Shape Up or Ship Out, Beetle Bailey #5257

This 1985 Berkley paperback collects a selection of Mort Walker's classic Beetle Bailey newspaper comic strips, centered around the hapless private's misadventures at Camp Swampy. The title plays on the recurring theme of Beetle's perpetual laziness clashing with Sergeant Snorkel's efforts to get him to shape up, often with ship-out threats that never quite materialize. It's a lighthearted snapshot of the strip's mid-1980s humor, featuring the usual cast of Army misfits and their daily struggles with authority and incompetence.