Arts

Cartoonists

Bill Maudlin

Bill Mauldin was a cartoonist for the Stars and Stripes During WWII and a Pulitzer Prize winner.

Here are some of his cartoons. 

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In 1940, when he was 18, Mauldin joined the Arizona National Guard, and went on active duty with it as a rifleman in the 45th Infantry Division. He accompanied the 45th through the Army camps in the United States, and in 1943, as a sergeant, went overseas with the division to Sicily, where he later switched from the unit's paper, the 45th Division News, to the Stars and Stripes, with an assignment to cover the war in cartoons.

His cartoons featured a young enlisted man, a clean shaven, nameless recruit who evolved into the dirty, dull-eyed, bearded Joe of the combat-weary team of Willie and Joe. The team slogged from Italy to Germany.

The cartoon that won Mauldin the Pulitzer Prize in 1945 was typical. Captioned "Fresh-spirited American troops, flushed with victory . . .," it depicted wretched, drenched infantrymen slogging through a downpour.

While most of the Army brass favored the cartoons as outlets for the average GI's pent-up rancor, a few objected to the bedraggled and grimy, although realistic, public image Willie and Joe were projecting of American fighting men. Mauldin was occasionally lectured, but never suppressed.

Well known by now is the story of Gen. George Patton threatening to have The Stars and Stripes banned from the Third Army as long as Mauldin's unkempt heroes appeared in it. Patton and Mauldin were told by Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower's headquarters to discuss the matter. Said Mauldin after the conference: "I came out with all my hide on."

Plenty of other Generals, including Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander, recognized the cartoons' worth.

Among the some 1,500 cartoons Mauldin has drawn during his career, he acknowledges only one favorite. It annoys him that none of his fans has been moved to rave over it. This drawing -- a captionless one -- shows an old cavalry sergeant pointing his revolver, in grief, at the radiator of his jeep, which has a broken wheel. 'I think that's really funny,' says Mauldin."