Beetle Bailey "The First Years: 1950-1952" [Hardcover]

Mort Walker (Author, Artist)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2008

From the very first Beetle Bailey strips on a college campus through Beetle's enlistment in the U.S. Army, this volume contains the first two years of Mort Walker's famous strips encompassing September 1950 through June 1952. Enjoy two separate casts of quirky characters, the first based on Mort Walker's fraternity brothers at the University of Missouri and the second on his Korean era stint in the Army. These are the strips that won him the Ruben Award in 1953.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Lanky, leisure-loving Beetle Bailey, eternal army private, has been a humorous fixture on newspaper comics pages for over five decades. But even longtime readers might not know that at the strip's inception in September 1950, Beetle wasn't in the army at all—he was a lazy college student. Swedish publisher Egmont Karnan AB has been collecting the complete Beetle Bailey strips; now Checker has brought Egmont's series to the United States with this inaugural volume reprinting the strip's first 21 months. For six months, Beetle skipped class, hung out with girlfriend Buzz, and mooched off his propeller-beanied freshman roommate. But in March 1951, as his friends got drafted, Beetle enlisted (against his will). Though the move was initially resisted by Walker's syndicate, it proved a turning point in the struggling strip's popularity. Included among the still-funny gags here are appearances by early versions of the bellowing Sarge, ladies' man Killer, General Halftrack, and intellectual Plato. Background material reveals Beetle's origin as Spider, a character Walker created in 1948; several early rejected strips are included. For all collections.—S.R.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 280 pages
• Publisher: Checker Book Publishing Group (September 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1933160713
• ISBN-13: 978-1933160719
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 10.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #752,944 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars In the Army Now, January 19, 2009

By 

Gord Wilson "alivingdog.com" (Bellingham, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

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This review is from: Beetle Bailey "The First Years: 1950-1952" (Hardcover)

The best book on Beetle Bailey is Mort Walker's Private Scrapbook Mort Walker'S Private Scrapbook That book is a dazzling, hardback, color extravaganza of all things Beetle and Walkerania (I just made up that word). But among the many revelations in that book we learn that Mort and co. regularly produced a Swedish comic book (as shown from the included pin-up of Miss Buxley). The present book was originally released in Sweden (or possibly another Scandinavian country), and was edited by Alf Thorsjo. If the private scrapbook is five stars, then this book is four. But lets give the Scrapbook an unprecedented six stars, and then this one can get five. Why?

Having read many of the Beetle Bailey collections from Comicana over the years, I was tempted to undervalue this one, as I thought it was merely a European version of already published comics. On closer look, however, it's a bit more than that. Beetle Bailey: The First Years is a coffee table sized, color cover, hardback 280 page collection of all the Beetle strips from September 1950, when the strip first appeared, through 1952. In that it follows the format of the Complete Peanuts, Dennis the Menace, John Stanley comics and other collections happily finding their way presently back into print. What casual Beetle readers may not know however, is that Beetle started out in college, not the Army, and his nickname was Spider, easily changed to Beetle as another comic had first claim on that name.

The Sunday strips are unfortunately not in color in this book, but a five page introduction is. The black and white daily strips are large, printed three to a page on slick, quality paper, the way they ought to be. Beetle doesn't join up until around fifty pages in, and then he's recruited partly on a dare from his college dorm pals, some of whom enlist and some get drafted for the Korean War, and partly by accident. The next two hundred pages or so are a treasure trove of the sort of early Beetle Bailey comics that collectors line-up to buy on E-Bay, with a brief afterword about the milleu of the 'fifties, and a two page spread of unpublished and alternate version strips.

The roster of personnel has changed over the years, along with the style and character design, as with most long-running comics. My view is that the character look gets better and better. The most dramatic change is Sergeant Snorkel, who doesn't gain his well-known rotund look until 1963 (the cover interestingly shows a latter-day incarnation of Beetle and the Sarge).

Anyone having read the Private Scrapbook, and there seen glimpses of these early strips, would doubtless like to read more. Comic fans cracking the cover of the present volume will likely be surprised at the vim and vigor in the early strips, as well as the clean, bold, graphic style and careful artistry. Now that the King Features cartoons are out on DVD, and with more comics being reprinted, it's a great time to discover more of Mort and Walkerania.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thanks for publishing this, May 21, 2010

By 

S M - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beetle Bailey "The First Years: 1950-1952" (Hardcover)

An essential book for anyone interested in one of the most popular comic strips of all time

Anyone who wants to know how Beetle Baily started out as a college student to then become an Army private should buy this book.

Wonderful commentary, terrific reproduction of comics.

I only wish they would have continued with 1952 to 1953, instead of 1965.

It is the 1950's strips that are really hard to find.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The most famous fictional soldier of the U.S. Army, August 12, 2010

By 

C. Wagner "cecilkunkle" (On the banks of the Wabash far away) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Beetle Bailey "The First Years: 1950-1952" (Hardcover)

A cornucopia archive of graphic humor featuring Mort Walker's private, the most famous fictional soldier of the U.S. Army.

Beginning in Rockview University, Beetle is soon transformed to a soldier among soldiers. More than two years of strips including the Sundays from the time period and a roguish unpublished strip in which beetle's eyes are actually seen in one panel.

The early work is perhaps slower paced and the art less refined than the current production, but I do not miss Beetle being beaten up by Sarge at all.

Includes a brief Mort Walker biography. Recommended.