While oblivious to the surrounding "real" world (e.g., walking off a cliff or into the path of an oncoming train, or inadvertently ignoring one of Daisy Mae's perilous predicaments), Abner would be, as ever, fully engrossed in the Fosdick adventure. Subsequent installments would reinforce Abner's obsessive immersion in the unfolding Fosdick continuity while at the same time recapping the story within a story. The next panel would reveal Abner's POV of the feature under an iconic logo: Fearless Fosdick by Lester Gooch. Typically, an anxious Abner would race frantically to the mailbox or to the train delivering the morning newspapers, to get a glimpse of the latest cliffhanger episode. Abner himself serves as a rustic Greek chorus-to introduce, comment upon and (sometimes) comically sum up the Fosdick stories. As described in Dick Tracy and American Culture, "Fosdick's square jaw was even more pronounced than Tracy's, violence was used much more gratuitously in Fosdick than in Tracy (and rarely with any meaning), grotesques were even more outrageous." Ĭartoonist Al Capp (1909–1979) would often use Li'l Abner continuity as a narrative framing device, bookending the offbeat Fosdick sequences. Hayseed Abner mindlessly aped his role model-even going so far as submitting to marriage against his will.įearless Fosdick was a parody of all of Dick Tracy's memorable qualities. It appeared intermittently as a strip-within-a-strip, in Al Capp's satirical hillbilly comic strip, Li'l Abner (1934–1977).įearless Fosdick made his debut in an August 1942 Li'l Abner Sunday sequence, as the unflappable comic book idol of Abner (and of every other "100% red-blooded American boy!") and an object of undying hero worship. American comic strip character Al Capp's Fearless Fosdick is featured in a Li'l Abner Sunday sequence from April 3, 1960.įearless Fosdick is a long-running parody of Chester Gould's Dick Tracy.
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