref> Otto Caplin was a failed businessman and an amateur cartoonist; Al's brothers Elliot and Jerome were also cartoonists, and his sister Madeline was a publicist. Capp's parents were both natives of [[Latvia]] whose families had migrated to New Haven in the 1880s. "My mother and father had been brought to this country from [[Russia]] when they were infants", wrote Capp in 1978. "Their fathers had found that the great promise of America was true — it was no crime to be a [[Jewish people|Jew]]." The Caplins were indigent; Capp recalled stories of his mother going out in the night to sift through ash barrels for reusable bits of coal.

In August 1919, at age nine, Capp was run over by a [[Tram|trolley car]] and had his left leg [[amputation|amputated]] above the knee.<ref>{{cite web| url= http://lil-abner.com/al-capp/ | website= lil-abner.com| publisher= Li'l Abner Official Site| title= Al Capp biography| date= | access-date= }}</ref> According to his father Otto's unpublished [[autobiography]], young Capp was not prepared for the amputation beforehand; having been in a [[coma]] for days, he suddenly awoke to discover that his leg had been removed.<ref>{{cite book| last1= Kitchen| first1= Denis| first2= Michael| last2= Schumacher| title= Al Capp: A Life to the Contrary| year= 2013| publisher= | page= 4| isbn= }}</ref> He was eventually given a [[prosthetic]] leg but only learned to use it by adopting a slow way of walking which became increasingly painful as he aged.<ref>{{cite web| url= http://www.tcj.com/reviews/al-capp-a-life-to-the-contrary/ |title=Reviews: 'Al Capp: A Life to the Contrary,'| first= R. C.| last= Harvey| date= March 14, 2013| website= tcj.com; The Comics Journal| publisher=  | access-date= March 25, 2025}}</ref> The childhood tragedy of losing a leg likely helped shape Capp's cynical worldview, which was darker and more sardonic than that of most newspaper cartoonists.<ref name= inhuman>{{cite news| url= http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,811832,00.html | archiveurl= https://web.archive.org/web/20100204233957/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,811832,00.html |title= Inhuman Man| work= Time| date= February 6, 1950| archivedate= 2010-02-04| access-date= }}</ref> "I was indignant as hell about that leg," he revealed in a November 1950 interview in ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' magazine.<ref name= inhuman />

"The secret of how to live without resentment or embarrassment in a world in which I was different from everyone else", Capp philosophically wrote, "was to be indifferent to that difference."<ref>{{cite magazine| title= My Well-balanced Life on a Wooden Leg| first= Al| last= Capp| work= [[Life (magazine)|Life]]| date= May 23, 1960| url= https://books.google.com/books?id=3k4EAAAAMBAJ&dq=Al+Capp&pg=PA129 |page= [https://books.google.com/books?id=3k4EAAAAMBAJ&dq=Al+Capp&pg=PA130 130] | publisher= | via= Google Books| access-date= March 25, 2025}}</ref> The prevailing opinion among his friends was that Capp's [[Jonathan Swift|Swiftian]] [[satire]] was, to some degree, a creatively channeled, compensatory response to his disability.
[[File:Al Capp Self-portrait April 1951.JPG|right|450px|thumb|"I do ''Li'l Abner!!''," a self-portrait by Al Capp, excerpted from the<br />April 16–17, 1951 ''Li'l Abner'' strips; note the reference to [[Milton Caniff]]]]

Capp's father introduced him to drawing as a form of therapy. He became quite proficient, advancing mostly on his own. Among his earliest influences were ''[[Punch (magazine)|Punch]]'' cartoonist–illustrator [[Phil May (caricaturist)|Phil May]] and American comic strip cartoonists [[Thomas Aloysius Dorgan|Tad Dorgan]], [[Cliff Sterrett]], [[Rube Goldberg]], [[Rudolph Dirks]], [[Frederick Burr Opper|Fred Opper]], [[Billy DeBeck]], [[George McManus]], and [[Milt Gross]]. At about this same time, Capp became a voracious reader. According to Capp's brother Elliot, Alfred had finished all of [[William Shakespeare|Shakespeare]] and [[George Bernard Shaw]] before he was 13 years old. Among his childhood favorites were [[Charles Dickens|Dickens]], [[Tobias Smollett|Smollett]], [[Mark Twain]], [[Booth Tarkington]], and later, [[Robert Benchley]] and [[S. J. Perelman]].

