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Mort Walker Dies: Beloved ‘Beetle Bailey’ Comic Strip Creator Dead At 94

By Victoria Miller
Published on: 06:42 PST, Jan 28, 2018

Mort Walker, the comic strip artist who created the long-running “Beetle Bailey” cartoon, has died at age 94. Walker, who was born Addison Morton Walker, passed away at his home in Stamford, Connecticut, after a bout of pneumonia, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Mort Walker was a World War II Army veteran. But well before he was drafted into the military, Walker nurtured his talent as a comic strip artist, starting out with his first published cartoon at age 11. Mort’s decades-long career included a steady stream of newspaper features, kicking off with “Beetle Bailey” in 1950. The “Beetle Bailey” strip was so popular that a spin-off, “Hi and Lois,” was launched with collaborator Dik Browne, featuring Beetle’s sister Lois and her hapless husband. Other Mort Walker comic strips included “‘Boner’s Ark” and “Sam and Silo.”

Walker’s most well-known feature by far was “Beetle Bailey,” the military-themed comic strip about a slacker Army private. At the height of its popularity, “Beetle Bailey” was the third most widely syndicated comic strip in the world, and it still appears in more than 1,800 newspapers and online outlets. Mort Walker drew his daily comic strip for 68 years, longer than any other U.S. comic artist in history.

After Mort Walker’s death was announced, Bill Morrison, president of the National Cartoonists Society, said Walker “lived and breathed the art every day of his life.”

Many other comic strip artists and fans paid tribute to the legendary artist, who was the last living comic book writer to be hired by William Randolph Hearst himself.

Mort Walker was a lifelong comic fan. In an interview with Mr. Media, Walker said when he was growing up, cartoonists were “national heroes.” According to King features, when he was 10 years old, Mort sent his drawings to Moon Mullins creator Frank Willard, and the artist wrote him back with some words of encouragement: “Say Morton, those drawings you sent me were swell– I’ll bet you’ll be a big shot cartoonist someday.”

By age 15, Mort Walker was a comic strip artist for a daily newspaper and three years later he was chief editor of Hallmark Cards. In addition to his lifelong comic strip work, Mort Walker founded the Museum of Cartoon Art in Connecticut in 1974.

“Beetle Bailey” will continue under the hands of Mort Walker’s sons, Greg and Brian, according to King Features. As for Mort Walker’s legacy, the late artist’s favorite quote was “Old cartoonists never die. They just erase away.”

You can see a rare interview with Mort Walker below.

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