The Fabuleous Fifties

From Gags To Richness

Monday Cartoon Day.

The oft repeated anecdote about Mort Walker's start as a cartoonist, is that he soon beacme the best selling cartoonist of his age. On finding out that, he told his wife he had to go and find another job, because if what he was earning was the best possible, it wasn't enough for him. This anecdote is tempered a bit by the fact that he continued doing cartoons after the start of Beetle Bailey. Not only here in Gags and it's continuation Here!, but also in Collier's (where he didn't appear until 1950), Saturday Evening Post and American Legion (which I'll show next week).

In November 1951 the longstanding cartoon magazine Gags changed it's name Here! It added a lot of written humor, in fact changing it's line-up to be more like Dell's 1000 Jokes (which for all of 1950 had Mort Walker as it's text editor).