Sad Sack

Sad Sack
Sad Sack #44 cover art by George Baker.
Publication information
Publisher	Harvey Comics
First appearance	Yank, the Army Weekly #1 (June 1942)
Created by	George Baker

Sad Sack is an American comic strip and comic book character created by Sgt. George Baker during World War II. Set in the United States Army, Sad Sack depicted an otherwise unnamed, lowly private experiencing some of the absurdities and humiliations of military life. The title was a euphemistic shortening of the military slang "sad sack of shit", common during World War II. The phrase has come to mean "an inept person" or "inept soldier".

Originally drawn in pantomime by Baker, The Sad Sack debuted June 1942 as a comic strip in the first issue of Yank, the Army Weekly. It proved popular, and a hardcover collection of Baker's wartime Sad Sack strips was published by Simon & Schuster, Inc. in 1944, with a follow-up, The New Sad Sack (1946). The original book was concurrently published as an Armed Services edition mass market paperback, in that edition's standard squarebound, horizontal, 5 5/8" × 4" format, by Editions for the Armed Services, Inc., a non-profit organization of The Council on Books in Wartime; it was #719 in the series of Armed Service editions.

After the war ended, The Sad Sack ran in newspaper syndication in the United States until 1957. Baker then sold the rights to Harvey Comics, which produced a large number of commercial spin-offs.

Harvey Comics published original Sad Sack stories in the Sad Sack Comics comic book series, which ran 287 issues, cover-dated September 1949 to October 1982. Harvey also published the one-shot comic The Sad Sack Comes Home in 1951.

Spin-off series were:

Supporting characters included the Sarge (Sack's First Sergeant, the potbellied and tough but reasonable Sergeant Circle); Slob Slobinski and Hi-Fi Tweeter (Sack's bunk buddies); the General (Brigadier General Rockjaw, always drawn with dark glasses, cigarette holder and Ascot tie); Captain Softseat; Muttsy the dog (whose dog tag # was K-9); Sadie Sack (Sad's redheaded female cousin in the WACs); Ol' Sod Sack (Sad's hillbilly uncle); and Little Sad Sack (Sad as a kid, before his army induction). The spin-off Sad Sack Navy, Gobs 'n' Gals had the supporting character Gabby Gob.