Eric Burns sez: “This is a followup on Boing Boing’s recommendation of Li’l Abner a couple of months back — specifically highlighting the wedding of Li’l Abner, which was one of the biggest events to happen in comic strips… well, ever. [Here’s] a post I put up on my LJ about it going into more detail.”
The wedding of Li’l Abner and Daisy Mae Yokem was such big news it made the cover of Life Magazine. Newspapers reported it. In the late Seventies, the hoopla was commemerated in an episode of M*A*S*H when, during heavy shelling, radio reports kept coming in to the 4077th on whether or not the pair finally got married. It was the kind of plot resolution (and cultural impact) modern comic artists only dream of. Well, Comics.com is diligently reprinting Li’l Abner, day by day, and reminding readers of how utterly politically incorrect… and hilariously funny… Kickapoo Joy Juice, Fearless Fosdick (a parody of Dick Tracy that was so brilliant it was turned into a television show. A puppet so, no less), Jubulation T. Cornpone and all the rest of Li’l Abner’s work and world were. And we have finally reached March of 1952 in the reprints… which means that we are in the process of watching Li’l Abner be inexorably cornered into marriage.
