Salome (cartoon pig)
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- This article is about the pet pig character in Li'l Abner. For other uses, see Salome (disambiguation).
A Pearl Among Swine, a family portrait
Salome was the pet pig of the Yokums in the comic strip Li'l Abner, by Al Capp. Salome, likely a pun on "salami", was cute, lovable, intelligent (often more intelligent than the male Yokums), and treated as part of the Yokum family. She was also the last female of the species Hammus alabammus, which led to a number of story arcs.
One such story was the 1942 kidnapping of Salome by "the world's greatest sportsman hogbreeder" J. R. Fangsley who wanted to breed Salome with the last male Hammus alabammus, Boar Scarloff.
In 1947, Salome was again kidnapped, this time by the Bounder J. Roundheels who wanted to "use" Salome to create a unique dish that would gain him entrance into the Gourmets' Club.
In the 1960s, Salome traveled to "Boarkley" (Berkeley, California) to undergo her "boar mitzvah" (bar mitzvah). There, she encountered 1960s-era student protesters, who demonstrated under the acronym SWINE: Students Wildly Indignant-about Nearly Everything. Capp received some severe criticism for the series of strips, but stood by his satire of the era's excesses by university students.
