R.I.P..: Cartoonist Mort Walker Dies at 94

Mort Walker, the creator of “Beetle Bailey,” a comic strip about an Army private who malingered his way through seven decades at Camp Swampy to the consternation of his commanding officers and the delight of his fans in the armed forces and beyond, died on Saturday at his home in Stamford, Conn. He was 94.

Walker had the longest tenure of any cartoonist on an original creation, King Features, which began its syndication of “Beetle Bailey” in 1950, according to The NYTimes.

Walker began drawing as a youngster and after his college years sold cartoons to The Saturday Evening Post about a lanky student at Rockview University named Spider, hat pulled over his eyes, who figured out how to get his roommate to do all his work.

In 1950, amid the Korean War, the signature character syndicated by King Features was Beetle Bailey, in an Army uniform. Walker substituted barracks buddies for dorm mates, sergeants and generals for professors, and the military bureaucracy for academic pronouncements.

In the first sketches showing Beetle Bailey in uniform, this time with an Army cap covering his eyes, he took an aptitude test and asked what his specialty would be.

“Not engineering. … Not cooking. … Not driving. …” the Army tester told him.

“You have one outstanding ability! Avoiding work!”

The main character’s war was with the Army itself, and though he was never promoted beyond private, he bested the likes of the tough but ultimately endearing Sarge (officially Orville P. Snorkel) and the bumbling Camp Swampy commander, Gen. Amos T. Halftrack.

Brian Walker said that the strip will continue, and that he and his brother Greg had been working on it with their father for decades.

Walker worked with his associates Jerry Dumas, Bob Gustafson and Bud Jones as well as several of his children in creating gag ideas. In addition to “Beetle Bailey” he created “Hi and Lois,” with Dik Browne, based on Mr. Walker’s family members’ lives; “Boner’s Ark,” featuring quirky animals and their search for dry land; and “Sam’s Strip,” about a comic strip character running his own comic strip. He founded “Sam’s Strip” with Mr. Dumas, who later took over and renamed it “Sam and Silo.”