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Addison Morton Walker (September 3, 1923 – January 27, 2018) was an American comic strip writer, best known for creating the newspaper comic strips Beetle Bailey in 1950 and Hi and Lois in 1954. He signed Addison to some of his strips.
During his elementary school years, he drew for a student newspaper. He attended Northeast High School, where he was a cheerleader, school newspaper editor, yearbook art editor, stage actor in a radio show and ran neighborhood teen center that belonged to several organizations. He had his first comic published at age 11 and sold his first cartoon at 12. At age 14, he regularly sold gag cartoons to Child's Life, Flying Aces, and Inside Detective magazines. When he was 15, he drew a comic strip, The Lime Juicers, for the weekly Kansas City Journal, and worked as a staff artist at the same time for an industrial publisher. At age 18, he was the chief editorial designer for Hallmark Brothers (later Hallmark Cards) and was instrumental in changing the company's cards from cuddly bears to gag cartoons, which were more suitable for soldiers.
Graduating from Northeast High School, he attended one year at Kansas City Junior College in 1942–43 before going to the University of Missouri. Walker's physical presence in Columbia is noted by The Shack, which was a rambling burger joint behind Jesse Hall on Conley Avenue. Images resembling the interior of the shack appeared in Beetle Bailey cartoons and is mentioned by name in the September 14, 1950 Beetle Bailey strip. Walker visited the Shack on return trips to Columbia with the last being to the original structure in 1978. The Shack was destroyed in a fire in 1988 and Walker returned in 2010 for dedication of a replica of the building in the student center with the dining area now formally called "Mort's". A life-sized bronze statue of Beetle Bailey stands in front of the alumni center which is near The Shack's original location.
In 1954, Walker and Dik Browne teamed to launch Hi and Lois, a spin-off of Beetle Bailey (Lois was Beetle's sister). Under the pseudonym "Addison", Walker began Boner's Ark in 1968. Other comic strips created by Walker include Gamin and Patches, Gamin and Patches at Don Markstein's Toonopedia.
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> Archived from the original on August 1, 2016. Mrs. Fitz's Flats, The Evermores (with Johnny Sajem),"Newswatch: Evermores Debut," The Comics Journal #73 (July 1982). Sam's Strip, and Sam and Silo (the last two with Jerry Dumas). In 2008 the collection was moved to the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum at Ohio State University.
In 1974, Walker opened the Museum of Cartoon Art, the first museum devoted to the art of comics. It was initially located in Greenwich, Connecticut, and Rye Brook, New York, before moving to Boca Raton, Florida, in 1992.
During his life he drew special drawings for individuals, in particular for those who were ill.
From previous marriages, Walker and his wife, Catherine, had ten children between them. Walker's sons Brian and Greg Walker produce the Hi and Lois strip with Chance Browne." On today's comics page in The Advocate and Greenwich Time, Beetle Bailey offers a salute along with the likes of Hi and Lois...which is produced by Walker's sons Brian and Greg Walker and Chance Browne, the son of the late comics legend Dik Browne". Mort Walker and Jason Whiton Mort Walker : conversations, Jackson : University Press of Mississippi, 2005. (p. 193)
In his book The Lexicon of Comicana (1980), written as a Satire look at the devices cartoonists use, Walker popularized a vocabulary called Symbolia, including the term "squeans" to describe the starbusts and little circles that appear around a cartoon's head to indicate intoxication, and grawlixes to indicate the typographical symbols that stand for profanity, which appear in dialogue balloons in the place of actual dialogue.
In 2006, he launched a 24-page magazine, The Best of Times, distributed free throughout Connecticut and available online. It features artwork, puzzles, editorial cartoons, ads, and a selection of articles, comics and columns syndicated by King Features. His son, Neal Walker, was the editor and publisher. Between 2006 and 2010, they published 27 issues. The Best of Times
Walker received the Sparky Award for lifetime achievement from the Cartoon Art Museum at the 2010 New York Comic Con. On September 29, 2017, Walker was honored at Yankee Stadium, during the 7th-inning stretch, for his service in World War II.
Walker died from complications of pneumonia on January 27, 2018, at his home in Stamford, Connecticut. He was 94 years old. He was interred at Willowbrook Cemetery in Westport, Connecticut. Memories of Mort Walker
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