Beetle Bailey Sunday page digital proof, November 9, 1997.
The Sunday page above features an event that doesn’t really happen every year. The “Annual Cussing Contest” was created just to set up this gag. Sergeant Bluster is also not a regular character in the strip.
Sarge is famous for his colorful language, most of which can’t be printed in a family newspaper. We have to use special symbols to represent his swear words.
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Beetle Bailey Sunday page color proof, February 10, 1963.
This episode features a cussing contest between Sgt. Webbing and Sgt. Snorkel. It escalates to an extreme level of what Mort Walker has termed “maladicta.”
“Even in today’s permissive society many four letter words are not permissible in the comics,” Mort wrote in his 1980 book, The Lexicon of Comicana. “Even though profanity may be used in other sections of the paper, people feel that, since children read cartoons, the comic section should be inviolate.”
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