Sad to pass the word that one of the greatest political cartoonist, Bill Mauldin, died today at age 81. He had been ill with Alzheimer’s for some time, but when word got out that he was ailing, a steady stream of WWII soldiers sent cards, greetings, money and comfort. Many visited him at a care facility in California.
He was the youngest cartoonist ever to win a Pulitzer when he won his first in 1945, and backed it up with a second in 1959.
A friend of the doughboy in the trenches, he drew the wrath of Gen. Patton for his “anti-officer” cartoons, but Ike was on Mauldin’s side.
If there is such a place, Bill’s enjoying a root beer with Charles Schulz right now. I remember seeing some of Mauldin’s cartoons in my high school social studies classes, but I think most people my age remember him from Snoopy talking about him on Veteran’s Day.
The Division News, where Mauldin got started, was my father’s paper. He was editor for several years, both in the US and in Italy. My father wrote a book on his experiences with Mauldin, trying to get a paper published from the front lines. Bill Mauldin, of course, provided the illustrations.
I wish I’d taken the chance to write to Mr. Mauldin, to find out more about his experiences with my father during the war. Now all I have left is the book.
During the early days of WWII he was stationed at the Army base near my home town, and he rented a room about four blocks from my parents’ home. He offered to do political cartoons for the local daily paper, but it decided it was happy buying Herblock and didn’t need his services. (They’ve made other decisions of equal lack of wisdom since.)
The library in my hometown had a copy of Mr. Mauldin’s Up Front*. I can’t tell you how many times I read it, and I eventually came across a copy in a second hand store. A couple of my favorite cartoons are a cavalry officer shooting his jeep and one of Joe (or was it Willy?) holding up his helmet, wiggling his fingers through the holes in it. I especially liked his focus on the ordinary grunts in the Army.
It’s an interesting contrast. Hirschfeld drew the beautiful and elite of society with graceful, flowing lines; Muldoon drew ordinary people in ugly situations in a way which would be ordinary if it weren’t so good. I loved both their work, and I’m glad I had the chance to see it.
I’ve got a copy of Up Front sitting over on my nightstand. When I read this news last night, I grabbed that off the shelf and read it cover to cover before I fell asleep. I’m glad I had the opportunity to do so.
That made me smile. It was a bit of a tradition for Sparky to have Snoopy say he was going to do that every… was it veterans’s day or memorial day?
Folks like Bill Mauldin and AL Hirschfeld did not define my generation certainly but they did define our century. It takes a few generations for parts of the culture to die out. Does that make sense? I was a late baby boomer but grew up when a lot of people still had fresh memories of WWII. <sigh> This old timer does ramble on.
As a kid, the first two editorial cartoonists I became aware of were Herblock and Mauldin. I always looked at them as the ones who set the standard.
Herblock died in 2001, and now Mauldin’s gone. The torch has definitely been passed.
I’ll always remember the cartoon he drew after JFK’s assassination in 1963. It showed the statue of Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial with his face in his hands weeping. Later, I read an interview with Mauldin how the idea idea came to him. He said he knew he had to draw something, but what does one do to depict such monumental shock? Wait a second. Monumental Shock! That’s it!
I am very saddened. My dad had an awesome library, and was especially interested in WW II history. I remember thumbing through several of my dad’s books and admiring Mauldin’s cartoons. I always enjoyed them. He had a good sense of humor, and a good artist. I obviously need to get more books on his work. I really liked him.
As copy editor of our small daily paper, one of my jobs is to lay out the editorial page and write the editorial three days a week. I was able to write a tribute to Mr. Mauldin today and include some of his classic *Stars and Stripes * cartoons.
Unfortunately,we don’t have a staff editorial cartoonist, so we couldn’t put together our own cartoon in his honor.
But I must commend Jack Ohman, cartoonist for The Oregonian who did a bang-up job today in a moving tribute. He used the weeping Lincoln Memorial statue with Willie and Joe beside it, also with their heads in their hands.
You should be able to view this and other tributes by tomorrow atThis editorial cartoon site , which comes highly recommended. Daryl Cagle has somehow set it up so that nearly every mainstreeam political cartoonist in the country has his or her work represented every day. Also there are hundreds of stored cartoons on any number of topics.
Though Mauldin’s best known for work done during WW2, he continued to do excellent work for decades to come. For my money, the greatest was this one, from 1964, dedicated to America-Baiter Supreme, Charles De Gaulle.
Everybody will remember Mauldin for the Lincoln/Kennedy cartoon.
But my favorite cartoon by him ever was the one he did when Lt. Calley was about to go on trial for the My Lai atrocity…
Mauldin showed a statue of Calley with ribbons and medals hung around his neck labeled “HERO.” Meanwhile, unshaven Willie and Joe were in their muddy fatigues looking down from Heaven. Joe says:
