From last March, Beetle Bailey takes a personal interest in Arlo’s explanation of the comic-time continuum. Mort Walker is dead. The creator of Beetle Bailey and Hi & Lois died Saturday morning at his Connecticut home. He was 94. You can read the details of his amazing career elsewhere; I only want to add what I know. When I was a boy, Walker spearheaded a cabal of talented and successful humorists who were redefining the newspaper comic strip in a post-war world. It included Mell Lazarus, Johnny Hart, Dik Browne, Charles Schulz, Bud Blake and others. As a youngster, I read them all in their heyday. These men were the primary influence upon me, and foremost among them was the enterprising and prolific Walker. For someone who’s been in the business as long as I, I don’t really have many Mort Walker stories. In fact, I only have one. Very early in the run of Arlo & Janis, my syndicate invited me to New York to participate in a one-day symposium for young cartoonists who dreamed of being syndicated. There were several viable syndicates then, and they staged this shindig every year, in the days before the internet when money flowed and publishers did this sort of thing. The idea was to give young talent a chance to meet a few pros and get an inside look at the trade. Mort and I were on a panel together, just the two of us. There we were, the biggest name in the business and me, virtually a complete unknown, looking at the work of young people and trying to give them worthwhile advice. (Michael Jantze, creator of The Norm will back me up! He was there that day, as a young wannabe cartoonist.) We were pretty busy, as you might imagine, because everyone wanted a piece of Mort Walker, who was sitting beside me. Mostly, I talked with kids while they waited to get to him. One guy mentioned he was not familiar with my work, so I explained a bit about my strip. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “That’s the one that looks like it’s drawn real fast.” Mort’s not particularly kind laughter still rings in my ears.
44 responses to “Mort est mort”
Judy: good answer!
The assignment reminds me of when my 10th grade English teacher was invited to festivities honoring a former student, astronaut John Young, following his first space flight. She was hoping that no one would ask her what she remembered about him, because she didn’t want to say “Not much.” He was one of those quiet, good students who do their work but are otherwise not remarkable. She then asked all of us quiet kids to leave her with something to say in case we ever got famous.
I used that story and a variation of her question with my homeroom group as they neared graduation (we kept the same kids for four years) and got some interesting and insightful answers.
At age 95 the old man lovingly referred to his elderly wife as Sweetie, Baby and Honey.
Touched, I said “I hope that Ghost and I are so in love when we reach your age.”
He replied “I forgot her name ten years ago and I’m afraid to ask.”
Maybe I’ve posted this before. In June ’09, at Summer Theology Workshop, Koronis Assembly Grounds, in Paynesville , a woman said to someone, maybe Elaine, “I hope my husband looks at me that way when I’m 79.” Actually, I was 79; Elaine was only 78, 79th coming up in July. But it warms my heart every time I think about it, which is often.
Peace,
Jackie, that is a thinking man’s man right there, in spite of his forgetfulness. It may be possible that Rodin’s Thinker is not sitting on a rock, but the plinth may be just the jutting corner of the unseen bed. Picture the morning sun peeking through the shade, ‘I’ve got to wake her and get to work. But I can’t just say, “hey, you! Get up!” Can’t just leave. Can’t look in her purse. Who was with us last night that I can call? God I wish I were sober.’
Kinda explains why the naked guy is sitting on a rock.
In today’s published strip, I think Arlo is pointing out that Janis’s opening gambit will take up the rest of winter, her middle-game will use up the rest of boot season through the spring, so her end-game is really shopping for next year’s need. By then, the fashion of play will have changed.
TruckerRon, assuming the cloud cover remains clear, will there be enough nightdark in your area to view the lunar eclipse before it sets? Hey, HAL if daylight is a word then nightdark should be fair play. I know moonset is skewed northward to be opposite the sun at this time of year. But not sure it delays setting long enough. Yeah HAL, sunset/moonset too.
