Bill Mauldin: A Life Up Front (WWII Cartoonist - Willie & Joe)

[RamboLiberal]

Just in time for a patriotic July 4th read, Mt. Lebanon's Todd DePastino, an adjunct professor of history at Waynesburg University, has authored a book about the life of two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Bill Mauldin, the World War II cartoonist and creator of "dogface" combat infantry soldiers, Willie and Joe.

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"You can almost smell the gun powder and feel the mud sucking at the soldier's boots when you look at them," he said.

Calling the cartoons initially published in the Army's Stars and Stripes sardonic and dark, he said they seem anti-Army, with several that have an antiwar tone.

"Mauldin's cartoons are unlike any Americans had seen before," he said. "Usually, soldiers were shown as pious, clean-cut and determined. Mr. Mauldin depicted them as disheveled, mud-soaked and downbeat. It makes you wonder how they ever got past the Army censors."

During the war, when the cartoons were first syndicated on the home front, many civilians became upset and wrote letters complaining to the newspapers. In time, however, they were accepted by the public.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08185/894376-55.stm