Fearless Fosdick: The Hole Story

Rating:
Summary: Merely A Flesh Wound, Chief
Review: "Fearless Fosdick", a ruthless parody of Chester Gould's "Dick Tracy", was one of Al Capp's many brilliant creations within his comic strip masterpiece "Li'l Abner". It was also one of the funniest things ever to appear in the funny pages. Fosdick, a skinny, hatchet-jawed detective who is frequently riddled with enormous bullet holes (hence the title of this book), is the ideal of Abner Yokum and every red-blooded American boy, and stars in their favorite comic strip, within the "Abner" strip itself. Fosdick endures a world of corruption and his seventeen-year engagement to the beastly Prudence Pimpleton in order to slaughter members of the criminal underword for twenty-two-fifty a week.

This handsome paperback from Capp's faithful re-publisher Denis Kitchen picks up where an earlier volume left off, collecting a handful of Fosdick stories (and one about Fosdick's fictional creator, Lester Gooch) from the late fifties and early sixties, as well as a few of Fosdick's "Wildroot Cream Oil" ads from the period. Dave Shreiner's commentary is, as always, insightful and intelligent.

Rating:
Summary: Merely A Flesh Wound, Chief
Review: "Fearless Fosdick", a ruthless parody of Chester Gould's "Dick Tracy", was one of Al Capp's many brilliant creations within his comic strip masterpiece "Li'l Abner". It was also one of the funniest things ever to appear in the funny pages. Fosdick, a skinny, hatchet-jawed detective who is frequently riddled with enormous bullet holes (hence the title of this book), is the ideal of Abner Yokum and every red-blooded American boy, and stars in their favorite comic strip, within the "Abner" strip itself. Fosdick endures a world of corruption and his seventeen-year engagement to the beastly Prudence Pimpleton in order to slaughter members of the criminal underword for twenty-two-fifty a week.

This handsome paperback from Capp's faithful re-publisher Denis Kitchen picks up where an earlier volume left off, collecting a handful of Fosdick stories (and one about Fosdick's fictional creator, Lester Gooch) from the late fifties and early sixties, as well as a few of Fosdick's "Wildroot Cream Oil" ads from the period. Dave Shreiner's commentary is, as always, insightful and intelligent.