Drawing Fire: The Editorial Cartoons of Bill Mauldin

by Todd DePastino, G. Kurt Piehler, Cord A. Scott

The first career-spanning volume of the work of two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Bill Mauldin, featuring comic art from World War II, Korea, Vietnam and Operation Desert Storm, along with a half-century of graphic commentary on civil rights, free speech, the Cold War, and other issues. Army sergeant William Henry “Bill” Mauldin shot to fame during World War II with “Willie & Joe” cartoons, which gave readers of Stars & Stripes and hundreds of home-front newspapers a glimpse of the war from the foxholes of Europe. Lesser known are Mauldin’s second and even third acts as one of America’s premier political cartoonists from the last half of the twentieth century, when he traveled to Korea and Vietnam; Israel and Saudi Arabia; Oxford, Mississippi, and Washington, DC; covering war and peace, civil rights and the Great Society, Nixon and the Middle East. He especially kept close track of American military power, its use and abuse, and the men and women who served in uniform. Now, for the first time, his entire career is explored in this illustrated single volume, featuring selections from Chicago’s Pritzker Military Museum & Library. Edited by Mauldin’s biographer Todd DePastino and featuring 150 images, Drawing The Editorial Cartoons of Bill Mauldin includes illuminating essays exploring all facets of Mauldin’s career by Tom Brokaw, Denise Neil, Cord A. Scott, G. Kurt Piehler, Jean Schulz, and Christina Knopf, with a Preface by Tom Hanks.

Genres: World War II, Art

224 pages, Hardcover

Published September 15, 2020

About the author

Todd DePastino is the author of BILL MAULDIN: A LIFE UP FRONT (W.W. Norton) and editor of WILLIE & JOE: THE WWII YEARS (Fantagraphics Books). He teaches at Waynesburg University and lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania."

Reviews

[Boy Dyl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Picked this book up at the National Army Museum outside DC. Multiple authors analyze Mauldin’s work, sort of “restarting” back at the beginning of his chronology with each new author. Any fan of political cartoons and propaganda will enjoy Mauldin’s story. Outside of just WWII cartoons, he was a pointed liberal anti-communist political cartoonist from about 1960 to 1999. Despite his annoyingly centrist POV, Mauldin’s works are captivating, which is why every military cartoonist will inevitably be called the Bill Mauldin of their respective war if they get popular enough. Terminal Lance and Doctrine Man get a shoutout as social media era cartoonists.