L'il Abner, December 25, 1948

L'il Abner, December 25, 1948

Click the image to see a larger version, or just read the transcript below.

This one's a little different, as it's basically just Al Capp giving holiday greetings to a bunch of people, along with a drawing of himself in a Santa Claus outfit. It's probably a bit hard to read, so I've transcribed it for you below:

"To the vets in the vets' hospitals - and to the fine Red Cross gals who take me out to see you - to Father David Dunnigan - Rabbi Isadore Davidson - Levi Jackson - Harold Russell - Walter Winchell - to the man who marinates the herring at Toots Shor's - Joe Dineed, and his amazing 'Purple Shamrock' - John Mason Brown - John Crosby - Arthur Godfrey- Nancy O. - Secretary of Labor Tobin - Miltons Caniff and Berle - Lee and Connie Falk - Rabbi Philip Bernstein - the Saroyans - Jack Goodman - Tex and Jinx - Leila and Kip Hadley - Chic Young - Rube Goldberg - Bob Ruark - Henry Morgan - Colby College - Faye Emerson - Reg Beauchamp - Helen Hayes and Charlie McArthur - Oona and Charlie Chaplin - Drew Pearson - Billy Reed and his Little Club - Joe Lopez of the Copa - Secretary John Snyder - Verne Clark - Bridgeport Univ. - Thompson and Jacque of the Montreal Standard, one of the top newspaper teams in the world - Gregg Sherwood - E.M. Kahn jr. - Al Hershfeld - Dolly Hass - Sid Caesar - Henny Youngman - Joe E. Lewis - Pat Williams - Alex Raymond - Warde Greene - John Wayne - Glorya and Leopold Stokowski - Louis Sobol, the kindliest of all the kolumnists - Big Joe, and may he grow Bigger - Miss Sarah Lewis of New Haven - Billy Daniels - Bob Trout- Fred Friendly - John Cameron Swayze - Davidson Taylor - Leonard and Sylvia Lyons - James and Pamela Mason - Bob and Mignon McLaughlin - Vaugn Monroe - Bob Allen - Harold Stassen - Jack Lait - 'Twenty One' - Turhan Bey - Larry Winship - Lou Cowan - Arnold Horwitt and Lee Rogow - Charlie and Peg Ross - Ben Hecht - Jimmy Cannon - Bob Hall - John Ringling North - George Jessel - Frank Knight - Virgnia Gilmore - Salvador Dali - Rod MacLeish - Frank Sinatra - Doug Edwards - Louis Gardner - Joey Gold, who can get 'em when no one else can - R. Van Buren - Jack Barry - Barry Gray - T.S. Matthews - Christine Lynn - Eleanor Tatum - Ed and Pegeen Fitzgerald - Jean Sulzberger - Dick Williams - Joe Purtell - Betty Crocker - Betty Betz - Kenny Delmar - Carl Hodge - John McLain - Walter Ross - Harriet Van Horne - Morris Ernst - Elinor Marcus - Mort Millman - Bob Emery, and the Small Fry Club - Nick Kenny - Kenneth Banghart - Pat Coffin - Maxwell Coplan - Gordon Johnson - Ruth Cosgrove - to the Yale Record and the Princeton Tiger (thanks for your awards) - Irwin and Marian Shaw - to the talented cartooning Fishers, Bud, Dudley, and Jo, that is - Lyman Bryson - the Atlantic Monthly - Fred Garrigus - Charlie Post - Al Foster - Ralph Foster - Roy Larsen - Smitty Davis - Ann and John Groth - and to all you confused by loyal Li'l Abner readers -"

There are some interesting names in there if you take the time to actually read them. The most interesting to me is his mention of "the talented cartooning Fishers", meaning Bud Fisher, creator of Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, Dudley Fisher, creator of Right Around Home, and probably Jo Fischer, who spells his name a bit differently, creator of From 9 to 5. I'm guessing he's conspicuously omitting Ham Fisher, creator of Joe Palooka, with whom Capp had been feuding since the 1930s. That's a story for a different time.