Willie & Joe: The World War II Years

sWILLIE AND JOE by Bill Mauldin 2 books 8.5 x 10.5 HC 600 pages PC NEW VALUE PRICE $45.00 ISBN 978-1-56097-838-1 Here for the first time Fantagraphics Books brings together Mauldins complete works from 1940 through the end of the war. This collection of over 600 cartoons most never before reprinted is more than the record of a great artist: it is an essential chronicle of Americas citizen-soldiers from peace through war to victory. Bill Mauldin knew war because he was in it. He had created his characters Willie and Joe at age 18 before Pearl Harbor while training with the 45th Infantry Division and cartooning part-time for the camp newspaper. His brilliant send-ups of officers were pure infantry and the men loved it. After wading ashore with his division on the first of its four beach invasions in July 1943 Mauldin and his men changed - and Mauldins cartoons changed accordingly. Months of miserable weather bad food and tedium interrupted by the terror of intense bombing and artillery fire took its toll. By the years end virtually every man in Mauldins original rifle company was killed wounded or captured. The wrinkles in Willie and Joes uniforms deepened the bristle on their faces grew and the eyes - "too old for those young bodies " as Mauldin put it - betrayed a weariness that would remain the entire war. With their heavy brush lines detailed battlescapes and pidgin of army slang and slum dialect Mauldins cartoons and captions recreated on paper the fully realized world of the American combat soldier. Their dark often insubordinate humor sparked controversy among army brass and incensed General George S. Patton Jr.