{product_snapshot:id=1551,true,false,true,right} All through the late 1950s, Mort Walker and I worked together three or four days a week, however long it took, doing the artwork for the daily and Sunday Beetle Bailey strips. The rest of the time I worked in my own home, writing gag ideas for both Beetle and Hi and Lois. At that time and on into the 1960s, we were the only writers for both strips. Each week we wrote ten gags apiece and on Monday mornings we showed each other our gags, graded them and discussed them. We never did rough sketches of ideas unless…
Sam’s Strip – “My Time with Sam’s Strip” by Mort Walker
{product_snapshot:id=1551,true,false,true,right} There were problems in doing Sam’s Strip. It was a satirical strip using characters from contemporary strips as well as old-time comic characters. Satire requires that readers have previous knowledge of the subject matter to understand what’s going on. With Sam’s Strip, the readers had to be familiar with the various characters we were satirizing before they could get the gag. It’s a tough sell. In show business the saying goes, “Satire dies on Saturday night.” {mosimage} An insurance salesman once asked me what I did for a living. I showed him the comic page for that day and…
