Abbie an’ Slats was a long-running American newspaper comic strip distributed by the United Feature Syndicate. It launched on July 12, 1937, and enjoyed a successful 34-year run until January 30, 1971. While the strip was conceived and initially written by Al Capp (famous for Li’l Abner), its signature aesthetic and long-term success were defined by illustrator Raeburn Van Buren, an accomplished magazine illustrator whose refined, realistic art style gave the strip a distinct visual charm. The story originally centered on Slats (Aubrey Eustace Scrapple), a street-wise, newly orphaned boy from New York City who moves by train to the small, rural town of Crabtree Corners. There, he is taken in by his older, spinster cousin, Abbie Scrapple—a strong-willed, opinionated, yet warm-hearted woman who became the anchor of the strip. At its peak, Abbie an’ Slats was carried by roughly 400 newspapers. Though it never reached the absolute cultural saturation of Capp’s Li’l Abner, it was widely admired for Van Buren’s polished draftsmanship and gentle, character-driven humor. Van Buren’s work on the strip later earned him an induction into the National Cartoonists Society’s Hall of Fame.