Elliott (Elia Abner) Caplin

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Elliot Caplin

Elliot Caplin (December 25, 1913 - February 20, 2000) was a comic strip writer best known as the co-creator (with Stan Drake) of The Heart of Juliet Jones. His name is sometimes spelled with one extra letter: Elliott A. Caplin. He was the younger brother of Al Capp, creator of Li'l Abner.

Born in New Haven, Connecticut, Caplin graduated from Ohio State University in 1936. Beginning in 1937, he was employed as a writer for King Features Syndicate. He entered the comic book field as editor of True Comics for the Parents Magazine Institute. By 1940, he was an editorial director with the magazine Parents, leaving during World War II to serve with the Navy in the South Pacific. In the post-WWII years, he returned to Parents, continuing as an editor there until 1948.

Caplin co-created the strips Peter Scratch and Big Ben Bolt and served as writer for strips by others, including Abbie an' Slats, Long Sam and Little Orphan Annie.

He founded the comic book publisher Toby Press, which operated from 1949 to 1955. Theater

In the early 1970s, Caplin wrote Meegan’s Game, a play about arrested adolescence. Directed by Paul E. Davis, it had a 1974 workshop production for several weekends at the Cricket Theatre on Second Avenue in an effort to interest potential backers. The play was eventually produced in 1982.

Caplin lived in California with his wife Ruth and their three children, Don, Joan and Toby. He died in Stockbridge, Massachusetts in 2000.