The cover to Li'l Abner: The Frazetta Years, Volume One, 1954-1955 (Dark Horse) puts its marketing agenda up front: posed on the front cover, showing off her bodacious figger is series regular Moonbeam McSwine. Titular hero of the strip, Abner Yokum, is nowhere to be seen, not even in the red-tinged strips that are used as background. We don't buy a collection of Frazetta art to look at buff Dogpatch boys; it's the babes that bring in the fanboys.
Packaging considerations aside, it's great to see a fresh collection of Capp's classic comic strip. Back in the 90's, Dennis Kitchen's Kitchen Sink Press had taken on the Promethean task of reprinting the long-running strip's dailies; Kitchen got up to 27 volumes (covering 1934 - 61) before the company crashed. Most Capp fans despaired of ever seeing future reprints; now, Dennis has found another publishing outlet for one of his long-standing fannish obsessions - and good for him!
Figures that the only way he could sell Capp's work to another comic publisher, though, was to focus on the work featuring fan-favorite Frank Frazetta. The popular fantasy illustrator was an assistant to Capp for seven years, starting out on the dailies (see Volume 20 of the Kitchen Sink reprint series - if you can find a copy) where he initially both penciled and inked the strip until bosses at the syndicate reportedly began complaining about how different it all looked. Frazetta moved to penciling Sunday strips instead, with a separate Capp assistant inking to downplay his distinctive sinuous linework (full Frazetta made the characters so explicitly sexual that the risque jokes Capp had long imbedded in the strip became even more obvious). This he continued to do until 1961, when Capp's refusal to give the artist a raise led to Frazetta leaving the strip to pursue a career in book and magazine illustration that'd ultimately prove more rewarding.
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