Â
By Raeburn Van Buren (Ken Pierce Inc. 1983)
Vol 1 No ISBN
Vol 2 ISBN 0-912277-24-6
It’s practically impossible for us today to understand the power and popularity of the comic strip in America from the Great Depression to the end of the Second World War. With no television, far from universal usage of radio, and movie shows at best a weekly treat for most people, household entertainment was mostly derived from the comic sections of daily and especially Sunday Newspapers. To consider that situation as a parallel to the modern comic scene would be like expecting those generations distant readers to only read one out of a dozen of the numerous offerings in each and every paper. Our themes of adventure and horror, superheroes and merchandising tie-ins targeting kids would seem laughably limited in comparison to the sheer variety of story and genre available then.
If we tenuously compare those papers with television schedules today you might get a more accurate flavour of the industry, the stars and the brands that blossomed at that time. One entry from that era, created by stars, which began as what we’d probably call a soap-opera, evolved into an American Classic and became one of the most fondly remembered comedy strips of all time.
Abbie an’ Slats was created by Li’l Abner creator Al Capp and he scripted it for the first ten years, after which he handed it over to his brother Elliot (Caplin) who wrote it until its end. It began as the story of dead-end kid Aubrey Eustace (understandably self–dubbed Slats) sent to live with spinster relative Abbie Scrapple, and became in turn a seminal prototype for soap comedy dramas, the whole Archie Andrews phenomenon, a heart-warming melodrama, a slice-of-life pot-boiler, a romance strip, and, with the introduction of drunken reprobate “Bathless Groggins†– father of Slat’s one true love Beckie – a comedy classic. Groggins senior had appropriated the full colour Sunday page by 1941 for his own comedic fantasist shenanigans in the grand manner of Baron Munchausen.
That’s all well and good, but what makes this strip even more special is the art.
Raeburn Van Buren was a highly successful illustrator much in demand by such prestigious publications as the Saturday Evening Post, The New Yorker, Esquire and humour magazines such as Puck, Judge and Life. When Al Capp approached him to draw the strip, he initially declined and it took all of the writer’s legendary wiles and perseverance to lure him away from his freelance ways.
Eventually Van Buren capitulated and the strip debuted on July 7th 1937, with a Sunday page beginning January 15th 1939. The last strip was published on January 30th 1971. Van Buren, who was credited with every single page and episode, retired to Great Neck, New York.
Over the decades his spectacularly underplayed scenarios, the wonderfully rendered, evocative detail – just enough for clarity, never too much to digest – and his warmly funny, human, loving characters became part of the psyche of a nation and the fictitious town of Crabtree Corners became a pictorial synonym of small town America.
Sadly very little of this wonderful strip has been collected as yet, but the books cited herein are long overdue for reprinting and with the current wave of strip reprints and a burgeoning graphic novel market rapidly burning its way through all the good stuff to reprint, we can only hope somebody opts for quality over major names and brings this much neglected gem back to public gaze.
© 1937- 1964 United Features Syndicate. All Rights Reserved.