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" Belly buttons were a big battle of mine. Down at the syndicate, they would clip them out with a razor blade. I began putting so many of them in, in the margins and everywhere, that they had a little box down there called 'Beetle Bailey''s Belly-Button Box. The editors finally gave up after I did one strip showing a delivery of navel oranges. "

Mort Walker

Mine

Big

" At one time Tribune Syndicate emptied out their storeroom. They put tables full of original cartoons down in the lobby and said take one if you want one. The comics were simply a burden to them. "

" Old cartoonists never retire, they just erase away. "

" When I write 'Beetle Bailey,' I can always do jokes about him being lazy, and everyone gets it. "

" When the war was over and the guys were back to shaving every day, the editor thought the Beetle Bailey strips were hurting their disciplinary efforts to get the guys back to routine. "

" I think it's legitimate to do satire. If you're going to write a book of satire on Marilyn Monroe or Madonna, you're not going to get their permission, because you're going to make fun of them! "

" Comics have always helped people to read. A lot of people learned to read by reading the comics. And it's our livelihood, after all. If people don't know how to read, they're not reading our comics. "

" Humor strips dominated what were called the funny papers early in the century, but by the 1920s and '30s, adventure strips had taken over. With 'Beetle Bailey,' I revived the funny part of the funny papers, and I'd be proud to be remembered for that. "

" When I introduced a black soldier, Lt. Flap, in 1971, the Stars and Stripes banned the strip. They were having racial problems and thought it would increase the tensions. "

" You can go through comic strips alone and study the common man. You can trace our history. "

Mort Walker

Study

You

" People take a liking to me like I'm a long-lost friend. "

Mort Walker

Friend

Liking

" I go to the grocery store with my wife. She goes off to buy something. Where is she, anyways? So I ask the manager, 'What aisle do they keep the wives in?' "

" The people who were against the Vietnam War thought I was attacking the Army. The guys in the Army thought I was representing their experiences. I was on both sides, and I survived. "

" I took Beetle home thinking that after the Korean War was over, I would have to take him out of the Army. I thought, well, what am I going to do with him? "

" None of the established museums were treating cartoons seriously. It was considered a lesser art or no art at all, just a way to sell newspapers. Even the syndicates who were dedicated to the cartoons were throwing them out, figuring they had no value after they were printed. "

" When I first started, you couldn't mention divorce or death. You couldn't show smelly socks. You couldn't show a snake. They took a skunk out of my strip one time. "

" Laughter is the brush that sweeps away the cobwebs of your heart. "

" Some people will do schlock or anything, just to get their name on it. "

" You learn just by trying and experimenting. By the time I was 14, I had my own comic strip in the Kansas City paper. "

" I like a happy ending. That's what I do all the time. I like to make people feel happy. "

" I say, if you believe what you read in the comic strips, then you believe that mice run around with little gold buttons on their red pants and drive cars. "

" If I'm going on vacation, I just work ahead. "

" I first sold a cartoon for five dollars. I was in the fifth grade. "

" I took my basic training on a golf course in Florida. Then I was on the boxing team. We did some demonstrations, and they put me in a theater one night and wanted me to box. So OK, I came out boxing with a friend - thinking we would just spar around - but the guy walked out, hit me, and knocked me out with one stroke. "

" My father was a dreamer who was always broke. He wanted to be a cartoonist. "

Mort Walker

Always

Broke

" I like to keep doing something new and different so people can't say I'm doing the same thing all the time. I like to challenge myself. "

" Professionals don't get writer's block. I can always come up with the punch line. "

Mort Walker

Punch

Writer

" I've always said that what cartoonists do is create friends for readers. "

" I was kicked out of The Stars And Stripes twice, and finally got back in. "

" About the only way you can find out about the common man, his slang, what he looked like, what he thought, is through the comic strips. It's a powerful way for young people to learn history. "