October 30th, 2020

Timeline – 2012 Camp Swampy

by Brian

The Sunday page above uses an innovative panel layout to feature the familiar sights of Camp Swampy, including the barracks, chapel and iconic water tower.

The classic episode below, from June 19, 1960, shows an aerial view of Camp Swampy and its surroundings. It also includes a line-up of characters, a humorous description and colorful place names.

Camp Swampy was inspired by Camp Crowder in Missouri, an antique relic from WWI where Mort Walker trained in 1941.

Beetle Bailey’s home base exists in a time warp, forgotten by the Pentagon, tenuously connected to civilian life and curiously unaffected by progress. Mort made numerous attempts to make the camp more up-to-date and true-to-life but, over the years, it developed a unique personality of its own.

“Camp Swampy isn’t merely an army camp,” wrote Dik Browne in the introduction to The Best of Beetle Bailey. “It is a microcosm of the world, peopled by delightful lunatics, each endowed with an unforgettable character by its creator.”

– Brian Walker