Ham Fisher - Retaliation

Retaliation

Fisher retaliated clumsily, falsely accusing Capp of sneaking obscenities into his comic strip. Submitting examples of L'il Abner to Capp's syndicate and to the New York courts, Fisher claimed pornographic images were hidden in the background art. Capp was able to refute the accusation by simply showing the original printed strips. According to the recollection of Fisher's friend Morris Weiss, "What Ham Fisher did was to take a lot of L'il Abner strips that were suggestive. In one case, he cut off the end of one strip, which made it look more suggestive than others. He did not doctor any art on the strips... The story that Ham doctored the artwork came from Al Capp, of course." Capp's brother Elliot Caplin recalls the doctored strips as having been drawn upon, with additions of lines and shadows intended to simulate body parts.

In 1954, as Capp was applying for a Boston television license, the FCC received an anonymous packet of pornographic L'il Abner drawings. The National Cartoonists Society, an organization that Fisher had helped to found, convened an ethics hearing, and Fisher was expelled. To date, Ham Fisher is the only man ever convicted of “conduct unbecoming a cartoonist”. Around the same time, Fisher's mansion in Carol Beach, Wisconsin was destroyed by a storm.