Comic Stripped: A Revealing Look at Southern Stereotypes in Cartoons

Comic Stripped: A Revealing Look at Southern Stereotypes in Cartoons offers visitors a chance to look back thoughtfully at cartoons that have shaped America's vision of the South. The exhibit showcases six long-running cartoons that have themselves become part of Southern history: hugely popular Li`l Abner, Mountain Boys, and Pogo of the 1930s - 1970s; perennial Snuffy Smith; and the recent Kudzu and television's King of the Hill.

The cartoonists drew from Southern history, real and imagined. For instance, Walt Kelly set Pogo amid the natural splendor of Georgia's Okefenokee Swamp, introducing millions of readers to this just-designated National Wildlife Refuge. Al Capp's Li`l Abner played with the notion of endless mountain feuds, greatly exaggerating the actual history of the Hatfields and McCoys. Doug Marlette's Kudzu, begun in the 1980s, humorously reflected on black-white relations in the newly desegregated South.

Visitors of all ages will enjoy Comic Stripped as an opportunity of immersing themselves in the funny pages of yore. Along with the humor, the exhibit offers insights about the shaping of the Southern image -- by artists, the media and pop culture, and within our own minds as well.

The traveling exhibition is on loan from the Levine Museum of the New South.