To: Wharf Rat who wrote (494795 ) 7/17/2022 6:05:42 PM From: cosmicforce 4 RecommendationsRecommended By
Respond to You know - I vaguely remember the SHMOO but when I looked up the Wikipedia article - what a treasure trove I discovered about that story - and what a controversy there was about it. en.wikipedia.org utopian satires. The Baltimore Sun , 2002 [6] allegorical best in the epics of the Shmoos, and later, the Kigmies", wrote comic strip historian Jerry Robinson (in The Comics: An Illustrated History of Comic Strip Art , 1974). "Shmoos are the world's most amiable creatures, supplying all man's needs. Like a fertility myth gone berserk, they reproduced so prodigiously they threatened to wreck the economy"—if not western civilization as we know it, and ultimately society itself. [7] he was widely seen to be using clever subtext . The story has social , ethical , and philosophical implications that continue to invite analysis into the 21st Century. [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] During the remainder of his life, Capp was seldom interviewed without reference to the nature of the Shmoo story. ironic note. Shmoos are officially declared a menace, and systematically hunted down and slaughtered—because they were deemed "bad for business". The much-copied story line was a parable that was interpreted in many different ways at the outset of the Cold War . Al Capp was even invited to go on a radio show to debate socialist Norman Thomas on the effect of the Shmoo on modern capitalism . Denis Kitchen . " Communists thought he was making fun of socialism and Marxism . The right wing thought he was making fun of capitalism and the American way . Capp caught flak from both sides. [13] For him it was an apolitical morality tale about human nature ... I think [the Shmoo] was one of those bursts of genius. He was a genius, there's no question about that." [14]
