Here’s a unique vintage cartoon book - something more than a collection of reprints. It is thoughtfully — and artfully — arranged with sporadic commentary text by Capp (there’s even an appendix). Instead of white, the pages are colored red and blue.The shmoo (plural: shmoos, also shmoon) is a fictional cartoon creature created by Al Capp, which first appeared in the comic strip Li'l Abner on August 31, 1948.
Largely forgotten today, Capp had a way of hitting a nerve in Americans with his satirical comics.
In a 1949 Cosmopolitan interview, Cap explained:
“I was driving from New York City to my farm in New Hampshire. The top of my car was down, and on either side of me I could see the lush and lovely New England countryside... It was the good earth at its generous summertime best, offering gifts to all. And the thought that came to me was this: Here we have this great and good and generous thing—the Earth. It's eager to give us everything we need. All we have to do is just let it alone, just be happy with it.
Cartoonists don't think like people. They think in pictures. Little pictures that will fit into a comic strip. And so, in my mind, I reduced the Earth... down to the size of a small critter that would fit into the Li'l Abner strip—and it came out a Shmoo... I didn't have any message—except that it's good to be alive. The Shmoo didn't have any social significance; it is simply a juicy li'l critter that gives milk and lays eggs... When you look at one as though you'd like to eat it, it dies of sheer ecstasy. And if one really loves you, it'll lay you a cheesecake—although this is quite a strain on its li'l innards...
I thought it was a perfectly ordinary little story, but when it appeared in newspapers, all hell broke loose! Life, in an editorial, hailed the Shmoo as the very symbol and spirit of free enterprise. Time said I'd invented a new era of enlightened management-employee relationship, (they called it Capp-italism). The Daily Worker cussed me out as a Tool of the Bosses, and denounced the Shmoo as the Opium of the Masses...”
Condition
Minor creasing and some foxing on cover (see photos), complete, clean interior pages, a small name stamp appears on flyleaf and title page -otherwise unmarked.
Note
A previous edition by Simon and Shuster appeared in 1948. This is the Pocket Books edition - third printing (August, 1949)
Here’s a unique vintage cartoon book - something more than a collection of reprints. It is thoughtfully — and artfully — arranged with sporadic commentary text by Capp (there’s even an appendix). Instead of white, the pages are colored red and blue.The shmoo (plural: shmoos, also shmoon) is a fictional cartoon creature created by Al Capp, which first appeared in the comic strip Li'l Abner on August 31, 1948.
Largely forgotten today, Capp had a way of hitting a nerve in Americans with his satirical comics.
In a 1949 Cosmopolitan interview, Cap explained:
“I was driving from New York City to my farm in New Hampshire. The top of my car was down, and on either side of me I could see the lush and lovely New England countryside... It was the good earth at its generous summertime best, offering gifts to all. And the thought that came to me was this: Here we have this great and good and generous thing—the Earth. It's eager to give us everything we need. All we have to do is just let it alone, just be happy with it.
Cartoonists don't think like people. They think in pictures. Little pictures that will fit into a comic strip. And so, in my mind, I reduced the Earth... down to the size of a small critter that would fit into the Li'l Abner strip—and it came out a Shmoo... I didn't have any message—except that it's good to be alive. The Shmoo didn't have any social significance; it is simply a juicy li'l critter that gives milk and lays eggs... When you look at one as though you'd like to eat it, it dies of sheer ecstasy. And if one really loves you, it'll lay you a cheesecake—although this is quite a strain on its li'l innards...
I thought it was a perfectly ordinary little story, but when it appeared in newspapers, all hell broke loose! Life, in an editorial, hailed the Shmoo as the very symbol and spirit of free enterprise. Time said I'd invented a new era of enlightened management-employee relationship, (they called it Capp-italism). The Daily Worker cussed me out as a Tool of the Bosses, and denounced the Shmoo as the Opium of the Masses...”
Condition
Minor creasing and some foxing on cover (see photos), complete, clean interior pages, a small name stamp appears on flyleaf and title page -otherwise unmarked.
Note
A previous edition by Simon and Shuster appeared in 1948. This is the Pocket Books edition - third printing (August, 1949)