Lil' AA

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The Lil'AA strip from August 23, 1963. (courtesy of )
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The Lil'AA strip from August 23, 1963. (courtesy of The Double Stimes)

Trenchwheat's grasp of wisecracking was dubious at best.
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Trenchwheat's grasp of wisecracking was dubious at best.

The Lil' AA is a formerly syndicated daily comic strip by Jonathan Trenchwheat, depicting the youthful adventures of Stimso Adid, Stimes Addisson and other established Associationalist figures. Though it's national run was extremely brief, it enjoyed a modicum of critical praise and attracted a surprisingly ardent cult following. Later examples feature a greatly expanded cast and the eschewment of any traditional narrative sense.

It first ran on April Fool's Day 1961 to an overwhelming, postive response. Trenchwheat was then asked by King Features Syndicate to continue the strip. At first, it burnt the barn down all over the purple-fruited plains. Somewhere on the road to mass hysteria, however, its blip faded from the screen. Stopped abrubtly with no explanation on January 27, 1962, it was soon forgotten by the fickle crowd of admirers who went back to their Snoopies and Prince Valiants. Although there were some lonely voices of protest raised on the editorial pages, harsh rebuttals and outright denunciations of the strip had their effect. Public opinion turned against the Lil' AA and it was rubbed from the history books.

Fortunately, the collected strips were published by The Double Stimes in 1979. Since then, irregular "annuals" have appeared that continue the strip that Trenchwheat, despite not being published in the dailies, produces once a day, usually just after breakfast. "Sometimes it doesn't hit me just then so I have to sit around and let things stew for a while. Some of the best strips have come when I was sitting on the toilet or when mowing the lawn."

Indeed. A true American original, the Lil' AA has nonetheless been translated into at least 13 languages.

Non-Canonical Text


Why My Freedom Blows, by Man on The Street, actual.

Desiderata


The Lil' AA was the first nationally syndicated comic-strip in the U.S. to feature exposed breasts.

Rush Limbaugh said the Lil' AA was like "finding excrement wrapped in your newspaper."

The Lil' AA once incorporated Garfield as a character until a complex trademark lawsuit caused Trenchwheat to desist. Overturned by fiat a mere five days later, the AA strut had begun -- and many readers asked for more!

Stimso Adid made the Arabic language translations of the Lil' AA in 1999.