The second-generation creator of the daily comic strip ‘Beetle Bailey’ is a champion of the deceptively simple art form
“I think of Beetle as an older brother,” says Brian Walker, a historian of cartoon art who writes for the comic strip “Beetle Bailey,” which his father first created. Here Walker sits in his Connecticut studio with his 2011 book “The Comics: The Complete Collection.” Photo: Elisa Keogh
A shared experience of many a 20th-century childhood was diving into the newspaper comics section, following the adventures and giggles of our favorite pen-and-ink characters. And then there’s Brian Walker, A74, who—quite literally—grew up alongside some of them: in particular, Beetle Bailey, the clever but lazy Army private who stars in the namesake strip created by Walker’s father, the influential comics artist Mort Walker.
“I think of Beetle as an older brother,” Brian Walker told his son, filmmaker Dave Walker, in a 2020 documentary Dave made about the family business. “He went off to join the Army, and the strip is a letter home from him.”
“Beetle Bailey” hasn’t missed a day of publication since 1950. Unlike other so-called legacy strips, such as “Peanuts,” which now appear in reruns, “We’re still doing new stuff every day,” said Brian Walker. While comics have slipped in popularity with the decline of print newspapers, “Beetle” still runs in more than 1,000 papers and online.
A strip written by Brian Walker that appeared on June 4, 2026, carries on the timeless theme of gently mocking Army life started by Brian’s father, Mort Walker, in 1950. Photo: © Comicana, Inc
“No question what we do is tied to the newspaper business, which isn’t really healthy right now,” Walker said. “But we’ve held onto our list a lot longer than anyone thought we would.”
Walker collaborated with his father on “Beetle” from 1984 until Mort Walker’s death in 2018; he now writes the strip with his real-life brothers Greg and Neal, who handle the artwork as well. Brian and Greg also write the family-themed strip “Hi and Lois,” originally created by their father with illustrator Dik Browne.
Since his graduation from Tufts some 52 years ago, Walker has pursued a career as a museum curator and exhibit designer, author, and cartoon art historian. His latest book is 2025’s Mort Walker’s Beetle Bailey: 75 Years of Smiles.
A 1987 strip captures an unusually energetic day in the life of Beetle Bailey, the Army soldier who is more often shown trying to avoid work around Camp Swampy. Photo: © Comicana, Inc
Camp Swampy to Camp Tufts
When Brian Walker arrived at Tufts in the fall of 1970, he hung a poster his father had drawn for him in his dorm room. It featured all the “Beetle Bailey” characters and the words “Welcome to Camp Tufts from Camp Swampy,” referring to the cartoon Army base where Beetle was stationed. Walker’s Boomer classmates, having grown up with Beetle in their own way, were impressed. Walker went on to create his own character, Super Sloth, a lazy college student, for some student publications.
Walker found his academic home at Tufts in an innovative—but short-lived—program called the College Within, which allowed undergraduates to create their own interdisciplinary coursework; its creator, John Wade Professor of Modern Languages Seymour Simches, became his mentor. He graduated with a self-designed degree in East African studies, which included 10 months traveling in Africa.
Shortly after Walker’s graduation, his father leased a building in their hometown, Greenwich, Connecticut, with the intention of turning it into a museum, and asked if he was interested in helping to fix it up and create exhibits. Thus began Brian Walker’s 17-year tenure as exhibit director of the Museum of Cartoon Art, while it was located first in Greenwich and then in Rye Brook, New York. (The collection is now housed at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum at The Ohio State University.)
Even in the comic strip world of “Beetle Bailey,” the characters themselves love comic strips! This one from 2005 features Sarge’s dog, Otto, always presentable in his military gear. Photo: © Comicana, Inc
A New Perspective
You could say it was Miss Buxley, the well-endowed secretary who works for the general at Camp Swampy, who opened the door for Brian Walker’s artistic partnership with his father. When she first entered the strip in the early ’70s, she pretty much functioned as a visual prop. “People thought she was cute, and it was funny the way the general behaved around her,” recalled Walker.
Eventually, some readers began to push back on the sexist assumptions. This perplexed Mort Walker, but he realized he needed a fresh perspective.
“You’re young; you’re married to a liberated woman; let’s try to figure out how to solve this,” he told his son. Brian Walker studied the strip, and realized Miss Buxley rarely got any punch lines. He began writing gags in which Miss Buxley gets the last laugh. “She’s smarter than she’s shown to be; she’s pretty clever about outwitting the general.”
After Brian Walker joined his father, Mort Walker, as a writer for “Beetle Bailey,” the character of Miss Buxley was updated. She was given her own voice and a chance to stand up to the general, as in this strip from 1984. Photo: © Comicana, Inc
Over time, other characters were also updated: Killer, the “ladies’ man,” no longer whistled at young women on the corner; Sarge didn’t beat Beetle to little pieces on the ground. This, often still to the bewilderment of Mort Walker. “It’s the old dog-new tricks; we always had that generational ‘I don’t understand’ argument, on and on for years,” said Brian Walker.
“All those years I worked by his side, learning the craft’s ins and outs,” he said. “It looks simple, but you have to think things through very carefully. It takes a lot of discipline to use just a couple of words and tell a mini-story.”
He described his writing process as “sort of like a controlled daydream,” as he fills dozens of yellow pads with storylines and sketches, drawing on the by-now well-developed personalities of the Camp Swampy crew. In addition to keeping the daily gags succinct, and of course, humorous, he must ensure that readers aren’t left with the feeling that “Beetle wouldn’t do that!”
And while Beetle’s run has coincided with some tumultuous times in American history, the strip has remained firmly nonpolitical. “This is not ‘Doonesbury,’” Mort Walker once said. “We don’t take sides politically.”
Brian Walker and his father Mort, right, discuss possible gag lines for “Beetle Bailey” strips in a scene from the documentary “Reveille: A Family Legacy in Comics,” produced by Brian’s son, Dave Walker. The short film, released in 2020, includes scenes of Mort Walker that were shot before his death in 2018. Photo: © Media Harmonics, 2020
Taking Cartoon Art Seriously
Brian Walker considers cartoons and comic strips “one of the great art forms, putting together words and pictures.” Over his career, he has curated more than 75 exhibits of and about cartoon art. “Why would you put cartoons in a museum?” Walker said he’s often been asked. “I’ve been fighting that battle all these years, and people still don’t get it.”
He recalled being invited to organize an exhibit at the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid about early 20th-century cartoonist George Herriman’s “Krazy Kat,” a newspaper comic strip that ran from 1913 to 1944. “It’s one of the premier modern art museums in the world, with works by Dali, Picasso, Miro,” Walker said. And, yes, they also wanted “Krazy Kat.” “The director there said: ‘It’s no different; it’s all art,’” Walker said. “In this country, we’ve always had to explain or justify cartoon art.
“My mission is to spread appreciation for cartoon art. There is a serious, scholarly side to cartoon art, and I take it very seriously. It should be treated with respect,” he said. “But it is also OK to laugh in a museum if you want to.”
