Bill Mauldin's Army: Bill Mauldin's Greatest World War II Cartoons

by Bill Mauldin

The best of the great war cartoons by the two-time Pulitzer Prize winner who brought laughter to foxholes and battlefields.

Genres: Humor, History, Military Fiction, Comics, Cartoon, World War II, Comedy

384 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1951

About the author

William Henry "Bill" Mauldin was a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist from the United States. He was most famous for his World War II cartoons depicting American soldiers, as represented by the archetypal characters Willie and Joe. These cartoons were broadly published and distributed in the American army abroad and in the United States.

Reviews

[Mary Catelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection made by Mauldin, shortly after the war.

First there's his peacetime Army ones. (Amazing how many similarities with the war ones.) Then wartime ones, arranged by theme. Finally the demobbing ones.

The sentry who demands to know who's the idiot who could be a nice warm barrack; booze; a couple of interactions with British soldiers; and many more situations.

[Art · Rating 5 out of 5]

bill Mauldin is always good read on any Day w/Willie and Joe!

It was good to be reminded of my army days, along w/the stories that I read and heard about the GI's in Europe.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great piece of on-the-ground contemporary history, as well as being funny. Any veteran will find a lot of the situations depicted familiar. It does a lot to deglamorize military life and warfare, although being a comic strip intended to lift the spirits of the troops, it focuses on the lighthearted.
I picked up a copy in a local used bookstore and found a bonus tucked inside, some 2003 newspaper clippings about Bill Mauldin's death (he was a native of my state of New Mexico.)
Too bad we don't seem to have popular cartoonists recording today's wars.

[Alger Smythe-Hopkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ahhhh, Bill Mauldin.

See, I grew up in Chicagoland, and just like Studs Terkel, Mike Royko, and Roger Ebert, Mauldin was a local institution. During his lengthy tenure at the Sun Times it was almost required to flip to the editorial page and check out the newest Mauldin panel.
Also, I came up a world of WWII vets and so Joe and Willie cartoons were found picture framed in homes, offices, and stores. There were bound collections of Stars and Stripes in the libraries. I was also a history nerd, and any book about the war or GIs would reference Willie and Joe. Basically the themes and topics and humor of a Willie and Joe panel are kind of my native language.

Even though the effect of reading so many of these cartoons at once reveals how many times Mauldin recycled jokes and observations, it is never boring. I'd argue that the repetition properly reflects the life of a grunt, where one's life was mostly an endless grind of cold, heat, mud, snow, and marching. The tedium only interrupted by the occasional firefight. Mauldin's fidelity to the actual life of a GI is reflected in the lasting popularity of Willie and Joe as icons of the war.

[EJ Daniels · Rating 5 out of 5]

A delightful and humorous take on the travails of an American infantryman during World War II, with a surprisingly prescient and understanding perspective towards even the enemy.

[Natalie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Willie and Joe are the right couple of guys to revisit WWII with. On pg 320 Willie about sums it up when he says about a corporal standing nearby : "He's right Joe. When we ain't fightin' we should act like sojers. "

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cartoons speak more than their words.

[Matti Karjalainen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lapsille suunnattu fantasia- ja tieteiskirjallisuus on viime aikoina vienyt suurimman osan lukuajasta, kiitos lähestyvän työprojektin. Vastapainoakin on hyvä moiselle olla, ja niinpä nappasin omasta kirjahyllystäni siellä jonkin aikaa lojuneen pilapiirroskokoelman "Bill Mauldin's Army" (Ballantine Books, 2003).

Bill Mauldin (1921-2003) kuvasi Willie ja Joe -piirroksissaan amerikkalaisten jalkaväkisotilaiden tuntemuksia Euroopan sotatantereilla. Loppumattomat marssit, uupumus, kurja sää ja vihollisen tulituksessa makaaminen osuivat rintamasotilaiden hermoon ja vastasivat sodan todellisuutta yltiöisänmaallista propagandaa paremmin. Sotavuosina Mauldinin töitä julkaistiin yli sadassa lehdessä. Vuonna 1945 hän voitti Pulizer-palkinnon.

Sarjakuvat eivät kuitenkaan miellyttäneet kaikkia. Kertoman mukaan kenraali Pattonin verenpaine kohosi toistamiseen kun tämä törmäsi Mauldinin ulkomuodoltaan rähjäisiin ja sodan väsyttämiin päähenkilöihin, jotka eivät jaksaneet suhtautua upseereihin vaaditulla kunnioituksella.

Muuan Yhdysvaltain armeijan kersantti ja rintamaveteraani oli sen sijaan Bill Mauldinin suuri ihailija. Charles M. Schulzin Tenavat-sarjakuvassa ilmeistyikin säännöllisesti strippejä, joissa viitattiin häneen ja hänen töihinsä. Muun muassa Ressulla oli tapana viettää kansallista veteraanipäivää kulauttamalla pari tuoppia inkivääriolutta pilapiirtäjän kotona!

Mauldinin sympaattista piirrosjälkeä on edelleen ilo katsella, ja vitsien kärjet ovat kestäneet melko hyvin aikaa, vaikka eivät hillitöntä repeilyä aiheuttaisikaan.

[Kenya Starflight · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm ashamed to admit that I'd never heard of Bill Mauldin before finding this book. But I'm glad I came across his work anyhow -- while this collection may not be by any means definitive, it's a hilarious yet powerful look at World War II through the eyes of two front-line grunts, Willie and Joe. Together these two soldiers face the perils of war -- not just death at enemy hands, but rain, mud, freezing cold, hostile townsfolk, clueless and arrogant commanding officers, supply shortages, etc. -- with deadpan humor and snark, managing to find something to laugh about (even if it's gallows humor) in even the direst of situations. It's frank and honest, yet leavens what could have been a morbid tone with plenty of humor, and deserves to be hailed as a classic of the cartooning world.

[Bill Olson · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars overall. The illustrations are great visuals of what WWII probably was like for many infantry troops. For this I would give 4 stars. The texts in the cartoons, is of course, 80 years old and specific to the Army at that time. Sometimes it takes thought and research to puzzle out the meaning and humor in them, and sometimes not. This

[Sean · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bill definitely understood the US Army to have such meanings to all these cartoons. Thank you Bill for your wise humor.

[Dominick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anything can be funny if you know how ot approach it, as Mauldin shows with these cartoons about WWII, actually produced at the time, about the daily life of soldiers. May laugh-out-loud moments. Several strips I don't get, probably because their topicality goes over my head. Mauldin's a remarkable talented artist, though; even the ones I didn't get are lovely to look at (insofar as exhausted, mud-encrusted grunts can be lovely).

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

All cartoons but enjoyable