HAL is clearly biased in favor of Ra.
emb, that is a good memory to have, and a good habit to have had noticed.
The umbral part of the lunar eclipse will end here at 07:08, the sun officially rises behind the mountains to the east at 07:36, so things should have been dark enough to enjoy most of the eclipse.
moon is pretty right now, in sw Missouri 🙂 Have fun, TR!
Mark: Thanks.
All: Luna is necessarily just opposite Sol during a complete lunar eclipse, and is practically so for a time before and after. Wrote about it in a column decades back and incorporated that in a 5-6 fictional series [mostly cardboard characters, but fun] of columns. Will see if I can find a paragraph to excerpt.
Trucker: Your mts. are essentially eclipsing Sol as it rises. “True” sunrise, passing a horizon at the observer’s altitude, would likely coincide w/ moonset during a lunar eclipse.
Peace,
Thanks, TR – absolutely beautiful!
While it is true that a lunar eclipse defines or is defined by opposition, It’s apparent position in the sky, day or night depends on your location on planet earth at the correct time that opposition is attained.
I have observed eclipses high in the sky, and missed eclipses that occurred during my local daytime, when the moon (Luna) was necessarily located below the horizon. My question had to do with the coincidental nature of TruckerRon’s particular location.
Also, while the mountainous terrain may occlude the sunrise by some short time, it is very likely to lighten the atmosphere just as significantly as floating in the Pacific.
I hope conditions are in your favor, TR. Enjoy.
Here is an excerpt, from the Afterword to a 5-part fictional series about Raki, the high functioning autistic women in Anatolia 10m ago, who made the observations that resulted in “our” present 8-day week.
“After publishing the first installment, I remembered a minor epiphany I had decades back while driving home at sunset from Lake xxx. South of xxx’s Resort, a half moon rose over a sumac clone to the east. But wait: only full moons rise at sunset! Then I recalled that a lunar eclipse was due, and realized I was seeing Earth’s shadow half-covering Luna. I hadn’t thought about it much since then, but now Raki came along, took it from me, combined it with her earlier knowledge, and had a major Copernican epiphany.”
The late Ursula LeGuin [88, my senior by about 3 wks, d. in Jan., great SF/fantasy writer], refers to this sort of thing: characters develop a life of their own. Raki did; I sobbed when she died at 80 or so [good age for an 8,000 BCE Anatolian].
Peace,
All: Apologies. Should have read Trucker’s post more carefully, since he did refer to “official” time of sunrise, which is what I later wrote about, and also about leaving the umbral stage. Official “moment” of a lunar eclipse is at midpoint of umbral stage, when Luna will be exactly opposite of Sol, as viewed from above the solar system. Peace,
I appreciate your effort to create a fictional story to present a natural fact. And for the purpose of the story, and the point you desired to make, it is exactly accurate.
However another aged woman, in a village around 1000mi away, would observe the same event simultaneously. Without regard to any timekeeping in use at the fictional time, the event would be happening at the same time. And she would see that event at a location approximately 15° away from the apparent position, in the direction opposite. If she were to the south the event would slip northerly along the horizon. Further West or East would lower or raise the event below or above the Eastern horizon. [in your shared story]
A misspoken point is all, I’m sure you recognize the error. The confusion only arises because of the time of the event near TruckerRon.
Darn, I have again cross-posted. Apologies for the confusion of flow.
There are times I feel transported into a world and place that exists simultaneously with mine, an alternative world where people speak an almost incomprehensible language phrased in scholarly sentences.
Wait, could there be worlds of tortuous collegiate lectures that never end? Could this be the worlds glimpsed by some that were the ofigins of souls waiting for purgatory? Or salvation and release?
Wikipedia says that those creatures are psychopomps who escort the souls to purgatory.
Sounds like a good description to me.
Mt. nyala, if it’s still there.
https://explore.org/livecams/african-wildlife/african-animal-lookout-camera
Peace,
Hey, wait! Perky is overated??
Blasphemy.