The Li'l Abner comic strip was a child of the Great Depression of the 1930s, a period when kidding country bumpkins, poverty, and rural lifestyles were perfectly acceptable subjects for a comic strip. Its creator, Al Capp, was a raucous and audacious humorist, capable of mixing barnyard humor with, increasingly perceptive social satire. He and his assorted assistants were also very good at drawing pretty young women. Launched by the United Feature Syndicate in 1934, the newspaper strip was an immediate success and by the 1940s Capp and Abner Yokum were nationally famous and being written up in Life, Time, and various other popular publications. By that time the strip was appearing in about 900 newspapers. The strip lasted until 1977 and gave America an unofficial national holiday and quite a few catch phrases and memorable characters.

Abner Yokum, who dwelled in the benighted rural...