MAD About Beetle

We interrupt the Sunday Mailbag today (look for a Monday Mailbag tomorrow) to tell everyone to grab their Sunday paper . . . you still get a Sunday newspaper, right? . . . and check out today’s Beetle Bailey comic strip! I make a guest appearance!

I got a call late this summer from the Walker Studio’s Bill Janocha asking me if it would be okay if Mort Walker and the gang do a gag featuring me in a Sunday strip. It was a nod to my winning the Reuben this year. Mort is of course one of the earliest members of the National Cartoonists Society, a past President, a great supporter of the organization and of the cartooning industry, and one of the all-time great comic strip creators. Some stammering was involved on my end…of course I was thrilled and honored beyond words. As a plus, they made me look much more handsome than Stephan Pastis did in Pearls Before Swine! Thank you Mort, Brian, Greg, and Neal Walker, and Bill!

That makes it official . . . 2012 really will be hard to beat.

Edit- Mort and Co. sent me the original some time ago. I was waiting for the strip to be published so I could order a print, which we will frame together with the original. An awesome addition to the Wall of Shame!!