The Guy Who Used to Draw _Beetle Bailey_ Abstains From the Squirrel Competition but Is Maybe Into Porcupines


That guy would be Mort Walker, who created Beetle Bailey and then threw out the premise in favor of service-comedy stuff that made it a successful comic. In the vintage strip that Comics Kingdom has from 1967 today we get a pleasant variety of woodland creatures so we can see just how he designed these things mere months ahead of starting Boner’s Ark.

The sharp-eyed observer will note that while there’s moose, rabbit, several varieties of birds, bear, and skunk, there’s no squirrel entry here. Obviously, Walker was not interested in getting sucked into my weird obsessions 57 years later. Wise move. He at least had better things to do.

Beetle Bailey cast setting up tents in the woods. Captain Scabbard tells Sarge, 'I always look forward to our annual bivouac in the woods.' Sarge: 'Me too. I think the change is good for everyone.' In the second panel we see the barracks, doors open, filled with forest animals: a bear sleeping on a bed, a rabbit peering at another rabbit in the locker, a moose (with antlers that split again and again and again) looking in on this, birds perched and flying around inside, a cat in the far distance, a skunk standing up beside the bear's bed. There's also a cat-sized shaggy creature of no conclusive species, followed by a trail of three cubs, in the lower rightmost corner.
Mort Walker’s Beetle Bailey for the 26th of October, 1967, and reprinted the 13th of May, 2024. Also did want to admire the moose for managing to have fractal antlers, years before anyone outside of numerical mathematicians ever heard of the things. I know what you’re thinking: aren’t all mathematicians numerical mathematicians? You’re being quite funny there! But no, not nearly.

I don’t know what the line of animals in the lower right corner is supposed to be. Short-tailed cats? Shaggy porcupines? Elephant tribbles? I have no answer for you.

Author: Joseph Nebus

I was born 198 years to the day after Johnny Appleseed. The differences between us do not end there. He/him.

One thought on “The Guy Who Used to Draw _Beetle Bailey_ Abstains From the Squirrel Competition but Is Maybe Into Porcupines”

  1. I don’t know what those things in the lower right hand corner are either. But that moose’s antlers look like the kind of maze you’d find on a kiddie placemat at Howard Johnson’s.

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