TipTop+022+p+54+(1938-02)

Li'l **Mort[on] Walker** appears in **Tip Top Comics** #22 (February, 1938), when he was a grizzled old veteran, at 14, of 3 years.

He pretty much had his simplistic Beetle Bailey / Hi and Lois style down pat even then.

But it wasn't a big deal for him either. His first comic was published when he was 11; he sold his first cartoon at age 12. By the time the **Tip Top** piece was published, he had already been selling to **Child Life**, **Flying Aces** and **Inside Detective** magazines and had his own comic strip, **The Lime Juicers**, in the weekly **Kansas City Journal**!

When I found this back in May, 2015, I sent a copy to Mort through Brian Walker, his son, and this was an item Mort had completely forgotten about.

I then tried in earnest to obtain copies of **The Lime Juicers** from the **Kansas City Journal**'s archives but the librarian there spoke a different dialect of English than I and our email conversations became circular. Maybe I'll try another day ...

Links Wikipedia Remembrance from Mark Evanier National Cartoonists Society obituary Washington Post obituary