44 Quotes by Mort Walker

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 don't know how I'd be retired. I wake up every day with another idea.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Old cartoonists never retire, they just erase away.

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.

If I'm going on vacation, I just work ahead.