[Update: here’s an excellent article in celebration of Mort Walker, by Jason Whiton]

I met Mort Walker, and some of his wonderful family, when I went to my first Reuben Awards in New York in 1986. To me, Mort was a bit “larger than life”. He was one of the first professionals to welcome me into the National Cartoonists Society. He was attractive, outgoing, jovial, and busy. Beyond his work as a comic strip artist and author, Mort seemed to be involved in anything that would promote, preserve and legitimize comic art and cartoonists in North America. He believed cartoons should be respected and cared for. How thankful we are for his foresight.

Before I met Mort in person, I had read his book “Backstage at the Strips“. If you are an aspiring cartoonist…or even if you just want to dig into this treasured text, this book is a bible. Mort and his friends got together to talk about writing, drawing, and living in the world of comic art. I don’t think such a how-to book for cartoonists had ever been published before, but “Backstage” was a thorough analysis–seriously written, but in a funny way. This book not only taught cartoonists, it legitimized what we do. Continue reading →