Comments on: Dear Mort Walker,

By: James A Woods

James A Woods — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 05:56:07 +0000

I can see how one might have problems with Beetle Baily, but this rant strikes me as disrespectful to Mr. Walker — a man who has helped shape the modern perception of comics.

By: Dan Coyle

Dan Coyle — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 19:53:12 +0000

I want MORE political commentary in Beetle Bailey. Seeing Beetle ripped to shreds by a IED, that’s entertainment, as his bits and pieces shower all over corporal winkerbean. CROSSOVER!

By: arch 14

arch 14 — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 21:38:07 +0000

“I read Beetle Bailey” – this seems to be the root of the problem.

By: Robert Frost

Robert Frost — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 17:24:38 +0000

Maybe there are other strips from which you are building your argument, but there is nothing overtly political in the posted strip. It is a joke that would apply to any president – a statement that as a nation we hold neither our weathermen nor our politicians accountable. The strip would have been just as applicable in 1998 as 2008.

By: Russ Burlingame

Russ Burlingame — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 16:35:05 +0000

Yeah! Also, Dixie Chicks/Bruce Springsteen/Pearl Jam should shut up and sing, right?

And while we’re at it, whoever asked Tim Robbins to make “Dead Man Walking” and “Bob Roberts?” I wanna see “Tapeheads II!”

By: Erik

Erik — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 15:58:02 +0000

Creators have the right to do what they will with their creations. If you don’t like it, your choice is to stay for the bits you still do like or else move along to something new. At least, unlike too many of the moldy strips in the newspaper, Mort Walker is the creator and still the artist behind the strip.

I mean, I never even looked at BC after a point because of the bizarre religious preaching and the jettisoning of the strip’s central concept (they could have been anything in any time or setting, there was nothing caveman about the characters any more). But it was his right and I simply moved on. But he’s dead, and like Blondie and Hagar the Horrible and Mark Trail and the Phantom and more, the strips go on without being interesting, relevant or inspired. I can see criticizing those guys, as they are playing with someone else’s creation. But the original creator? It’s up to them.

By: Alexa

Alexa — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 15:21:02 +0000

I stopped reading Beetle Baily because of the politics– not because I disagree with them or just because they’re there at all, but because he shows how very little he actually knows about them. There was this one strip soon after 9/11 where they were all gathered about and one of them said “How could anybody hate us? Look at all the great things we’ve done!” followed by a list of–I kid you not–inventions and technological advances (half of which weren’t even really American inventions). Not even the slightest consideration towards our foreign policy, or even the idea that arrogance like that could contribute to people hating us.

By: Richard Pachter

Richard Pachter — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 14:13:51 +0000

Right. More doggie jokes. And Miss Buxley. Hungry fat guys. And incompetent old white men. Sassy black people. And the learning disabled.

Brilliant!

By: Lisa Fortuner

Lisa Fortuner — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 12:32:26 +0000

Corey, you can’t take politics out of the creative process. Even supposedly nonpolitical stories are political in that they show what the author thinks is desirable in human society and what isn’t.

I will agree that punchline fell flat, and so does most of Mallard Fillmore. But that’s more due to lapses in skill delivering the joke than in bringing in ideology.