Creativity Quote by Mort Walker

Mort Walker’s line lands like a dry eye-roll from someone who spent a lifetime watching the machinery of attention grind away at craft. “Schlock” is the pivot: a wonderfully ugly word that compresses cheapness, cynicism, and a kind of aesthetic littering into one syllable. Walker isn’t merely complaining about bad work; he’s diagnosing a motivation. The real indictment is in “just to get their name on it” - the shift from making to branding, from contribution to ownership.

Coming from a cartoonist who built a durable, widely syndicated career (and who watched the comics page become a battleground of deadlines, editors, merchandising, and copycat trends), the quote reads as insider testimony. Walker knew how quickly an industry built on mass appeal can reward the loudest signature rather than the strongest idea. “Or anything” widens the net: it’s not just tasteless art, it’s tasteless behavior, tasteless deals, tasteless self-promotion. The line quietly implies that the true product isn’t the work at all; it’s the byline.

The subtext is a moral one, but it’s also practical. Schlock doesn’t just offend good taste; it crowds out patience, nuance, and risk. Walker’s contempt has a protective edge: defend the reader, defend the medium, defend the difference between being known and being worth knowing. In an era where visibility can be engineered and names can float free of substance, the quote feels less like nostalgia and more like a warning label.