By Mort Walker
Publisher: Titan Books
ISBN: 9781848567061
I’m doing this back to front, having already reviewed 1966’s collection of strips a while ago. Back then I was a little indifferent to Beetle and the residents of Camp Swampy, but as time passed he’s definitely grown on me, and enough to encourage me to order the previous volume.
This is partly down to recently paying regular visits to an online syndicated strip website where I’ve really struggled to find much that’s comparable with Mort Walker’s inventiveness and sense of humour; too much was insipid or plain unfunny, which is possible just the curse of the modern syndicated strip where the result of trying to please everyone and offend no-one is something rather bland and indifferent.
And I have to say that I’ve really enjoyed this collection. Returning to the the strips and reacquainting myself with the multitude of hapless soldiers was a pleasure that generated genuine smiles. Beetle Bailey is often the subject of the strip, but there are so many strong characters here, notably Sergeant Snorkel, that he’s not required to drive the strip forward.
Amongst the daily punchlines and one-liners is an experiment in a continuous story where Beetle takes some of the members of Camp Swampy on a road trip as he goes home to visit his family for Thanksgiving. We get to read it instantly across several pages, but at the time it would have played out for weeks and was a rather daring thing to do in an world where the humour strips weren’t constrained by a continuous story.
Of the stand alone gags, one single panel strip has a long line of privates queuing for soup from a cauldron. Killer, stuck near the rear, voices his hope that there’ll be enough left for them, while Beetle, at the very back has spotted storm clouds coming in off the horizon, reassures him with a Relax, as he feels the first spots of rain.
Almost 50 years old, theses strips are still fresh and funny, and beautifully executed throughout.
And if you liked that: I’d highly recommend the equivalent early Peanuts collections
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