Al Capp was a celebrity-cartoonist and creator of Lil Abner. The strip began in 1934, and the sardonic, pugnacious Capp masterminded it until its end in 1977. During the long life span of the satirical hillbilly saga, he swung from liberal to conservative politically, earned a great deal of money and publicity, appeared on radio, television, and in any other medium that would give him an opportunity to hold forth. He carried on some impressive feuds, and gave the outward impression he was having an enormously good time living his life.

He was born Alfred Gerald Caplin in New Haven, Connecticut. "My mother and father had been brought to this country when they were infants," he once said. "Their fathers had found that the ...