The Press: Apology for Margaret

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Last October Funnypaper Artist Al Capp turned his popular Li'l Abner, published in over 600 papers and top-flight among comic strips, into a three-week slapstick parody of Margaret Mitchell's famed best-seller Gone With The Wind (he called it Gone Wif the Wind). Said Capp: "I really went to town. It was swell."

Hundreds thought so too, readers back-patted him by mail. But one letter was of different ilk, from Advertising Executive John Marsh, Authoress Mitchell's husband and trouble shooter; it demanded an apology. Southern pride, suh, had been hurt.

Al Capp was bewildered. He had used Li'l Abner to burlesque many a book and play. He had parodied Romeo &Juliet,and William Shakespeare had not turned a hair.

But United Feature Syndicate's lawyers looked up the law, found that had Capp called his parody Gone With the Breeze he would have been in the clear. Now, since he had practically used Margaret Mitchell's copyrighted title, he could be sued for $1 for every copy of every paper in which the parody had appeared. This made a suit for $75,000,000 technically possible. Last week Al Capp devoted two panels of his regular Sunday strip to a cold public apology, letting Dogpatcher Mammy Yokum do most of the talking: "Sartin parties got their feelin's hurt! Yo' gotta make it right, Mistah Capp!! It's the code o'th'hills!!"