Wesley Morse

Who was Wesley Morse?

Wesley Morse was a cartoonist who is most famous for his creation of the Bazooka Joe comic strip for the bubble gum company Topps in 1953. He also created the Copa girl, which was the basis for the Copacabana logo.

Beginning in 1917, Morse spent a year in France with the Army.

Starting in 1921, Morse was a regular contributor of sketches to magazines like Film Fun and Shadowland. Chorus girls and flappers were frequent subjects of his. He also contributed art to advertisements in Collier's, Judge, and Life.

Morse was one of only two known authors of Tijuana Bibles in the 1930s, and memorably created a series of them that used the 1939 World's Fair as their setting and were, according to legend, clandestinely sold at the fair itself.

Morse collaborated with H. C. Witwer on the comic strip Switchboard Sally in 1925, and drew Victor E. Pazmiño's newspaper strip Frolicky Fables in 1926. He drew the strip Kitty of the Chorus in the New York Daily Mirror in 1925, and Beau Gus for the early comic book Circus: The Comic Riot in 1938. He also drew unsigned gag cartoons for Larch Publications.