Shmu

Outwardly, the noise is like a thick bowling pin with legs. He has smooth skin, has eyebrows and a rare mustache, but no arms, nose and ears. His legs are round and short, but nimble, as the comic book about the adventures of Shmu makes clear. The character has a very rich facial expression and often expresses love by squeezing hearts over his head. Cartoon artist Al Capp attributed such curious characteristics to the shem:

• They breed asexually and are incredibly prolific, breed exponentially and much faster than rabbits. For survival they do not need food, but only air.
• Shmu are very palatable and tend to be eaten. If a hungry person looks at the shmu, he will gladly sacrifice himself by jumping into a frying pan or into a pot. At the same time, fried shmu tastes like chicken, boiled - beef, baked - catfish. And raw shmu tastes like an oyster.
• They carry eggs (neatly packaged), give milk (in a bottle, class A), and butter. And their skin can serve as material for shoes, and logs for building a house - depending on how thick it is to cut it.
• They have no bones, so no waste is left from them. From their eyes the best buttons for suspenders are obtained, from mustaches - excellent toothpicks. Simply put, shmu is the perfect pet.
• Kind from nature, they require a minimum of care and are great friends for children. Shmu can be so entertained by people that the need for television and cinema disappears.
• Some particularly delicious types of shmu are very difficult to catch. Shmu hunting is a sport in some areas of the country. To do this, use a paper bag, a flashlight and a stick for catching a noise. At night, a flashlight shines on the noise. This makes them stop. Then they beat with a stick on the head and put in a bag.

The series began at the end of August 1948, Lil Ebner opened it with a story about how shmusy went to the “forbidden valley of shmuny”, heading for the mysterious and musical sound that they make (and from which their name comes). Ebner was thrown down into the valley from the rocky cliff of the primitive "large gal" (as he refers to it), whose task is to protect the valley. (This character no longer appears). There, contrary to the fiercely protesting naked man with a large beard who grazes shmusov, Ebner makes friends with strange and charming creatures. “Schmus,” warns the old man, “is the greatest threat to humanity in the whole world!” “Is it because they are so bad?” Asks Lil Ebner. “No, fool,” the old man replies and then gives out one of the wise paradoxes, “because they are so good!”

Revealing their meaning (with the phrase “Nobody will ever work with them again !!”, Ebner takes them out of the valley and they become a sensation in Dogpatch and quite quickly all over the world. Industry flagships like “Pork King "authorship Roaringham Fatback alarmed decrease in the level of sales of all their products, and a series of images reminiscent of the stock market crash of 1929 " Shmoo "crisis started. on the covers of publications Fetbeka bribed fighter called" troops shmutsidov "delete shmusov using a different firearms that image zhalos on creepy and comic series of pictures with a crying Lilom Ebner mistakenly Salute imaginary "authority" fighter units.

After eliminating the schmus, Dogpatch is looted and the pictures show a grocery store with rotting meat and a fighter congratulating the grocer. It soon turns out that Ebner secretly left two schmus, her and him. The Shmu guy, as a Dogpatch native, is required to run away from the Shmu girl in the annual Sadie Hawkins Day race . Shmusy are usually portrayed as gender-neutral, although the artist bypasses this issue to show comic in the plot turn. When he caught her in the race finals, they were married by Marryin 'Sam (to whom they “pay” a dozen eggs, a kilogram of butter and six muffins with chocolate icing - all this, according to Sam, costs about 98 cents). The already enlarged family of shmoon, as shown for the last time, returns to the valley of shmun.

• Capp, Al, The Life and Times of the Shmoo (1948) Simon & Schuster
• Capp, Al, "There Is a Real Shmoo" ( The Nation, March 21, 1949)
• Capp, Al, "I Don't Like Shmoos" ( Cosmopolitan, June 1949)
• Al Capp Studios, Al Capp's Shmoo Comics (1949–1950) 5 issues (Toby Press)
• Al Capp Studios, Al Capp's Shmoo in Washable Jones' Travels (1950) ( Oxydol premium)
• Al Capp Studios, Washable Jones and the Shmoo (1953) (Toby Press)
• Capp, Al, Al Capp's Bald Iggle: The Life It Ruins May Be Your Own (1956) Simon & Schuster
• Capp, Al, The Return of the Shmoo (1959) Simon & Schuster
• Capp, Al, Charlie Mensuel # 2 (March 1969) (A French monthly periodical devoted to comics)
• Capp, Al, The Best of Li'l Abner (1978) Holt, Rinehart & Winston ISBN 0-03-045516-2
• Capp, Al, Li'l Abner: Reuben Award Winner Series Book 1 (1985) Blackthorne
• Capp, Al, Li'l Abner Dailies: 1948 Vol. 14 (1992) Kitchen Sink Press ISBN 0-87816-116-3
• Capp, Al, Li'l Abner Dailies: 1949 Vol. 15 (1992) Kitchen Sink ISBN 0-87816-127-9
• Capp, Al, Li'l Abner Dailies: 1956 Vol. 22 (1995) Kitchen Sink ISBN 0-87816-271-2
• Capp, Al, Li'l Abner Dailies: 1959 Vol. 25 (1997) Kitchen Sink ISBN 0-87816-278-X
• Capp, Al, The Short Life and Happy Times of the Shmoo (2002) Overlook Press ISBN 1-58567-462-1
• Capp, Al, Al Capp's Li'l Abner: The Frazetta Years - 4 volumes (2003, 2004) Dark Horse Comics
• Al Capp Studios, Al Capp's Complete Shmoo: The Comic Books (2008) Dark Horse ISBN 1-59307-901-X
• Capp, Al, Al Capp's Complete Shmoo Vol. 2: The Newspaper Strips (2011) Dark Horse ISBN 1-59582-720-X

• A page listing the Biggest Events in Comic Books, including the debut of Shmu (English) (Retrieved November 8, 2012)
• The “Biography” of Denis Kitchen's authorship (English) (Retrieved November 8, 2012)
• Media Analysis Techniques, 3rd ed., Arthur Asa Berger, 2004 Sage Publications, Inc. - Books.google.com, 2004-07-15. (eng.)