When it comes to outlandish, cartoony violence in the funny pages... Nothing can really hold much of a candle to Fearless Fosdick. Fearless Fosdick was a Dick Tracy parody that debuted in the Lil' Abner comic strip starting in 1941, which was drawn and written by Al Capp (b. 1909 - d. 1979.) The main character, Abner Yokum, happened to idolize Fosdick, to the point that he would emulate his hero even in jeopardizing ways.
In 1952, Fearless Fosdick became engaged to his long time girlfriend. Abner, taking many cues from his hero, proposed to his long time beau, Daisy Mae. The next day, it was revealed that Fosdick's engagement was only part of a dream, whereas Abner's engagement was stone cold real. The couple ultimately got married.
Fosdick was also famous for his zany cast of antagonists (similar to the oddball characters in Dick Tracy) and for basically being the equivalent of the Black Knight from Monty Python and The Holy Grail. Many times, Fosdick would have numerous gaping holes blown into him from the gunfights that he found himself in, but was surprisingly well, claiming that the holes were "mere flesh wounds."
When the Lil' Abner strip came to an end in 1977, so did Fearless Fosdick. But not before having gone beyond a comic strip within a comic strip. Fearless Fosdick had a brief television show in the 1950s and had many editors hoping to land a Fearless Fosdick strip.
Though he never publicly objected to it, nor did he try to stop the production of it; Chester Gould, the creator of Dick Tracy, was believed not to have been a huge fan of Fearless Fosdick as it was a massive parody of himself and the strip that put him on the map.
