Are the comic strips Li'l Abner and Alley Oop still in production?
—Phil P., Texas
Reprints of the original Li'l Abner comic strip appear in some newspapers today, but it ceased production in 1977. Created by cartoonist Al Capp, the comic strip about the daily doings of Dogpatch, USA, started publication in 1934. Capp fearlessly tackled the issues of the day through the life of an innocent hillbilly family, and his audience—hit hard by the Depression—embraced his biting social satire. Capp died in 1979. Alley Oop, on the other hand, still runs new strips each day. Created in 1933 by V.T. Hamlin, the comic strip follows the adventures of caveman Alley, who uses his friend's time machine to travel from prehistoric Moo into the 21st century. Hamlin worked on the caveman comic strip for 40 years, before retiring and handing it over to his assistant, Dave Graue. Graue brought Jack Bender in as an assistant artist in 1990, and a year later he was drawing Alley Oop full time. When Graue retired in 2001, Bender's wife, Carole, came in as the writer.
