Wesley Morse

In 1918, Morse joined the Army, spending a year in France in a field artillery battery.

[1] Following his experience overseas Morse returned to New York, where, starting in 1921, he became a regular contributor of sketches to magazines like Film Fun, Snappy Stories, Judge, and Shadowland.

[8] During World War II he drew hundreds of unsigned gag cartoons for newsstand joke books issued by Louis Shomer's Larch Publications; he also worked for the Blackstone Company, an advertising agency where his friend Monte Proser, the owner of the Copacabana, had been an account executive.

In the postwar period he did artwork for the Latin Quarter, the Copacabana, and other fashionable cafe restaurants and nightclubs in Manhattan, including wall murals, menus and souvenirs.

In 1953 he was hired by Woody Gelman to be the creator and original artist for Topps Chewing Gum's character "Bazooka Joe," creating more than a thousand of the little wraparound comic strips.