Editing Shmoo (section)

===Comic books and reprints===
''The Life and Times of the Shmoo'' (1948), a paperback collection of the original sequence, was a bestseller for [[Simon & Schuster]] and became the first cartoon book to achieve serious literary attention.<ref>{{cite magazine |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,886491,00.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071023081440/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,886491,00.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=October 23, 2007 |title=The Miracle of Dogpatch |magazine=Time |date=27 December 1948 |accessdate=2012-12-10}}</ref> Distributed to small town magazine racks, it sold 700,000 copies in its first year of publication alone. It was reviewed coast to coast alongside [[Dwight Eisenhower]]'s ''[[Crusade in Europe]]'' (the other big publication at the time).

The original book and its sequel, ''The Return of the Shmoo'' (1959), have been collected in print many times since—most recently in 2002—always to high sales figures.<ref name="deniskitchen.com"/>

There was also a separate line of [[comic book]]s, ''Al Capp's Shmoo Comics'' (featuring Washable Jones), published by the Capp family-owned [[Toby Press]].<ref>{{cite web|last=Thompson |first=Steven |url=http://fourcolorshadows.blogspot.com/2012/05/super-shmoo-al-capps-shmoo-1949.html |title=Super Shmoo – Al Capp's Shmoo – 1949 |website=Four-Color Shadows |date=26 May 2012 |accessdate=2012-12-10}}</ref> Comics historian and ''Li'l Abner'' expert [[Denis Kitchen]] recently edited a complete collection of all five original ''Shmoo Comics'', from 1949 and 1950. The book was published by [[Dark Horse Comics]] in 2008. Kitchen edited a second Shmoo-related volume for Dark Horse in 2011, on the history of the character in newspaper strips, collectibles, and memorabilia.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://superitch.com/?p=11296 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110716164811/http://superitch.com/?p=11296 |archive-date=2011-07-16 |title=The Oddly Compelling Interview: Denis Kitchen |date=6 August 2010 |website=I.T.C.H. |accessdate=2012-12-10}}</ref>