Never Praise A Cartoonist
by Jeet Heer
Friday, December 11, 2009
On several occasions John Steinbeck extravagantly praised Al Capp, calling him the “best writer in the world.” How did Capp repay this kindness? He tried to seduce Steinbeck’s wife. Or at least that’s the story former Capp assistant Stuart Hample tells on the Inkstuds radio program, available here. Very much worth a listen.
Labels: Al Capp, gossip, Inkstuds, John Steinbeck, Stuart Hample
Yes, apparently Capp was worse than Hitler, in his every action.
Isn't there another cartooonist (or several hundred) whose bad behavior you guys can harp on about?
C'mon, you got to admitt that this Steinbeck story is pretty funny. If the story were about anyone else, it would still be funny and I would still mention it.
Certainly beats the Rube Goldberg story.
The reason people talk about Al Capp is because he did so much. Frank Frazetta ghosted for Capp for 9 yeasr and Capp then tried to give Frazetta a 50% pay cut, which is why Frank quit and started doing book covers (so I guess Capp deserves a back-handed compliment for that). But Capp refused to admit he had ghosts and once claimed Frazetta only helped out on the strip for 6 months and was shocked that anybody knew Frazetta had worked for him at all. Goldie Hawn (in her Playboy interview) told the story of how when she was a struggling actress in the 1960s, she was invited to Capp's apartment to "try out" for a part in a non existent L'il Abner play, and he met her at the apartment door wearing a bathrobe with nothing on underneath it, causing her to flee (and that's only the first half of the story).
Thank you, Goldie Hawn in a Daisy Mae outfit has been added to my mental library of erotic images.