The Best of Beetle Bailey

Beetle Bailey has over 200 million daily readers and appears in almost 2,000 newspapers worldwide. Few strips have the popularity of staying power of Beetle Bailey, able to entertain readers for over five decades. As creator or co-creator of eight other popular comic strips, including Hi & Lois and Boner’s Ark, Mort Walker is the most widely published cartoonist in comics history. It’s a testament to Walker’s genius and Beetles’ Universal appeal.

Walker created Beetle Bailey just before the Korean War, and the strip has evolved into a comics page staple where the fun, but ineffectual, denizens of Camp Swampy exist in a place long forgotten by the Pentagon. At the bottom of the heap is Beetle Bailey, the eternal private who sees his duty as sleeping whenever possible, needling Sarge, and avoiding work at all costs. But Sergeant Orville P. Snorkel has different ideas—he may beat up on “his boys,” but he then takes them out for a beer. General Halftrack is more concerned with ogling Miss Buxley than running the camp. And with inept officers like Major Greenbrass, Lieutenant Fuzz, and Lieutenant Flap, nothing ever gets done. But that doesn’t keep the troops from complaining, or getting into one hilarious mess after another.

Beetle Bailey, the character, may never get a promotion, but Beetle Bailey, the comic strip, has made it to the top.