Comic Strip Review: Don’t Make Me Laugh, Beetle Bailey by Mort Walker
From 1940 with World War Two looming to 1972 with the Vietnam War being lost, the United States of America had an active Selective Service (“the draft”) process. The amount of young men ebbed and flowed with requirements, but many folks were drafted, and more volunteered out of patriotism, hoping to control which branch of the military they’d get into and thus their job, or avoiding being called up by surprise. As a result, almost every fellow in the U.S. had served or had a close relative or friend serve, even if most never saw real combat. This created demand for a pop culture niche, the “military life comedy” about day to day life at a Army, Navy or Marine installation.
Beetle Bailey started in 1950 as a college-based comic strip, with cartoonist Mort Walker drawing on the frat brothers he’d known. But in 1951, Carl James “Beetle” Bailey realized he was not cut out for college life, dropped out and enlisted in the army. The joke being that he was not cut out for army life either.
Beetle is lazy and smart-mouthed, a bad combination for a soldier. He instantly clashed with drill sergeant Orville P. Snorkel, a loud, hot-tempered, and frequently violent man. Other soldiers were based on “types” Walker had met during his own military service.
As a gag-a-day strip, Beetle Bailey never had a strong relationship with military realism. It slowly evolved from a “basic training” setup to an infantry platoon that never goes to whichever war is currently happening in the real world, with a sprinkling of new characters to kind of keep up with changing demographics (Lieutenant Flap, the one black officer, was slightly controversial when he was added in 1970.) Despite some newer technology being seen, the uniforms, weapons and vehicles used by the men of Camp Swampy are long out of date.
The volume at hand, reprinting strips from 1979, is typical. General Halftrack hates his wife, loves golf, and leers at his pretty blonde civilian secretary, Miss Buxley. Beetle finds ways to goof off. “Killer” is a ladies’ man. Sarge enjoys food and beats up Beetle, and for some reason keeps falling off the same cliff. “Plato” is intellectual, while “Zero” is naive/stupid. Shavetail Lieutenant Fuzz is earnest and annoying, and so on. Basic gags are recycled often.
There’s a certain comfort in the static world of a gag strip. You can read reprints and see the same sort of jokes that appear in the most recent installment. You can leave for years, then happen on the strip and pick up right where you left off. Sure, there’s a new face now and again, and MIss Buxley’s a bit sassier nowadays, but the folks at Camp Swampy are the same year after year, and pretty much always will be. Mort Walker knew good jokes when he came up with them, and enough strips raise a chuckle to keep on reading.
Content note: But the static nature of the strip also imbeds older attitudes that don’t come off well outside their context. Sarge is verbally and physically abusive towards Beetle. Several characters abuse alcohol. General Halftrack (and to a lesser extent the enlisted men) ogles Miss Buxley in a prurient way.
Overall: Small paperback reprint volumes like this have long fallen to the changing publishing market, so will mostly be found at used bookstores and garage sales. The fashion now is larger volumes that print an entire year. And of course, much of the strip’s 70+ year run is available online. Recommended to veterans who still enjoy newspaper comic strips.
