snuffy smith's home identified by regional dialect

[Michael McKernan]

John Baker wrote:

>A strip in the first year or two identified Li'l Abner's home as
>"Dogpatch, >Kentucky."  I don't recall the state being mentioned in the
>later years of the >strip, which may be why the Dogpatch, USA amusement
>park was in Arkansas.

Coming in late to this discussion, please forgive this intrusion:  Based on
a fairly careful reading (some years ago) of the first three years of Li'l
Abner dailies, I don't remember seeing any mention of Kentucky as the site
of Dogpatch.  Capp seems to go to great pains to generalize 'the mountains
of the South' in various forms, rather than being specific.  In many ways,
Capp deliberately sought to control public reaction/beliefs concerning Li'l
Abner.

Course, I could have missed it, or it could have occurred in a Sunday strip
(I haven't seen many Sundays; don't even know when Sundays began for this
strip).

If you have a citation for a specific date for this (or a secondary
source), John, I'd very much appreciate it if you'd post it.  (I have the
first three years of dailies handy, so I can quickly check such a reference
for those years.)

For years, I've believed that Capp deliberately did not specify a state,
and everything I seen supported that, but I'm happy to be corrected by
appropriate documentation.

Thanks,

Michael McKernan, Ph.D.