Beetle Bailey creator Mort Walker, 94

LOS ANGELES — Mort Walker, the artist and creator of the decades-long running comic strip “Beetle Bailey” which features the antics of a workshirking Army private, died at his home last Saturday, his family said. He was 94.

His son Greg, who co-wrote the strip with him in his later years, said his dad died at his home in Stamford, Connecticut, of pneumonia while recovering Walker from a broken hip. Mort drew his daily award-winning comic strip for 68 years, longer than any other comic strip artist, his son said.

“He was drawing up to the end,” Greg said. “He holds the record. I don’t think anyone will beat him.” Mort’s strip debuted in 1950 with Beetle as a college

student, but he had Beetle enlist in the Army in the first year of the cartoon and it was a hit.

Picked up by King Features Syndicate, it went from a 12-newspaper run to eventually reaching 200 million readers in 1,800 newspapers worldwide, according to King Features’ website.

The lanky slacker Pvt. Beetle, along with his foils Sgt. Snorkle and Gen. HalfRufino, track, inhabit the fictional Camp Swampy inspired loosely on Mort’s experience of Army life in World War II.

But Beetle and his friends never saw battle in the strip and he seemed to be in perpetual training. They have been featured in a television cartoon series, games, books and postage stamps.

Greg said his father, along with “Peanuts” and Charlie Brown creator Charles Schultz, pioneered the gag-a-day format of comic strips, breaking from the serial story lines of the day.