Mort Walker

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Mort Walker (2016)
Mort Walker's signature

Mortimer (Mort) Addison Walker (born September 3, 1923 in El Dorado , Kansas - † January 27, 2018 in Stamford , Connecticut ) was an American comic book artist and writer. He was best known for the character of the Beetle Bailey (in Germany partly published under the name Schütze A ) and the comic series Hi and Lois (published by Ehapa partly under the name Die Pfifferlinge ). According to Andreas C. Knigge , he is America's most successful comic strip illustrator.

life and work

Walker, who published his first, albeit short-lived, strip The Limejuicers in 1936 , learned to draw by correspondence course. The Sunshine and Shadow strip followed in 1940. Walker was drafted into the army in 1943 and spent the end of the war in Italy. After the war he was an editor at the publishing house Dell and in 1949 developed the cartoon character of the student Spider for the Saturday Evening Post , whose strip was to be discontinued because the King Features Syndicate , which had now bought the rights, could only sell it to a few newspapers. Without further ado, Walker enrolled his character in the army and in 1965 the 1,000 newspaper mark was exceeded, a number previously only Blondie had reached. Attempts to bring Beetle Bailey back into civilian life failed due to reader reactions.

As a spin-off from Beetle Bailey , Walker developed the series Hi and Lois , Beetle Bailey's brother-in-law and sister, together with the illustrator Dik Browne in 1954 . Other strips were Mrs Fritz 'Flats (drawings by Frank Roberge ), which appeared from 1957 to 1972, and Sam's Strip (drawings by Jerry Dumas ), which was discontinued just two years after its first publication in 1961 due to a lack of reader interest; it wasn't until 1977 that the strip was revived under the title Sam and Silo . Other strips were Boner's Ark (1968), which he also drew, The Evermores (1982) and Gamin and Patches (1987). The latter, which he signed with Addison just like Boner's Ark , is considered Walker's most unsuccessful strip, as it was discontinued after a year.

Walker co-founded the Museum of Cartoon Art in Port Chester , New York with Dik Browne in 1974 .

literature

Web links

Commons : Mort Walker  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Mark Evanier: Mort Walker, RIP In: News From ME - Mark Evanier's blog, January 27, 2018, accessed January 28, 2018.
  2. ^ Andreas C. Knigge: Comic-Lexikon , Ullstein, Frankfurt am Main, Berlin and Vienna 1988, ISBN 3-548-36554-X , pp. 447–448.
  3. ^ Andreas C. Knigge: Comics. From the mass sheet to multimedia adventure , Reinbek near Hamburg 1996, ISBN 3-499-16519-8 , pp. 101-102
personal data
SURNAME Walker, Mort
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Walker, Mortimer Addison
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American comic book artist and writer
DATE OF BIRTH September 3, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH El Dorado , Kansas
DATE OF DEATH January 27, 2018
Place of death Stamford , Connecticut