Capp spent five years at Bridgeport High School in [[Bridgeport, Connecticut]], without receiving a diploma. He liked to joke about how he failed [[geometry]] for nine straight terms.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://bridgeport.ct.schoolwebpages.com/education/components/scrapbook/default.php?sectiondetailid=5111 |title=Web page at Bridgeport Central High School devoted to Al Capp |website= bridgeport.ct.schoolwebpages.com |publisher= Central High School| date= September 30, 2007 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20070930185724/http://bridgeport.ct.schoolwebpages.com/education/components/scrapbook/default.php?sectiondetailid=5111 |archive-date= September 30, 2007 |url-status=dead |access-date= March 25, 2025}}</ref> His formal training came from a series of art schools in the [[Northeastern United States|Northeast]]. Attending three of them in rapid succession, the impoverished Capp was thrown out of each for nonpayment of tuition—the [[School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston|Boston Museum School of Fine Arts]], the [[Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts]], and Designers Art School in Boston—the last before launching his career. Capp already had decided to become a cartoonist. "I heard that [[Bud Fisher]] (creator of ''[[Mutt and Jeff]]'') got $3,000 a week and was constantly marrying French countesses", Capp said. "I decided that was for me."

In early 1932, Capp hitchhiked to [[New York City]]. He lived in "airless rat holes" in [[Greenwich Village]] and turned out advertising strips at $2 each while scouring the city hunting for jobs. He eventually found work at the [[Associated Press]] when he was 23 years old. By March 1932, Capp was drawing ''Colonel Gilfeather'', a single-panel, AP-owned property created in 1930 by [[Richard Dorgan|Dick Dorgan]]. Capp changed the focus and title to ''Mister Gilfeather'' but soon grew to hate the feature. He left the Associated Press in September 1932. Before leaving, he met [[Milton Caniff]] and the two became lifelong friends. Capp moved to [[Boston]] and married Catherine Wingate Cameron, whom he had met earlier in art class. She died in 2006 at the age of 96.

Leaving his new wife with her parents in [[Amesbury, Massachusetts]], he subsequently returned to New York in 1933, in the midst of the [[Great Depression]]. "I was 23, I carried a mass of drawings, and I had nearly five dollars in my pocket. People were sleeping in alleys then, willing to work at anything." There he met [[Ham Fisher]], who hired him to ghost on ''[[Joe Palooka]]''. During one of Fisher's extended vacations, Capp's ''Joe Palooka'' [[story arc]] introduced a stupid, coarse, oafish mountaineer named "Big Leviticus", a crude [[prototype]]. (Leviticus was much closer to Capp's later villains Lem and Luke Scragg than to the much more appealing and innocent [[Li'l Abner]].)

Also during this period, Capp was working at night on samples for the strip that eventually became ''Li'l Abner''. He based his cast of characters on the authentic mountain-dwellers he met {{citation needed span|text=while hitchhiking through rural [[West Virginia]] and the [[Cumberland Valley]] as a teenager.|reason=This activity needs to be substantiated, not just claimed.  When did he do it (and why)?  He spent five years just in high school in Bridgeport, Connecticut, as a teen, then attended three art schools in the Northeast shortly afterwards.  In 1932, he hitchikes from Massachusetts to New York City (as 23).  A reliable citation is required.|date=January 2025}} (This would have been before the [[Tennessee Valley Authority]] Act of 1933 began the years-long process of bringing basic utilities like electricity and running water to the region.) Leaving ''Joe Palooka'', Capp sold ''Li'l Abner'' to [[United Feature Syndicate]] (later known as [[United Media]]). The feature was launched on Monday, August 13, 1934, in eight North American newspapers—including the ''[[New York Mirror]]''—and was an immediate success. Alfred G. Caplin eventually became "Al Capp" because the syndicate felt the original would not fit in a cartoon frame.<ref>A review of the 1934 strips reveals that the earliest strips were signed "Al G. Cap", which became "Al G. Capp" and, finally, "Al Capp". However, the middle initial ("Al G. Capp") appeared from time to time during the first year.</ref> Capp had his name changed legally in 1949.

His younger brother, [[Elliot Caplin]], also became a comic strip writer, best known for co-creating the soap opera strip ''[[The Heart of Juliet Jones]]'' with artist [[Stan Drake]] and conceiving the comic strip character ''[[Broom-Hilda]]'' with cartoonist [[Russell Myers]]. Elliot authored several [[off-Broadway]] plays, including ''A Nickel for Picasso'' (1981), which was based on and dedicated to his mother and his famous brother.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1987/11/08/nyregion/theater-a-new-play-explores-fantasies-of-a-man-at-60.html|title=THEATER; A New Play Explores Fantasies of a Man at 60 | first=Alvin|last=Klein| newspaper= [[The New York Times]] |date=November 8, 1987|access-date=October 29, 2020}}</ref>