Mauldin, Bill (William)

Mauldin, Bill [William] (1921–), trained through correspondence classes as well as a year spent at the Chicago Academy of Art, American editorial cartoonist of World War II.Mauldin was unable to gain steady employment as a newspaper cartoonist, so the New Mexican native enlisted in 1940 in the Arizona National Guard. Mauldin's talents were first recognized during his assignment to the 45th Division's newspaper staff. Still he served as an infantryman once the United States entered the war.

In 1944, Mauldin joined Stars and Stripes and developed the distinctive characters of “Willie” and “Joe” to depict the drudgery and misery faced by the average G.I. in the European theater. Filthy, aged beyond their years, irreverent in their attitudes toward officers and rear echelon personnel, Willie and Joe became among the most widely recognized symbols of the American combat infantryman. Mauldin was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1945, and the United Features Syndicate distributed his cartoons to hundreds of newspapers. In his book Up Front (1945), an instant bestseller, Mauldin interpreted his cartoons and the experiences of the average soldier.

After the war, Mauldin continued his career as a cartoonist, satirizing a variety of political and social topics. During the Korean War, he visited the front and described his experiences in Bill Mauldin in Korea (1952). Mauldin spent much of his postwar career with the Chicago Sun‐Times.
[See also Culture, War, and the Military; Illustration, War and the Military in.]

Bibliography

Frederick S. Voss , Reporting the War: The Journalistic Coverage of World War II, 1994.

G. Kurt Piehler