August 5th, 2018

Timeline – 1999 Part 1

by Mort Walker

Beetle Bailey Sunday page digital proof, March 7, 1999.

No one really knows when Sarge’s birthday is.  Or how old he is.   There are ten candles on the cake in the Sunday page above, so that is no clue to his age.  In comic strips it’s best not to be too specific about these things.  Better to be flexible so a gag like this can be used whenever it is written.

Sarge often has pies and cakes thrown in his face, which he really doesn’t mind as long  as he gets to eat some of it.  This is a different twist on that scenario.

It is funny to imagine that Sarge can blow hard enough to smash a cake on a wall.  It’s safe to assume that he scraped it off and ate it.

Here is a beautiful watercolor that Mort Walker did for a book cover.  We don’t know when Beetle’s birthday is either.

Next week we will continue our Timeline series with another classic episode from 1999, so stay tooned.

– Brian Walker