Brian Walker: Serious About The Funnies
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Helene Ragovin for Tufts Now talks to Brian Walker, alum of Tufts University, about comic strips – his and others.
“Beetle Bailey” hasn’t missed a day of publication since 1950. Unlike other so-called legacy strips, such as “Peanuts,” which now appear in reruns, “We’re still doing new stuff every day,” said Brian Walker. While comics have slipped in popularity with the decline of print newspapers, “Beetle” still runs in more than 1,000 papers and online.
The “we” being Brian and his brothers Greg and Neal, who along with Morgan, forty years ago made up The Walker Brothers, a band of brothers who with Mort created the Betty Boop and Felix comic strip.
Betty Boop and Felix debuted in 1984. That was the year Brian became a part of The Mort Walker Studio. Helene continues:
Walker collaborated with his father on “Beetle” from 1984 until Mort Walker’s death in 2018; he now writes the strip with his real-life brothers Greg and Neal, who handle the artwork as well. Brian and Greg also write the family-themed strip “Hi and Lois,” originally created by their father with illustrator Dik Browne.
Since his graduation from Tufts some 52 years ago, Walker has pursued a career as a museum curator and exhibit designer, author, and cartoon art historian. His latest book is 2025’s Mort Walker’s Beetle Bailey: 75 Years of Smiles.
“His latest book.” Yes Brian has a long list of books and articles about newspaper comic strip history to which he has written or contributed.
As well as curating exhibits.
Brian Walker considers cartoons and comic strips “one of the great art forms, putting together words and pictures.” Over his career, he has curated more than 75 exhibits of and about cartoon art. “Why would you put cartoons in a museum?” Walker said he’s often been asked. “I’ve been fighting that battle all these years, and people still don’t get it.”
Brian also talks about helping his father of “the greatest generation” understand a brave new world.
When [Miss Buxley] first entered the strip in the early ’70s, she pretty much functioned as a visual prop. “People thought she was cute, and it was funny the way the general behaved around her,” recalled Walker.
Eventually, some readers began to push back on the sexist assumptions. This perplexed Mort Walker, but he realized he needed a fresh perspective.
“You’re young; you’re married to a liberated woman; let’s try to figure out how to solve this,” he told his son. Brian Walker studied the strip, and realized Miss Buxley rarely got any punch lines. He began writing gags in which Miss Buxley gets the last laugh.
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