A biography for Mort Walkerhasn’t been written yet.
“I go to the grocery store with my wife. She goes off to buy something. Where is she, anyways? So I ask the manager, 'What aisle do they keep the wives in?'”
“People take a liking to me like I'm a long-lost friend.”
“Beetle Bailey is actually me, in uniform. I've got about 20 characters, and they're all after friends of mine.”
“You can go through comic strips alone and study the common man. You can trace our history.”
“The frustration of being ordered around by somebody to do something - everyone can relate to that. I think Beetle represents that - the common man caught in that morass of rules and regulations. I don't even think of it as an army strip... it's a world anyone can understand.”
“I like a happy ending. That's what I do all the time. I like to make people feel happy.”
“Humor strips dominated what were called the funny papers early in the century, but by the 1920s and '30s, adventure strips had taken over. With 'Beetle Bailey,' I revived the funny part of the funny papers, and I'd be proud to be remembered for that.”
“I think it's legitimate to do satire. If you're going to write a book of satire on Marilyn Monroe or Madonna, you're not going to get their permission, because you're going to make fun of them!”
“I like to keep doing something new and different so people can't say I'm doing the same thing all the time. I like to challenge myself.”
“At one time Tribune Syndicate emptied out their storeroom. They put tables full of original cartoons down in the lobby and said take one if you want one. The comics were simply a burden to them.”
“Laughter is the brush that sweeps away the cobwebs of your heart.”
“I took Beetle home thinking that after the Korean War was over, I would have to take him out of the Army. I thought, well, what am I going to do with him?”
“When I write 'Beetle Bailey,' I can always do jokes about him being lazy, and everyone gets it.”
“I was kicked out of The Stars And Stripes twice, and finally got back in.”
“If I'm going on vacation, I just work ahead.”
“My father was a dreamer who was always broke. He wanted to be a cartoonist.”
“None of the established museums were treating cartoons seriously. It was considered a lesser art or no art at all, just a way to sell newspapers. Even the syndicates who were dedicated to the cartoons were throwing them out, figuring they had no value after they were printed.”