💬 Milt Caniff on Al Capp, creator of Li’l Abner, from The Comics Journal 108, May 1986
“…although Capp and I were rivals, we were old friends. I even took over Colonel Gilfeather from him. Capp once wrote a story about that. He said, “My work was once given to guy named Milton Caniff-what ever happened to him?” [laughter]
…People used to think we were bitter rivals, which we never were, because Li’l Abner and my stuff had no rival points. We always got along well together. He was always very generous to me. In the times that he was doing a lot a of radio and television appearances, he had nice things to say about me. In fact, he would turn the conversation around to that end. He always liked Alex Raymond, and while Alex was alive, he used to do the same thing for Alex.”
[Al Capp was a very self-centered man, who was never shy about saying what he didn’t like about other people, especially people in the same business. So if he spoke well of someone, it was a great honor. I’ve never read anything from Capp that was negative towards Milt Caniff, so that really says something. Not saying he never said anything negative, just a that I haven’t read it]