'Comics. The Complete Collection.' The comic characters depicted on the cover are Harold Gray's Little Orphan Annie and Sandy, Charles M. Schulz' Linus and George Herriman's Krazy Kat.
Brian Walker is an American comic writer and historian, who has been working as a scriptwriter for the classic newspaper gag comics 'Beetle Bailey' and 'Hi & Lois', both created by his father, Mort Walker. Together with his brothers Greg and Neal, he has been responsible for the production of both comic strips through the family business Comicana, Inc. Brian Walker is additionally notable as a foremost expert on the comics medium. He has been a curator for dozens of comic and cartoon-themed exhibitions, and was for a long time affiliated with his father's Museum of Cartoon Art. The American Brian Walker should not be confused with British comics artist Brian Walker (1926-2020).
Early life
Brian Walker was born in 1952 in Greenwich, Connecticut, as the second of seven children of cartoonist Mort Walker and his first wife Jean. His brothers Greg, Morgan and Neal Walker have also worked in the cartooning industry. Brian Walker studied at Tufts University, graduating in 1974. For most of his life, he has been living in the historical community of Wilton, Connecticut.
Comic historian
Having inherited a passion for comics, Brian Walker became one of the foremost scholars of the medium. From the start in 1974, he was involved in his father's Museum of Cartoon Art in Greenwich, Connecticut, which later moved to the Ward Castle in Rye Brook, New York. For many years, until 1992, he promoted and preserved the museum's collection, eventually serving as director. During the 1980s, Brian Walker was the editor of several compilation books of classic newspaper strips through the Comicana Books imprint. Besides collections of the Mort Walker and Dik Browne creations 'Beetle Bailey', 'Hi & Lois' and 'Hägar the Horrible', this has also included 'The Best of Ernie Bushmiller's Nancy' (1988) and 'Billy DeBeck, Barney Google, and Snuffy Smith: 75 Years of an American Legend' (1994).
Walker was founder of the Connecticut chapter of the National Cartoonist Society and has served as its chairman. From 1995 to 1996, he taught a course in cartoon history at the School of Visual Arts. He has served as curator for over seventy international cartoon exhibitions, including 'The Sunday Funnies: 100 Years of Comics in American Life' at the Barnum Museum in Bridgeport, Connecticut, '100 Years of American Comics' at the Belgian Center for Comic Art in Brussels, 'Masters of American Comics' at the Hammer Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles and 'George Herriman – Krazy Kat is Krazy Kat is Krazy Kat' at the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid.
His expertise has led to his involvement as either writer, editor or contributor to over 45 books on cartoon art. His books 'The Comics Since 1945' (H.N. Abrams, 2002) and 'The Comics Before 1945' (H.N. Abrams, 2004) chronicled the entire history of the medium from 1895-1896, when U.S. newspaper comics turned into an industry, to the end of World War II, and beyond. In 2011, both books were combined in the single-volume 'The Comics: The Complete Collection'. Walker was also a contributor to Robert C. Harvey's 'Children of the Yellow Kid: The Evolution of the American Comic Strip' (Art Museum, University of Washington Press, Seattle, Washington, 1998).
Mort Walker's comics
In 1984, Brian joined Mort Walker's so-called "Connecticut laugh factory studio", to help in the production of both his father's army-themed gag comic 'Beetle Bailey', and the gag comics that Mort scripted for other artists, most notably Dik Browne's family humor strip 'Hi & Lois'. At the family company, Comicana Inc., Brian has often collaborated with his older brother Greg and younger brother Neal. Between 1984 and 1988, Brian and his other brother Morgan also plotted the gag strip 'Betty Boop and Felix', starring both Max Fleischer's flapper girl Betty Boop and Pat Sullivan and Otto Messmer's 'Felix the Cat' in the roles of a housewife and her pet. Credited to "the Walker Brothers", the artwork was provided by Neal (pencils) and Greg Walker (inks).
Since Mort Walker's death in 2018, Brian, Greg and Neal have continued the production of 'Beetle Bailey', accompanied by their assistants Bill Janocha and Mark Brewer. Brian is mainly involved as one of the gag writers, both for 'Beetle Bailey' and 'Hi & Lois', the latter strip further produced by the family company of the Browne family.
When in 2023 Mort Walker was posthumously inducted into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame, Brian Walker was a special guest at the San Diego Comic Con. During the event, he screened a 2020 short film by his son David Walker about the family business.
2009 'Hi and Lois' strip, credited to Brian and Greg Walker, drawn by Chance Browne.