Lower Slobbovia (geog.)

[Baker, John]

        "The USSR" may be an overly literal answer, but I believe it is in
substance correct.  Slobbovia is a communist country inhabited by Slavs and
with enormous amounts of snow.  The official L'il Abner web site states, at
http://www.lilabner.com/slobovia.html, that "Astute readers knew that Capp's
Slobbovia was a thinly disguised Siberia."  The name was probably affected
also by the name Inner Mongolia and by eastern European national names
generally.  I doubt if Slovenia specifically was much of an influence.

        I see that one source, http://www.toonopedia.com/abner.htm, asserts
that "druthers" and "irregardless" were first seen in L'il Abner.

John Baker


> -----Original Message-----
> From: L oki [SMTP:okl-word at JUNO.COM]
> Sent: Sunday, July 15, 2001 9:05 PM
> To:   ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject:      Re: Lower Slobbovia (geog.)
>
> But to get back to the geographic references, while I agree with a couple
> other writers that Capp probably made up Lower Slobovia without any
> specific model in mind (and I don't agree that it was meant to represent
> the USSR), I still contend that Outer Mongolia was most likely the main
> influence both for the name and for the depiction of what it was like,
> and that in turn, Lower Slobovia was the main model for Elbonia by a
> modern cartoonist wishing to present it as an homage to the earlier
> artist. (Or maybe just to pick up on an old gimmick that still seemed to
> have some useful mileage left.)
>