Humorously enough, many states tried to claim ownership to the little town (Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, etc.), yet Capp would not budge. He left it at Dogpatch USA so there would be no headaches and problems. Like the Coconino County depicted in George Herriman's "Krazy Kat" and the Okefenokee Swamp of Walt Kelly's "Pogo", Dogpatch's distinctive cartoon landscape became as identified with the strip as any of its characters. Later, Capp licensed and was part-owner of an $35 million theme park called Dogpatch USA near Harrison, Arkansas. As utterly wretched as existence was in Dogpatch, there was one place even worse. Frigid, faraway Lower Slobbovia was fashioned as a pointedly political satire of backward nations and foreign diplomacy, and remains a contemporary reference. Its hapless residents were perpetually waist-deep in several feet of snow, and icicles hung from almost every frostbitten nose. The favorite dish of the starving natives was raw polar bear (and vice versa). Lower Slobbovians spoke with burlesque pidgin-Russian accents; the miserable frozen wasteland of Capp's invention abounded in incongruous Yiddish humor. Lower Slobbovia and Dogpatch are both comic examples of modern dystopian satire. Conceptually based on Siberia, or perhaps specifically on Birobidzhan, Capp's icy hellhole made its first appearance in "Li'l Abner" in April 1946. Ruled by Good King Nogoodnik (sometimes known as King Stubbornovsky the Last), the Slobbovian politicians were even more corrupt than their Dogpatch counterparts. Their monetary unit was the "rasbucknik," of which one was worth nothing and a large quantity was worth a lot less, due to the trouble of carrying them around. The local children were read harrowing tales from "Ice-sop's Fables," which were parodies of classic Aesop Fables, but with a darkly sardonic bent (and titles like "Coldilocks and the Three Bares"). Other fictional locales included Skonk Hollow, El Passionato, Kigmyland, the Republic of Crumbumbo, Lo Kunning, Faminostan, Planets Pincus Number 2 and 7, Pineapple Junction and, most notably, the Valley of the Shmoon. Shmoos, introduced in 1948, were fabulous creatures that bred exponentially, consumed nothing, and eagerly provided everything that humankind could wish for.