Bill Mauldin, Cartoonist

January 22, 2003 11:23 PM

Cartoonist Bill Mauldin Dead at 81. Mauldin was the creator of the every-GIs Willie and Joe during WWII and twice won the Pulitzer Prize.
posted by turbodog (11 comments total)

And if you don't know him from his own work, you may know the name from its frequent mentions in "Peanuts." Snoopy liked to jump off his dog house on Veteran's Day and go quaff a few root beers with Bill Mauldin.
posted by GaelFC at 11:35 PM on January 22, 2003

I'd known about his WWII cartoons for a long time, but I didn't know he was the youngest to ever win a Pulitzer (at 23) and didn't realize he'd drawn this after JFK was assassinated.


posted by turbodog at 11:38 PM on January 22, 2003

turbodog, normally I (and many other MeFi'ers) frown upon posting images within threads, but I really appreciate that one. Thanks.
posted by Ufez Jones at 11:46 PM on January 22, 2003

Sigh on copyright law as I'd really love to go look at all his work. The sampling on the link was quite interesting.
posted by rudyfink at 12:51 AM on January 23, 2003

rudyfink: I had a bit of trouble finding more than 1 or 2 cartoons in one place. However, it looks as if the US Library of Congress will put them online eventually.
posted by turbodog at 1:04 AM on January 23, 2003

One of my personal heroes since I read his autobiography The Brass Ring in childhood. Repeatedly.

My all-time favorite cartoon of his is from early in his civilian editorial career. Two elderly German men in one's library are soberly looking over the nearly-empty shelves. Says one: "Nothing left but nursery rhymes, Herr Schlinker. My collection was purified by Hitler and then decontaminated by the Allies."
posted by alumshubby at 3:04 AM on January 23, 2003

Peanuts references aside, my first exposure to Mauldin
was watching him in an adaptation of The Red Badge of Courage.

Willie and Joe also earned favorable reviews in the
celluloid adaptations Up Front and Back at the Front.
posted by Smart Dalek at 3:19 AM on January 23, 2003

Another funny: Willie and Joe in a foxhole with a field telephone. Ominously, a German tank is parked smack overhead. Joe peers upward anxiously as Willie says over the phone, "Able Fox Five to Able Fox. I got a target, but ya gotta be patient."
posted by alumshubby at 3:55 AM on January 23, 2003

The image that turbodog posted was imitated heavily by other cartoonists post-9/11. Political cartoons nowadays are so cluttered up with text that they might just as well be editorials, but simple images can be the most evocative and powerful.
posted by PrinceValium at 6:24 AM on January 23, 2003

Damn...Hirschfield, now Mauldin.
posted by 40 Watt at 7:26 AM on January 23, 2003

Damn...Hirschfield, now Mauldin.

*Sigh* Exactly. Here is a good article on War-Toons, of which Mauldin was the centerpiece. Interesting quotes by Will Eisner, Milton Caniff and Mort Walker. See also: Male Call by Caniff, with an introduction by Mauldin, and George Baker's Sad Sack (now online).
posted by Shane at 8:19 AM on January 23, 2003