My father was a dreamer who was always broke. He wanted to be a cartoonist.
— Mort Walker
I like a happy ending. That's what I do all the time. I like to make people feel happy.
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?'
If I'm going on vacation, I just work ahead.
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.
Belly buttons were a big battle of mine. Down at the syndicate, they would clip them out with a razor blade. I began putting so many of them in, in the margins and everywhere, that they had a little box down there called 'Beetle Bailey''s Belly-Button Box. The editors finally gave up after I did one strip showing a delivery of navel oranges.
I don't know how I'd be retired. I wake up every day with another idea.
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!
Most people are sort of against authority. Here's Beetle always challenging authority. I think people relate to it.
When I introduced a black soldier, Lt. Flap, in 1971, the Stars and Stripes banned the strip. They were having racial problems and thought it would increase the tensions.
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?
The people who were against the Vietnam War thought I was attacking the Army. The guys in the Army thought I was representing their experiences. I was on both sides, and I survived.
Seven days without laughter makes one weak.
Professionals don't get writer's block. I can always come up with the punch line.
I took my basic training on a golf course in Florida. Then I was on the boxing team. We did some demonstrations, and they put me in a theater one night and wanted me to box. So OK, I came out boxing with a friend - thinking we would just spar around - but the guy walked out, hit me, and knocked me out with one stroke.
People take a liking to me like I'm a long-lost friend.
Comics have always helped people to read. A lot of people learned to read by reading the comics. And it's our livelihood, after all. If people don't know how to read, they're not reading our comics.
Beetle is the embodiment of everybody's resistance to authority, all the rules and regulations which you've got to follow. He deals with it in his own way. And in a way, it's sort of what I did when I was in the Army. I just oftentimes did what I wanted to do.
About the only way you can find out about the common man, his slang, what he looked like, what he thought, is through the comic strips. It's a powerful way for young people to learn history.
Beetle Bailey is actually me, in uniform. I've got about 20 characters, and they're all after friends of mine.
When I write 'Beetle Bailey,' I can always do jokes about him being lazy, and everyone gets it.
Some people will do schlock or anything, just to get their name on it.
When the war was over and the guys were back to shaving every day, the editor thought the Beetle Bailey strips were hurting their disciplinary efforts to get the guys back to routine.
I say, if you believe what you read in the comic strips, then you believe that mice run around with little gold buttons on their red pants and drive cars.
I was kicked out of The Stars And Stripes twice, and finally got back in.
You can go through comic strips alone and study the common man. You can trace our history.
I first sold a cartoon for five dollars. I was in the fifth grade.
I've always said that what cartoonists do is create friends for readers.
Old cartoonists never retire, they just erase away.
When I first started, you couldn't mention divorce or death. You couldn't show smelly socks. You couldn't show a snake. They took a skunk out of my strip one time.
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.
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 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.
You learn just by trying and experimenting. By the time I was 14, I had my own comic strip in the Kansas City paper.
Everything I know, I write about. My only research is what I did.
Laughter is the brush that sweeps away the cobwebs of your heart.
